own or disregarded, till, early in Pitt's first ministry, they
attracted the notice of some of our naval officers who were stationed in
the West Indies, and who, on their return to England, related the
horrors which they had witnessed or heard of--how, between decks too low
to admit of a full-grown man standing upright, the wretched victims,
chained to the sides of the ships, lay squeezed together in such
numbers, though the whole voyage was within the tropics, that, from the
overpowering heat and scantiness of food, it was estimated that
two-thirds of each cargo died on the passage. Most fortunately for the
credit of England, the fearful trade was brought under the notice of a
young member of Parliament singularly zealous in the cause of humanity
and religion, endowed with untiring industry and powerful eloquence, and
connected by the closest ties of personal intimacy with Mr. Pitt. To
hear of such a system of organized murder, as the British officers
described the slave-trade to be, was quite sufficient to induce Mr.
Wilberforce to resolve to devote himself to its suppression. He laid the
case in all its horrors before his friend the Prime-minister, a man as
ready as himself to grapple with and extinguish all proved abuses; and
Pitt at once promised him all the support which he could give. It was no
easy task that he had taken on himself. A year or two before, Burke had
applied himself to frame some regulations which he hoped might gradually
remove the evil; but, little as he was moved by considerations of
popularity or daunted by difficulty, he had abandoned the attempt, as
one which would meet with a resistance too powerful to be overcome.
Wilberforce was not a bolder man than Burke, but he had no other object
to divide his attention, and, therefore, to this one he devoted all his
faculties and energies, enlisting supporters in every quarter, seeking
even the co-operation of the French government, and opening a
correspondence with the French Secretary of State, M. Montmorin, a
statesman of great capacity, and, what was far rarer in France, of
incorruptible honesty. M. Montmorin, however, though alive to the
cruelty of the traffic, was unable to promise him any aid, alleging the
fears of the French planters that its abolition "would ruin the French
islands. He said that it was one of those subjects upon which the
interests of men and their sentiments were so much at variance, that it
was difficult to learn what was pra