The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition - Thomas Clarkson
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The venerable philanthropist took up his pen, worn down in the cause of
humanity and of justice. _First_, he showed, by incontrovertible
evidence, the utter falsehood of the charge, that he had underrated the
merits of others and exalted his own. These proofs were the references
to his volumes themselves, which it really seemed as if the two reverend
authors had never even looked into. He then proved to demonstration that
he had taken the field earlier than William Wilberforce. This was shown,
first, by known dates, matter of history; next, by letters from the
friends of both parties, as Archdeacon Corbet and William Smith; but,
lastly, by the words of William Wilberforce himself, as well privately
as at public meetings, asserting that he (William Wilberforce) came into
the field after his valued friend. But a striking fact may be cited, as
a sample at once of the course pursued by the assailants, and the
completeness of the defence. The reverend authors in proof of their
unqualified assertion, that Thomas Clarkson and the Committee acted from
the first under William Wilberforce's directions, refer to "MS. Minutes
of the Committee" for their authority. But the friend who so ably
superintended the publication of Thomas Clarkson's defence, and who
added to that tract an appendix of singular merit and great interest
(H.C. Robinson), showed that the parts referred to by the reverend
authors, in proof of their assertion, completely disproved it; and that
six months after the Committee had been working, William Wilberforce
applied to them for any information of which they might be possessed on
the subject of the Slave Trade.
But the publication of the letters and the colour given to the
transaction were far worse. The preservation of that correspondence, at
all, by the sons, could only be justified by the belief of its being
accidentally kept by the father, but, of course, never intended to be
made public; least of all without the usual precaution of asking the
writer's leave, and giving him the opportunity of explaining it. The
biographers printed it without any kind of communication with him, and
he saw it for the first time in print.
Then, the attempt was made to represent this pure, and valuable, and
disinterested man as a mendicant philanthropist, who, for his exertions
in the cause of justice, stooped to the humiliating attitude of
collecting a remuneration from his friends. The words of William
Wilberforce, and other Abolition leaders, prove that he had expended a
very considerable portion of his own small patrimony in the cause, and
that the subscription was to pay a debt,--a just and lawful debt; not to
confer a bounty, or reward, or remuneration for services performed. It
is also proved, that after being reimbursed to the amount of the sum
contributed, or rather levied on those for whom the poorest of their
body had advanced his own money, he remained out of pocket far more than
others had ever given, after their share of the repayment was credited
to them, in this debtor and creditor account.
But this is not all: Mr. Wilberforce himself, then a man of ample
fortune, and Member for Yorkshire, had in 1807, published a pamphlet in
the cause. The Minutes of the Committee for 6th 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
discreditable to the author of the affectionate and familiar letters of
Wilberforce to Clarkson than their discrepancy with the charges now
urged against him? It is due to the memory of this venerable man, now
gone to his rest, to say that no one who knew him, ever so slightly,
could believe in the possibility of his holding one language to his
friend and another to his children: far less of his bequeathing to them
anything like materials for the attack upon one to whom he professed the
most warm and steady attachment. But if such be the conclusion of all
who knew the man, assuredly in arriving at it they have derived no help
from the lights afforded by his family.
The vindication of Thomas Clarkson has been triumphant; the punishment
of his traducers has been exemplary. His character stands higher than
ever; his name is lofty and it is unsullied; they have a character to
retrieve,--a name which they have tarnished since it descended upon
them, they have to restore by their own future deserts.
The astonishment of the world was at its pitch when the champion of
Abolition, the steady ally of Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharpe, the
_Edinburgh Review_, was seen attempting to rescue these parties, and
taking part against the injured man, the patriarch of a cause defended
by that celebrated Journal during a brilliant period of much above
thirty years. The boldness displayed in its pages on this occasion was
excessive. As if feeling that the weak and indefensible part in the
assault was the publishing of the letters, it had the confidence to
affirm, that this proceeding was called for in justice to Wilberforce's
memory. So daring an attempt upon the integrity of facts has not often
been witnessed. What! The publication of these letters, which had no
possible connexion with Wilberforce's character, (a character, indeed,
that no one had assailed,) letters which were absolutely foreign even to
the question of priority in the abolition cause,--the publication of
these necessary to the defence of Wilberforce? Then, upon what ground
necessary? How had he been attacked? Where was he to be defended? But,
if attacked, how did the letters aid,--how connect themselves
with,--how, in any manner of way, bear upon the defence, or any defence,
or any portion of Wilberforce's character and life? They showed him to
have contributed towards the payment of a debt he had contracted to
Clarkson. But who had ever charged him with refusing to pay his debts?
