Volume I Part 32 (2/2)

However, I hope the Secretary will deign to temper his grandeur with a little common sense in the course of a few days, and then I will consign your aide-de-camp to you by the first mail-coach.

Lord Mornington, however, had no necessity to carry out his threat of sending his brother to India. That service was reserved for a later day.

Sir George Yonge's project appears to have been over-ruled, at least so far as Arthur Wellesley was concerned, and the young aide-de-camp was duly forwarded to his post of honour. In the month of April, Lord Mornington writes again to the Viceroy, thanking him for the kindness with which he has treated his _protege_.

My princ.i.p.al reason for intruding on you now, is to express my warm and hearty thanks for your great kindness to my brother, of which I have not only received the most pleasing accounts from himself, but have heard from various other quarters. You will easily be persuaded, that I must feel your goodness to him as the strongest and most grateful instance of your regard for me.

I must also do my brother the justice to a.s.sure you that he feels as he ought to do on this subject, and that you have warmly attached him to you. All his letters that I have seen, not only to me, but to many others totally unconnected with you, speak the most sincere language of grat.i.tude and affection for the reception you have given him. He also expresses great obligations to Lady Buckingham, whom I must beg you to thank in my name.

Mr. Grenville's correspondence with his brother was now resumed with the same activity as before, ranging over every question of public moment affecting the foreign and domestic policy of the country. One of the topics which began to occupy a large s.p.a.ce in the public mind about the beginning of the year was the contemplated movement for the abolition of the Slave Trade. The abstract justice of the abolition, and the practical difficulties in the way of effecting it, were equally obvious to Mr. Grenville.

The business of the Slave Trade is referred to the Committee of Trade. It is a very extensive investigation, and by no means a pleasant subject of inquiry at such a board, because I take it the result will clearly be what one knew sufficiently without much inquiry--that on every principle of humanity, justice, or religion, the slave trade is unjustifiable, and that at the same time it is, in a commercial point of view, highly beneficial, though I believe not so much as those who are concerned in it pretend. On this view of the question I have certainly formed my opinion, that the duty of Parliament is that which would be the duty of each individual sitting there, namely, to sacrifice objects of advantage to principles of justice. It is, however, a great question, and of no little embarra.s.sment to Government, who run the risk of offending a numerous and powerful body of men. I am told that there is an idea of calling the county of Bucks together, to pet.i.tion as other counties have done. This will be very distressing to me, because, although my opinion is formed, it would not be very decent for me to declare it publicly, while an inquiry is pending at the Board of which I am a member.

The subject was new and startling at this time, and Lord Buckingham took alarm at the notion of a sudden and complete measure of abolition.

Having communicated his doubts to Mr. Grenville, the reply of the latter expresses a general concurrence in his views.

Our ideas do not seem very different as to the Slave Trade. I never entertained an idea that we could liberate the slaves actually in the Islands, except by some such gradual measure as you mention. But I am very sanguine in thinking that a law preventing the carrying any more slaves to the Islands in British s.h.i.+ps (the only vessels that can legally trade there) may be pa.s.sed and enforced without considerable difficulty or danger.

Towards the end of January Lord Mornington writes:

We are all very eagerly engaged in considering a plan for the abolition of the Slave Trade, which is to be soon brought forward by Wilberforce. I hear that Burke is to prove slavery to be an excellent thing for negroes, and that there is a great distinction between an Indian Begum and an African Wowski.

That some of the supporters of the Administration did not consider Mr.

Wilberforce the fittest person to bring forward the question is frankly avowed in several of these letters. Sir William Young, a constant and lively correspondent, communicates his apprehensions on this point to Lord Buckingham. His letter is dated the 20th of February.

The French have offered our people of Liverpool (hearing that we are on the eve of surrendering our Slave Trade) no less than 5 per ton premium to carry on the trade between Africa and the French islands. When Wilberforce intends to come forward is not settled, nor what his precise motion. I cannot help feeling its absurdity _d'avance_, knowing my friend Wilberforce to be a mere utopian philanthropist on a subject which a little needs the practical politician.

On the 9th of May following, Mr. Pitt, taking the question into his own hands, moved a resolution pledging the House to the consideration of the Slave Trade in the ensuing session. Upon this, Sir William Young remarks:

The Slave Trade, obviously from the debate on Friday last, will be made an election tool to work at the Dissenters with, and gain the hurra' of the lower people. When Pitt shall come forward to unite humanity and justice with policy and the public necessities, and produce early next session some measures of legislation for the colonies, and of regulation in the trade, I foresee the clamour will be ”What! regulate rapine and murder!

and legislate slavery in the British dominions!” and all of the measure, as to the abolition of the trade which is wisely put by, will be artfully taken up to discredit what is humanely done. And this is the mischief of leaving such business to the good and brilliant, but little-wise or solid Wilberforce, who did not know, that in a business of such extent as to the interests of the public, their feelings should not have been excited to go beyond the mode or degree of practicable remedy to the evil; that to give hopes of something is to render the full accomplishment more grateful; and that to antic.i.p.ate the most that can be done, is to render the doing less thankless, and as nothing. Adopting the strongest wishes for the full abolition of slavery and the Slave Trade, was it not folly in the extreme to throw out the idea of full abolition previous to investigation of how far it was possible to go, and where a stop of necessity must be made. Wilberforce hath everywhere canva.s.sed addresses for total abolition!

These pa.s.sages, collected from the Correspondence, possess some historical value from their immediate bearing upon the state and action of opinion, at the time when this question was originally introduced into Parliament. Wilberforce was confessedly not considered a practical politician, and his support was regarded by Pitt with apprehension. His sincerity was admitted by everybody, but there seems to have been a strange want of confidence in his judgment. By agitating the country for total abolition, before the public had had an opportunity of investigating the bearings of the question, he showed more zeal than discretion, and seriously embarra.s.sed the proceedings of the Minister.

Wilberforce had the best intentions in the world, but, like other politicians, sometimes erred in carrying them out.

Not the least charm of these letters is the insight they afford into the characters of the princ.i.p.al persons concerned in them; and the slightest pa.s.sages that a.s.sist us to a nearer view of men who occupied so large a s.p.a.ce in their own times, and whose actions enter into the history of the country, have a distinct attraction in this point of view.

Allusion has already been made to the sensitiveness of Lord Buckingham on personal points of form and etiquette, which sometimes disposed him to fancy discourtesy or indifference where none was really contemplated.

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