CHAPTER VI.
_Continuation from July 1793 to July 1794--Author travels round the kingdom again--Motion to abolish the foreign Slave-trade renewed in the Commons--and carried--but lost in the Lords--further proceedings there--Author, on account of his declining health, obliged to retire from the cause._ The committee for the abolition could not view the proceedings of both Houses of Parliament on this subject during the year 1793, without being alarmed for the fate of their question.

The only two sources of hope, which they could discover, were in the disposition then manifested by the peers as to the conduct of the Earl of Abingdon, and in their determination to proceed in the hearing of evidence.

The latter circumstance indeed was the more favourable, as the resolution, upon which the witnesses were to be examined, had not been renewed by the Commons.

These considerations, however, afforded no solid ground for the mind to rest upon.

They only broke in upon it, like faint gleams of sunshine, for a moment, and then were gone.