With his merits as to the Abolition, (if that be what is meant by his
character,)--merits which it was a mere fabrication to pretend that
Clarkson had ever been slow to acknowledge,--those letters had
absolutely no possible connexion; and whoever, on this score, affects to
defend this publication, is capable of vindicating the printing any
private letter upon the most delicate subject, by any man who writes the
history of any other affair, or who writes on any subject from which the
correspondence is wholly foreign. It is proper to add, that the editors
of this Journal have most properly published a retractation of the
charges made, in their ignorance of the whole facts of the case.
The acute and sagacious editor of T. Clarkson's vindication, has given
his reasons for suspecting that this criticism, in the _Edinburgh
Review_, must have proceeded from some party directly concerned in the
publication of Wilberforce's life. We enter into no discussion of the
circumstantial evidence adduced in favour of this supposition. The
editors of the Journal are the parties to whom we look; and as they,
after being to all appearance misled by some partial writer, have made
the best reparation for an involuntary error, by doing justice to the
injured party, we can have no further remark to make upon the subject.
But it is impossible to close these pages without mentioning the
extraordinary merit of this latest, and, in all likelihood, this last
production of Clarkson's pen. It is indeed a most able performance, and
has been admired by some of the ablest controversial writers of the age,
as a model of excellence in controversial writing. Plain, vigorous,
convincing, perfectly calm and temperate, devoid of all acrimony, barely
saying enough to repel unjust aggression without one word of
retaliation, never losing sight for a moment of its purely defensive
object, and accordingly, from the singleness of purpose with which that
object is pursued, attaining it with the most triumphant success,--no
wonder that the public judgment has been loudly and universally
pronounced in its favour, that its adversaries have been reduced to
absolute silence, that its author's name has been exalted even higher
than before it stood. But the wonder is to see such unimpaired vigour at
four-score years of age, after a life of unwearied labour, latterly
clouded by domestic calamity, and a spirit as young as ever in zeal for
justice, tempered only by the mellowness which the kindly heart spreads
over the fruits of the manly understanding.
There wanted no testimonials of esteem from his country to consummate
the venerable philanthropist's renown; yet these too have been added.
Various meetings have addressed their gratulations to him. Of these the
great corporation of London claims the first regard, and after
presenting him with the freedom of the city, they have ordered to be
erected in their hall, as a memorial of his extraordinary virtue, a
likeness of the mortal form of Thomas Clarkson.
HISTORY OF THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE.
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.
[Sidenote: No subject more pleasing than that of the removal of
evils.--Evils have existed almost from the beginning of the world; but
there is a power in our nature to counteract them--this power increased
by Christianity.--Of the evils removed by Christianity one of the
greatest is the Slave Trade.--The joy we ought to feel on its abolition
from a contemplation of the nature of it; and of the extent of it; and
of the difficulty of subduing it.--Usefulness also of the contemplation
of this subject.]
I scarcely know of any subject, the contemplation of which is more
pleasing, than that of the correction or of the removal of any of the
acknowledged evils of life; for while we rejoice to think that the
sufferings of our fellow-creatures have been thus, in any instance,
relieved, we must rejoice equally to think, that our own moral condition
must have been necessarily improved by the change.
That evils, both physical and moral, have existed long upon earth there
can be no doubt. One of the sacred writers, to whom we more immediately
appeal for the early history of mankind, informs us that the state of
our first parents was a state of innocence and happiness; but that, soon
after their creation, sin and misery entered into the world. The poets
in their fables, most of which, however extravagant they may seem, had
their origin in truth, speak the same language. Some of these represent
the first condition of man by the figure of the golden, and his
subsequent degeneracy and subjection to suffering by that of the silver,
and afterwards of the iron age. Others tell us that the first female was
made of clay; that she was called Pandora, because every necessary gift,
qualification, or endowment, was given to her by the gods, but that she
received from Jupiter, at the same time, a box from which, when opened,
a multitude of disorders sprung, and that these spread themselves
immediately afterwards among all of the human race. Thus it appears,
whatever authorities we consult, that those which may be termed the
evils of life existed in the earliest times. And what does subsequent
history, combined with our own experience, tell us, but that these have
been continued, or that they have come down in different degrees through
successive generations of men, in all the known countries of the
universe, to the present day?
