sion, had not only inveterate
prejudice and long custom to contend with, but found arrayed against
them many of the strongest passions that animate mankind. The natural
desire for gain united merchants, ship-owners, and planters in unanimous
resistance to a measure calculated to cut off from them one large source
of profit. Patriotism, which, however misguided, was sincere and free
from all taint of personal covetousness, induced many, who wore wholly
unconnected either with commerce or with the West Indies, to look with
disfavor on a change which not only imperilled the interests of such
important bodies of men, but which they were assured by those concerned,
must render the future cultivation of estates in the West Indies
impracticable; while such a result would not only ruin those valuable
colonies, but would also extinguish that great nursery for our navy
which was furnished by the vessels at present engaged in the West India
trade. To disregard such substantial considerations to risk a loss of
revenue, a diminution of our colonial greatness, and a weakening of our
maritime power, even while engaged in a formidable war, under no other
pressure but that of a respect for humanity and justice, was certainly a
homage to those virtues, and also an act of self-denying courage, of
which the previous history of the world had furnished no similar
example; and it is one of which, in one point of view, the nation may be
more justly proud than of the achievements of its wisest statesmen, or
the exploits of its most invincible warriors. For it was the act of the
nation itself. No previous sentiment of the people paved the way for
Pitt's triumphs in finance, for Nelson's or Wellington's victories by
sea and land; but the slave-trade could never have been abolished by any
parliamentary leader, had not the nation as a whole become convinced of
its wickedness, and, when once so convinced, resolved to brave
everything rather than persist in it. The merit of having impressed it
with this conviction belongs to Mr. Wilberforce, whose untiring,
unswerving devotion of brilliant eloquence and practical ability to the
one holy object, and whose ultimate success, give him a just claim to be
reckoned among the great men of a generation than which the world has
seen none more prolific of every kind of greatness. But the nation
itself is also entitled to no slight credit for having so rapidly
appreciated the force of his teaching, and for having