against the vices of the age-the profanation of Sunday, swearing, drunkenness, licentious publications and similar evils; and whilst the proclamation was still fresh in men's minds, the Association was launched. Wilberforce canvassed unweariedly to enlist the sympathy of the bishops and of prominent laymen in the work. On the whole, he was well supported; but not always. "So you wish, young man," said a nobleman whose house he visited, " to be a reformer of men's morals. Look, then, and see there what is the end of such reformers; "and as he spoke, he pointed to a picture of the Crucifixion-an argument (Wilberforce's biographer says) which was hardly likely to discourage a Christian!

II

This was in 1787. In the same year he was led to devote himself publicly to the cause which was to make his name famous-the Abolition of the Slave Trade.

For some time the inquities of the Slave Trade had exercised the minds of many good Englishmen, and indeed, they might well do so. "The horrors of the trade could hardly be exaggerated. Ships built for the purpose were employed, in which the allowance of room for a slave was five feet and a half in length by one foot four inches in breadth. The extreme height between decks was five feet eight inches, but this was occupied by shelves, upon which the slaves were packed. Sixteen hours a day they remained below, chained to the deck, fed upon a pint of water and two feeds of horse beans. Such conditions of life, for weeks together, in the tropics, not being conducive to health,

they were brought up and forced to jump upon the deck, under the influence of the whip, for the sake of exercise. If any difficulty arose, they were tossed overboard without scruple, and English law courts held underwriters answerable for such loss, as arising from the natural perils of the sea. No charge of murder, or even manslaughter, was ever dreamt of."1

A few years before a Mr. Ramsay, who had lived for a time at St. Kitt's, first as a naval surgeon, and then as a clergyman, spoke and wrote, on his return to England, about the gross cruelty practised on the slaves. Granville Sharp and his friends set to work to collect evidence in the matter, and in 1786 Mr. Clarkson published a prize essay upon the subject. In the following year Sir Charles Middleton, M.P. for Rochester, who had known Ramsay in the tropics, begged Wilberforce to undertake the cause in Parliament.

The choice was a wise one, not only because of Wilberforce's wealth and popularity and his important position as member for England's greatest county, but because he wielded a very real influence in the House of Commons. No member was more respected than he, and few were listened to more readily.

There were several reasons for this. In the first place, it was universally recognised that he-perhaps alone in the House-was above party feelings. From his entry into Parliament he had made it his general rule to support the existing government whenever he conscientiously could; and at the same time he kept himself free to attack, with all his force, any measure of which he disapproved. Not even his close friendship with Pitt led him to swerve from this independent attitude; and though he found it painful to oppose

1 J. F. Bright's History of England.

his friend, he did not hesitate to do so when conscience bade, as when, for instance, Pitt proposed to increase the income of the Prince of Wales, a measure which Wilberforce stoutly opposed. This independence cost Wilberforce many an inward and anguished struggle with the promptings of natural ambition, but it gave him great power in the Commons.

Then, too, he was a born orator, possessed not only of a powerful eloquence but of a perfect elocution and winning voice. After the famous York meeting Boswell, describing the way in which this frail youth swayed the multitude, wrote to a friend, "I saw what seemed a mere shrimp mount upon the table; but as I listened, he grew, and grew, until the shrimp became a whale." Another eyewitness says that the weather was so boisterous that it seemed as if the speaker's slight frame could not possibly make headway against it. The yard too was so crowded that the other speakers, some of them of great physical power, were hardly audible. Yet Wilberforce was heard by the whole crowd, and by his grace and eloquence held them bound for an hour. Pitt himself said in later years, "Of all men I ever knew, Wilberforce has the greatest natural eloquence."

III

Such, then, was the champion to whom the cause of the abolition of the Slave Trade was now entrusted. Though he felt his unworthiness for the task, it was altogether to his liking. At the age of fourteen, he had written a letter to a York paper against the traffic in human flesh; and for some years before, speaking on the subject in public, he had been collecting accurate