But though the inequality visible in the different conditions of life,
and the passions interwoven into our nature, (both which have been
allotted to us for wise purposes, and without which we could not easily
afford a proof of the existence of that, which is denominated virtue,)
have a tendency to produce vice and wretchedness among us, yet we see,
in this our constitution, what may operate partially as preventives and
corrective of them. If there be a radical propensity in our nature to do
that which is wrong, there is, on the other hand, a counteracting power
within it, or an impulse by means of the action of the divine Spirit
upon our minds, which urges us to do that which is right. If the voice
of temptation, clothed in musical and seducing accents, charms us one
way, the voice of holiness, speaking to us from within, in a solemn and
powerful manner, commands us another. Does one man obtain a victory over
his corrupt affections? an immediate perception of pleasure, like the
feeling of a reward divinely conferred upon him, is noticed. Does
another fall prostrate beneath their power? a painful feeling, and such
as pronounces to him the sentence of reproof and punishment is found to
follow. If one, by suffering his heart to become hardened, oppresses a
fellow-creature, the tear of sympathy starts up in the eye of another,
and the latter instantly feels a desire, involuntarily generated, of
flying to his relief. Thus impulses, feelings, and dispositions have
been implanted in our nature, for the purpose of preventing and
rectifying the evils of life. And as these have operated, so as to
stimulate some men to lessen them by the exercise of an amiable charity,
so they have operated to stimulate others in various other ways to the
same end. Hence the philosopher has left moral precepts behind him in
favour of benevolence, and the legislator has endeavoured to prevent
barbarous practices by the introduction of laws.
In consequence then of these impulses and feelings, by which the pure
power in our nature is thus made to act as a check upon the evil part of
it, and in consequence of the influence which philosophy and legislative
wisdom have had in their respective provinces, there has been always, in
all times and countries, a counteracting energy, which has opposed
itself, more or less, to the crimes and miseries of mankind. But it
seems to have been reserved for Christianity to increase this energy,
and to give it the widest possible domain. It was reserved for her,
under the same divine influence, to give the best views of the nature
and of the present and future condition of man; to afford the best moral
precepts, to communicate the most benign stimulus to the heart, to
produce the most blameless conduct, and thus to cut off many of the
causes of wretchedness, and to heal it wherever it was found. At her
command, wherever she has been duly acknowledged, many of the evils of
life have already fled. The prisoner of war is no longer led into the
amphitheatre to become a gladiator, and to imbrue his hands in the blood
of his fellow-captive for the sport of a thoughtless multitude. The
stern priest, cruel through fanaticism and custom, no longer leads his
fellow-creature to the altar to sacrifice him to fictitious gods. The
venerable martyr, courageous through faith and the sanctity of his life,
is no longer hurried to the flames. The haggard witch, poring over her
incantations by moon-light, no longer scatters her superstitious poison
among her miserable neighbours, nor suffers for her crime.
But in whatever way Christianity may have operated towards the increase
of this energy, or towards a diminution of human misery, it has operated
in none more powerfully than by the new views and consequent duties,
which it introduced on the subject of charity, or practical benevolence
and love. Men in ancient times looked upon their talents, of whatever
description, as, their own, which they might use, or cease to use at
their discretion. But the Author of our religion was the first who
taught that, however in a legal point of view, the talent of individuals
might belong exclusively to themselves, so that no other person had a
right to demand the use of it by force, yet in the Christian
dispensation they were but the stewards of it for good; that so much was
expected from this stewardship, that it was difficult for those who were
intrusted with it to enter into his spiritual kingdom; that these had no
right to conceal their talent in a napkin, but that they were bound to
dispense a portion of it to the relief of their fellow-creatures; and
that, in proportion to the magnitude of it, they were accountable for
the extensiveness of its use. He was the first who pronounced the
misapplication of it to be a crime, and to be a crime of no ordinary
dimensions. He was the first who broke down the boundary between Jew and
Gentile, and, therefore, the first who pointed out to men the
inhabitants of other countries, for the exercise of their philanthropy
and love. Hence a distinction is to be made both in the principle and
practice of charity, as existing in ancient or in modern times. Though
the old philosophers, historians, and poets, frequently inculcated
benevolence, we have no reason to conclude from any facts they have left
us, that persons in their days did anything more than occasionally
relieve an unfortunate object, who might present himself before them, or
that, however they might deplore the existence of public evils among
them, they joined in associations for their suppression, or that they
carried their charity, as bodies of men, into other kingdoms. To
Christianity alone we are indebted for the new and sublime spectacle, of
seeing men going beyond the bounds of individual usefulness to each
other; of seeing them associate for the extirpation of private and
public misery; and of seeing them carry their charity, as a united
brotherhood, into distant lands. And in this wider field of benevolence
it would be unjust not to confess, that no country has shone with more
true lustre than our own, there being scarcely any case of acknowledged
affliction, for which some of her Christian children have not united in
an attempt to provide relief.
