papers; and made an offering of them in honour of this nobler proposition, much in the same manner as we read, that the curious books were offered up and burnt at the approach of the Gospel.  He highly applauded the confessions of Mr. Stanley and Mr. Ryder.  It would be a glorious tale for them to tell their constituents, that it was impossible for them, however prejudiced, if sent to hear, discussion in that House, to avoid surrendering up their hearts and judgments at the shrine of reason.

Mr. Drake said, that he would oppose the abolition to the utmost.  We had, by a want of prudent conduct, lost America.  The House should be aware of being carried away by the meteors with which they had been dazzled.  The leaders, it was true, were for the abolition; but the minor orators, the dwarfs, the pigmies, he trusted, would that night carry the question against them.  The property of the West Indians was at stake; and, though men might be generous with their own property, they should not be so with the property of others.

Lord Sheffield reprobated the overbearing language which had been used by some gentlemen towards others, who differed in opinion from them on a subject of so much difficulty as the present.  He protested against a debate, in which he could trace nothing like reason; but, on the contrary, downright phrensy, raised perhaps by the most extraordinary eloquence.  The abolition, as proposed, was impracticable.  He denied the right of the legislature to pass a law for it.  He warned the Chancellor of the Exchequer to beware of the day, on which the bill should pass, as the worst he had ever seen.

Mr. Milnes declared, that he adopted all those expressions against the Slave Trade, which had been thought so harsh; and that the opinion of the noble lord had been turned in consequence of having become one of the members for Bristol.  He quoted a passage from Lord Sheffield’s pamphlet; and insisted that the separation of families in the West Indies, there complained of by himself, ought to have compelled him to take the contrary side of the question.

Mr. Wilberforce made a short reply to some arguments in the course of the debate; after which, at half-past three in the morning, the House divided.  There appeared for Mr. Wilberforce’s motion eighty-eight, and against it one hundred and sixty-three; so that it was lost by a majority of seventy-five votes.

By this unfavourable division the great contest, in which we had been so long engaged, was decided.  We were obliged to give way to superior numbers.  Our fall, however, grievous as it was, was rendered more tolerable by the circumstance of having been prepared to expect it.  It was rendered more tolerable, also, by other considerations; for we had the pleasure of knowing, that we had several of the most distinguished characters in the kingdom, and almost all the splendid talents of the House of Commons[A], in our favour.  We knew, too, that the question had not been carried