Books

First edition. 8vo. Contemporary half calf, expertly recased and recornered preserving much of the original, armorial bookplate and private library tag to front pastedown. [4], 396pp. London, Luke Hansard & Sons, for T. Cadell and W. Davies . J. Hatchard. First edition of Wilberforce's great statement of the abolitionist position. Published while his soon-to-be triumphant bill to abolish the slave trade was in the Lords, the work consolidated and restated the formidable array of evidence and argumentation against the trade that Wilberforce has developed over the previous two decades and served to inform the final phase of the struggle (ODNB). Like the Practical View, his other substantial literary work, this was a book that grew out of a pamphlet. Wilberforce begins by noting that 14 years have passed since the issue of the slave trade was argued fully in parliament and that during the intervening period, also, such strange and interesting spectacles have been exhibited at our very doors, as to banish from the minds of most men all recollection of distant wrongs and sufferings. As a consequence, Wilberforce writes that it may not be useless thus publically to record the facts and principles on which the Abolitionists rest their cause, and for which, in the face of my country, I am willing to stand responsible. Wilberforce then illustrates his arguments with examples from works as diverse as Hume's Essays and Edward's History of the West Indies among others. Pages 353 to 396 contains an appendix of extracts from the older authors which mainly describes depredatory acts occasioned by the slave trade. PMM, 232b; Sabin, 103953.

A powerful document written by William Wilberforce discussing the moral and social imperatives for abolishing the slave trade, published during the height of abolitionist debates in the early 19th century.