Among the evils corrected or subdued, either by the general influence of
Christianity on the minds of men, or by particular associations of
Christians, the African[A]. Slave Trade appears to me to have occupied
the foremost place. The abolition of it, therefore, of which it has
devolved upon me to write the history, should be accounted as one of the
greatest blessings, and as such should be one of the most copious
sources of our joy: indeed, I know of no evil, the removal of which
should excite in us a higher degree of pleasure. For, in considerations
of this kind, are we not usually influenced by circumstances? Are not
our feelings usually affected according to the situation, or the
magnitude, or the importance of these? Are they not more or less
elevated, as the evil under our contemplation has been more or less
productive of misery, or more or less productive of guilt? Are they not
more or less elevated again, as we have found it more or less
considerable in extent? Our sensations will undoubtedly be in proportion
to such circumstances, or our joy to the appreciation or mensuration of
the evil which has been removed.
[Footnote A: Slavery had been before annihilated by Christianity; I mean
in the West of Europe, at the close of the twelfth century]
To value the blessing of the abolition as we ought, or to appreciate the
joy and gratitude which we ought to feel concerning it, we must enter a
little into the circumstances of the trade. Our statement, however, of
these needs not be long: a few pages will do all that is necessary! A
glance only into such a subject as this will be sufficient to affect the
heart,--to arouse our indignation and our pity,--and to teach us the
importance of the victory obtained.
The first subject for consideration, towards enabling us to make the
estimate in question, will be that of the nature of the evil belonging
to the Slave Trade. This may be seen by examining it in three points of
view. First, as it has been proved to arise on the Continent of Africa,
in the course of reducing the inhabitants of it to slavery. Secondly, in
the course of conveying them from thence to the lands or colonies of
other nations. And, thirdly, in continuing them there as slaves.
To see it, as it has been shown, to arise in the first case, let us
suppose ourselves on the Continent just mentioned. Well then, We are
landed,--We are already upon our travels,--We have just passed through
one forest,--We are now come to a more open place, which indicates an
approach to habitation. And what object is that which first obtrudes
itself upon our sight? Who is that wretched woman whom we discover under
that noble tree, wringing her hands, and beating her breast, as if in
the agonies of despair? Three days has she been there, at intervals, to
look and to watch; and this is the fourth morning, and no tidings of her
children yet. Beneath its spreading boughs they were accustomed to play:
but, alas! the savage man-stealer interrupted their playful mirth, and
has taken them for ever from her sight.
But let us leave the cries of this unfortunate woman, and hasten into
another district. And what do we first see here? Who is he that just now
started across the narrow pathway, as if afraid of a human face? What is
that sudden rustling among the leaves? Why are those persons flying from
our approach, and hiding themselves in yon darkest thicket? Behold, as
we get into the plain, a deserted village! The rice-field has been just
trodden down around it; an aged man,--venerable by his silver
beard,--lies wounded and dying near the threshold of his hut. War,
suddenly instigated by avarice, has just visited the dwellings which we
see. The old have been butchered, because unfit for slavery, and the
young have been carried off, except such as have fallen in the conflict,
or have escaped among the woods behind us.
But let us hasten from this cruel scene, which gives rise to so many
melancholy reflections. Let us cross yon distant river, and enter into
some new domain. But are we relieved even here from afflicting
spectacles? Look at that immense crowd which appears to be gathered in a
ring. See the accused innocent in the middle! The ordeal of poisonous
water has been administered to him, as a test of his innocence or his
guilt: he begins to be sick and pale. Alas! yon mournful shriek of his
relatives confirms that the loss of his freedom is now sealed.
And whither shall we go now? the night is approaching fast. Let us find
some friendly hut, where sleep may make us forget for a while the
sorrows of the day. Behold a hospitable native ready to receive us at
his door! let us avail ourselves of his kindness. And now let its give
ourselves to repose. But why, when our eyelids are but just closed, do
we find ourselves thus suddenly awakened? What is the meaning of the
noise around us, of the trampling of people's feet, of the rustling of
the bow, the quiver, and the lance? Let us rise up and inquire. Behold!
the inhabitants are all alarmed! a wakeful woman has shown them yon
distant column of smoke and blaze. The neighbouring village is on fire:
the prince, unfaithful to the sacred duty of the protection of his
subjects, has surrounded them. He is now burning their habitations, and
seizing, as saleable booty, the fugitives from the flames.