S OF THE AMERICAN ROYALISTS, ETC.

At the conclusion of peace, commissioners had been appointed to inquire
into the losses of the American loyalists, and during this session Pitt
submitted to the house a plan of liquidation. The loyalists were divided
by him into three classes: those who resided in America at the beginning
of the war, and from motives of duty to their sovereign had abandoned
their estates and property; those who at the commencement of the war
had been resident in England, and consequently had not been driven from
America; and those who having enjoyed places or exercised professions
in America, were compelled to leave that country by the war. Pitt rested
their claims on the ground of national generosity and compassion, rather
than of strict justice; and he proposed to pay to the two first classes
the whole of their claims, if they did not exceed L10,000 and beyond
that sum, to deduct from them a _per centage_, greater in the case of
the second class than in the first; and to the third class he proposed
to allow pensions, proportionate to the incomes which they had
relinquished; those whose incomes had not exceeded four hundred
pounds, receiving one half, by way of annuity. A sum amounting to
about L1,340,000 was voted for this purpose. Pitt also, with the
entire concurrence of the house, settled the case of the East Florida
claimants, who had been obliged to quit their habitations and property,
when their country was ceded to Spain. As their losses had arisen
from the voluntary act of government, Pitt thought that they should be
indemnified for their losses, and the sum of L113,952 was voted to
them. Another measure of mercy was a bill for granting to the Earl of
Newburgh, grandson of Charles Radcliffe, beheaded in 1746, for his
share in the rebellion of 1715, a clear rent-charge of L2,500 out of the
estates forfeited by the said Charles Radcliffe, and his brother James,
third Earl of Derwentwater, who forfeited his life on the same account
in 1710, which estates had been settled upon Greenwich Hospital. This
bill afforded great relief to an amiable and deserving nobleman.

THE SLAVE-TRADE QUESTION.

During the present reign several petitions had been presented to
parliament on the subject of the slave-trade; some praying for its total
abolition, and others for a more humane treatment of the African slaves
in the West Indian islands. The honour of first taking up this cause of
humanity in England