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and laid promiscuously with the rest . Happening in the night to obtain room to stretch his weary limbs , at rather more ease than usual , he had fallen fast asleep , and he dreamt that he was in his own country , high in
honour and in command , caressed by his family and his friends , waited on by his domestics , and surrounded with all his former comforts in life ; when , awaking * somewhat suddenly , he found hirtfself fastened down in the
hold of a slave ship , and was heard to burst into loud groans and lamentations on the miserable contrast of his present state , mixed with the meanest of his subjects , and subjected to the insolence of wretches , a thousand times lower than himself , in
every kind of endowment I Mr . Fox appealed to the House , whether this was not as moving a picture of the miserable effects of the slave trade , as any that could be imagined . There was one way , and it was an extremely good one , by which any man might
come to a judgment on these pointslet him make the case his own . What , said he , should any one of us who are members of this House , sav , and how should we feel , if conquered and carried away by a tribe as savage as our countrymen on the coast of Africa shew themselves to be ? How should
we brook the same indignities , or bear the same treatment ourselves , which we do not scruple to inflict on them ? 37 . Abolition of Slavery the Triumph of Christianity . ( April 19 , 1791- )
Having made this appeal to the feelings of the House , Mr , Fox proceeded to observe , that great stress bud been laid on the countenance that was given to slavery by the Christian religion . So far was this from being true , that he thought one of the most
splendid triumphs of Christianity was , its having caused slavery to be so generally abolished , as soon as ever it appeared in the world . One obvious ground on which it did this , was by teaching us , that in the sight of heaven all mankind are equal . The same
effect might be expected also from tlie general principles which it taught . Its powerful influence appeared to have done more in this respect than all the ancient systems of philosophy , ' though even in them , in point of the-° * 7 » we might trace great liberality a » d consideration for human riglit » .
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Where could be found finer sentr ments of liberty , than in the works of Demosthenes and Cicero r Where should we meet with bolder assertions of the rights of mankind , and the dignity of human nature , than in
the historians , Tacitus and Thucydides ? It was remarkable , however , that these great men kept slaves . in their houses , and permitted a whole order of slaves to exist in their country . He knew , iudeed , that what he had been ascribing to Christianity some imputed to the advances which
philosophy had made . Each of the two parties took the merit to itself the divine gave it to religion , the philosopher to philosophy . He should not dispute with either of them y but as both coveted the praise , why should they not emulate each other , in promoting this improvement in the condition of the human race ?*
* As-soon as Mr . Fox had sat down , Mr . Stanley said , that he came to the House purposing" to vote against the abolition , but that the impression made both on his understanding" and feelings was such as he could not resist ; ' and he was now convinced that an entire abolition of
the slave trade was called for equally hj sound policy and justice . The honourable Mr . Ryder ( the present Earl of Harrowby ) said he came to the House not exactly in the circumstances of the honourable gentieman who had just spoken , but very much undecided on the subject ;
he-however , was so strongly convinced by the arguments he had heard , that he was become equally earnest tor the abolition . Mr . Burke observed that he had , for along time , had bis mind drawn to the slave trade , that he had even prepared some measures for its regulation , conceiving- the
immediate abolition of it , though highly desirable to be then hardly a thing which could be hoped for : but when he found the honourable mover was bringing * forward the present question , which be approved much more than his own , he had burnt his papers and made an offering-of them , in
honour of the proposition of the honourable gentleman , much in the same manner as we read that the curious books were offered up and burnt at the approach of the gospel . lie rejoiced at the submission to reason and argument , which gentlemen ,
who came in with minds somewhat prejudiced , had avowed on . that day . They thereby told their constituents , as they ought to tell them , that it was impossible for them ' , if sent to hear discussion in the House of Commons , to avoid surrenderingup their hearts aud judgments to tko
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Charles James Fox 677
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1815, page 677, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1766/page/13/
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