h June, 1811, contained an
entry of an order to pay 83_l_. out of the subscription funds to Mr.
Cadell, being Mr. Wilberforce's share of the loss sustained by that
publication. There had been no mention at all of this in his life, by
these reverend authors, who scrupled not to print the garbled letters,
with the manifest design of lowering the character of their father's
friend, by ranking him among venal stipendiary pretenders to
philanthropy, and jobbing mendicant patriots.

Wherefore, it may be asked, was this matter at all dragged forth to
light, except to effect that unworthy purpose, and to give pain to a man
as eminently as deservedly respected and beloved? The false pretext is,
the vindication of their father's memory.--But it had never been
attacked. They affect to suppose such an attack, that they may have a
pretext for inflicting a wound in a fictitious and almost a fraudulent
defence.--But if it had been ever so rudely attacked, the letters are no
defence. For the only possible pretence of attack was the notion of
Thomas Clarkson having assumed the priority, and these letters can have
no earthly relation to that point. Whether Wilberforce, or Clarkson, or
neither of them, first began the abolition struggle, is a question as
utterly wide of the subscription as any one private matter in the life
of either party can be of any one public transaction in which both were
engaged.

The indignation of mankind was awakened by this disgraceful proceeding,
and it was in vain that the friends of the Wilberforces urged, as some
extenuation of their offence, the zeal which they naturally cherished
for the memory of their parent. Men of reflection felt that no
well-regulated mind can ever engage in slandering one person for the
purpose of elevating another. Men of ordinary discernment perceived that
the assaults on Clarkson's reputation had no possible tendency to raise
Wilberforce's reputation. Men of observation saw at once that there
lurked behind the wish to praise the one party, a desire to wound the
other; and gave them far less credit for over-anxiety to gratify their
filial affections than eagerness to indulge their hostile feelings. It
was plain, too, that they sought this gratification at the hazard of
bringing a stain upon the memory of their father; for what could be more
natural than the suspicion that they had obtained from him the materials
out of which their web of detraction was woven? And what more
discr