ell ill, and was obliged to retire to Bath. The
question stood thus; when, on the 9th of May, Pitt, being solicited by
his friends, and by Granville Sharpe, and the London committe, moved the
following resolution:--"That this house will, early in the next session
of parliament, proceed to take into consideration the circumstances of
the slave-trade complained of in the petitions presented to the house,
and what may be fit to be done thereupon." Pitt added, that before
the next session the inquiry instituted by the privy-council would be
brought to a conclusion, the result of which might facilitate their
investigation; and he pledged himself to submit the question to the
house, if his friend should still be unable to undertake the task. Burke
and Fox, in reply, expressed great concern at the delay, and severely
reprobated the inquiry carried on before the privy-council, contending
that it ought to have taken place before the house, whose duty it was
rather to advise the king than to ask or wait for his advice. Both
declared that they were willing and prepared to have taken up the
question themselves; and stated that they had given way to Wilberforce
from deference to his abilities and known humanity, and on account
of the influence he possessed with Pitt and the rest of the ministry.
Pitt's motion was carried unanimously; but Sir William Dolben, in the
course of the debate, urged that the sufferings of slaves on their
voyage from Africa to the West Indies required immediate attention; and
on the 21st of May he moved for leave to bring in a bill for the better
regulation of their transportation. The picture which Sir William Dolben
drew of the sufferings of the slaves on ship-board forcibly exhibited
the horrid nature of the traffic. He represented them as chained
together hand and foot, with only a space of five feet and a half in
length, and sixteen inches in breadth, allotted for each slave; and
being thus crammed together, putrid disorders and other dangerous
diseases were generated, so that when the overseers came in the morning
to examine the freight of human misery, he had to unchain the carcases
of the dead from the living. To prevent this, Sir William proposed that
no ship should be allowed to carry more than one slave to each ton of
her burthen or register, or that a ship of three hundred tons
should carry as many slaves and no more. This was, in point of fact,
legislating for the slave-owners, inasmuch as the reg