In the year 1794, when the bill for the abolition of the foreign Slave-trade was introduced, Mr.Vaughan and Mr.Barham supported it.

They called upon the planters in the House to give way to humanity, where their own interests could not be affected by their submission.

This indeed may be said to have been no mighty thing; but it was a frank confession of the injustice of the Slave-trade, and the beginning of the change which followed, both with respect to themselves and others.
With respect to the old friends of the cause, it is with regret I mention, that it lost the support of Mr.Windham within this period; and this regret is increased by the consideration, that he went off on the avowed plea of expediency against moral rectitude; a doctrine, which, at least upon this subject, he had reprobated for ten years.

It was, however, some consolation, as far as talents were concerned, (for there can be none for the loss of virtuous feeling,) that Mr.Canning, a new member, should have so ably supplied his place.
Of the gradual abolitionists, whom we have always considered as the most dangerous enemies of the cause, Mr.Jenkinson (now Lord Hawkesbury), Mr.
Addington (now Lord Sidmouth), and Mr.Dundas (now Lord Melville), continued their opposition during all this time.

Of the first two I shall say nothing at present; but I cannot pass over the conduct of the latter.
He was the first person, as we have seen, to propose the gradual abolition of the Slave-trade; and he fixed the time for its cessation on the first of January 1800.