'The Slave Trade of East Africa.' [‎9] (18/108)

official report of the Slave Trade. Writing in May, 1869 it
pronounces the African^ slave trade to be a thing of "the
past, adding that the British cruiser is not the only obstacle
to the trade, but the want of purchasers has rendered
the trade useless and unprofitable, and never to be
resuscitated.
It may be well, in directing the attention of our readers to
the slave trade at present carried on with all the horrors of the
old trade, upon the East Coast of Africa, to call to remembrance
the circumstances under which the battle of the West Coast
slave trade was fought and won. The disappointments and
failures in that conflict may not be familiar to all, and many of
our readers may be surprised to learn that twenty long years of
labour and sorrow were consumed ere Mr. Wilberforce's efforts
for the abolition of the slave trade were crowned with success.
In 1789 he first proposed the abolition of the slave trade in the
House of Commons, and it was not until April 1791 that the
question was brought directly to an issue. The two years that
had elapsed since his successful speech in 1789 had sufficed to
change the current of popular feeling; and some indication of
the temper of the time, and of the estimate formed by thinking
men of the difficulties in Wilberforce's path, may be gathered
from the following letter, penned by John Wesley on his dying
bed. They are, according to Sir James Stephen, probably
the last written words of that great servant of God ;
" My Dear Sie —Unless Divine power has raised you up to be as
Atnanasius couti ct Tnunduiu, I sgg not how you can go througli your
glorious enterprise in opposing that execrable yillany which is the
scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature. Unless God
has laised you up for thig very thing, you will be worn out by the
opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be
against you ? Are all of them together stronger than God ^ Oh be
not weary in well-doing! Go on in the name of God, in the name of
s might, till even American slavery, the vilest that ever saw the
sun, shall vanish away before it. That He who has guided you from your
youth up may continue to strengthen you in this and in all things, is
the prayer of, dear Sir, your affectionate Servant,
^ John Wesley."
The event justified these forebodings. Mr. Wilberforce's
motion was lost by a large majority; even Mr. Pitt, with