In the smaller towns there were from ten to fifty, by
estimation, and in the larger from two to five hundred, who made this
sacrifice to virtue. These were of all ranks and parties. Hich and
poor, churchmen and dissenters, had adopted the measure. Even grocers
had left off trading in the article in some places. In gentlemen's
families, where the master had set the example, the servants had often
voluntarily followed it; and even children, who were capable of
understanding the history of the sufferings of the Africans, excluded,
with the most virtuous resolution, the sweets, to which they had been
accustomed, from their lips. By the best computation I was able to
make, from notes taken down in my journey, no fewer than three hundred
thousand persons had abandoned the use of sugar." It was the reality,
depth, and earnestness of the public feeling, thus aroused, which
pressed with resistless force upon the government; for the government
of England yields to popular demands quite as readily as that of
America.
After years of protracted struggle, the victory was at last won. The
slave trade was finally abolished through all the British empire; and
not only so, but the English nation committed, with the whole force of
its national influence, to seek the abolition of the slave trade in
all the nations of the earth.
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