The supremacy of Pitt was due to his strength of character and his honesty and sincerity of purpose. Not timid or wavering in mind, "unallured by dissipation and unswayed by pleasure," he kept his course in spite of prejudice and party clamor. The people gave him their confidence because he was constant and patriotic, because he turned not aside from what he conceived to be the path of duty. He spoke from conviction, not from love of display. He was able, eloquent, dignified, and discrete. "He had the courage, the weight, the standing, the speaking power," and his talents, though superior and splendid, never made him forgetful of his allegiance to a kind Providence.

His oratory was of a different type from that of his father. Chatham was probably the greater genius, but not the stronger mind. "While the one swayed the hearts of his countrymen. by the vehemence of his own feelings, the other guided their wills and formed their purposes by the intense energy of his understanding." The father was rapid, sublime, electric; the son quiet, chaste, placid. The one awed into acquiescence, the other argued into conviction. The father was an orator by nature, the son by art. Pitt was superior to his father as a debater, was simpler, not so imaginative, or so fond of display, had a better-trained mind and appealed more to men's understanding. His speeches were packed with facts, and often state secrets were used with telling effect on his audiences. His single purpose in speaking was the highest good to the greatest number. Wilberforce declares that "every other consideration was absorbed in one great ruling passion -the love of his country"; and Lord Rosebery closes his sketch of Pitt with these words: "There may have been men both abler and greater than he, though it is not easy to cite them; but in all history there is no more patriotic spirit, none more intrepid, and none more pure."

The coming of this orator has been compared to the rising of the tropical sun.. At the age of twenty-two, in the proudest era of English eloquence, he spoke with the wisdom of a mature statesman, and placed himself at once in the front rank of the world's great orators.

Not many of Pitt's speeches have been preserved in full. The greatest of them were carefully written out by himself after they were delivered, and are as follows:

1. "The Abolition of the Slave Trade," delivered in Commons, April 2, 1792.

2. "The Rupture of Negotiations with France," delivered in Commons, November 10, 1797.

3. "Refusal to negotiate with Bonaparte," delivered in Commons, February 3, 1800.

ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE

Delivered in the House of Commons, April 2, 1792. Over five hundred petitions against the slave trade had that year been laid before Parliament. Mr. Wilberforce moved for its immediate suppression and supported his motion with a powerful speech. Mr. Dundas opposed the measure with a speech in favor of gradual rather than immediate abolition. Mr. Pitt joined in the debate in a speech from which the following extracts are taken," one of the ablest pieces of mingled argument and eloquence which he ever produced."

I. IMMEDIATE ABOLITION

The point now in dispute is as to the period of time at which the abolition of the slave trade ought to take place. I therefore congratulate this House, the country, and the world, that this great point is gained; that we may now consider this trade as having received its condemnation; that its sentence is sealed; that this curse of mankind is seen by the House in its true light; and that the greatest stigma on our national character which ever yet existed is about to be removed; and, sir, which is still more important, that

mankind, I trust, in general, are now likely to be delivered from the greatest practical evil that ever afflicted the human race; from the severest and most extensive calamity recorded in the history of the world!

If they can show that their proposition of a gradual abolition is more likely than ours to secure the object which we have in view; that by proceeding gradually we shall arrive more speedily at our end, and attain it with more certainty, than by a direct vote immediately to abolish; if they can show to the satisfaction both of myself and the committee, that our proposition has more the appearance of a speedy abolition than the reality of it, undoubtedly they will in this case make a convert of me, and my honorable friend who moved the question. They will make a convert of every man among us who looks to this as a question not to be determined by theoretical principles or enthusiastic feelings, but considers the practicability of the measure, aiming simply to effect his object in the shortest time and in the surest possible manner.

One of my right honorable friends has stated that an act passed here for the abolition of the slave trade would not secure its abolition. Now, sir, I should be glad to know why an act of the British Legislature, enforced by all those sanctions which we have undoubtedly the power and the right to apply, is not to be effectual; at least, as to every material purpose. Will not the executive power have the same appointment of the officers and the courts of judicature, by which all the causes relating to this subject must be tried, that it has in other cases? Will there not be the same system of law by which we now maintain a monopoly of commerce? If the same law, sir, be applied to the prohibition of the slave trade which is applied in the case of other contraband commerce, with all the same means of the country to back it, I am at a loss to know why the actual and total abolition is not as likely to be effected in this way as by any plan or project of my honorable friends for bringing about a gradual termination of it.

The argument of expediency, in my opinion, like every other argument in this disquisition, will not justify the continuance of the

slave trade for one unnecessary hour. Supposing it to be in our power, which I have shown it is, to enforce the prohibition from this present time, the expediency of doing it is to me so clear that, if I went on this principle alone, I should not feel a moment's hesitation. What is the argument of expediency stated on the other side? It is doubted whether the deaths and births in the islands are, as yet, so nearly equal as to insure the keeping-up of a sufficient stock of laborers. In answer to this, I took the liberty of mentioning in a former year what appeared to me to be the state of population at that time. My observations were the clear, simple, and obvious result of a careful examination which I made into this subject, and any gentleman who will take the same pains may arrive at the same degree of satisfaction.

Do the slaves diminish in numbers? It can be nothing but ill treatment that causes the diminution. This ill treatment the abolition must and will restrain. In this case, therefore, we ought to vote for the abolition. On the other hand, do you choose to say that the slaves clearly increase in numbers? Then you want no importations, and, in this case also, you may safely vote for the abolition. Or, if you choose to say, as the third and only other case which can be put, and which perhaps is the nearest to the truth, that the population is nearly stationary, and the treatment neither so bad nor so good as it might be; then surely, sir, it will not be denied that this, of all others, is, on each of the two grounds, the proper period for stopping farther supplies; for your population, which you own is already stationary, will thus be made undoubtedly to increase.

The House, I am sure, will easily believe it is no small satisfaction to me, that among the many arguments for prohibiting the slave trade which crowd upon my mind, the security of our West India possessions against internal commotions, as well as foreign enemies, is among the most prominent and most forcible. And here let me apply to my two right honorable friends, and ask them, whether in this part of the argument they do not see reason for immediate abolition? Why should you any longer import into those

countries that which is the very seed of insurrection and rebellion? Why should you persist in introducing those latent principles of conflagration, which, if they should once burst forth, may annihilate in a single day the industry of a hundred years? Why will you subject yourselves, with open eyes, to the evident and imminent risk of a calamity which may throw you back a whole century in your profits, in your cultivation, in your progress to the emancipation of your slaves; and, disappointing at once every one of those golden expectations, may retard, not only the accomplishment of that happy system which I have attempted to describe, but may cut off even your opportunity of taking any one introductory step? Let us begin from this time! Let us not commit these important interests to any further hazard! Let us prosecute this great object from this very hour! Let us vote that the abolition of the slave trade shall be immediate, and not left to I know not what future time or contingency! Will my right honorable friends answer for the safety of the islands during any imaginable intervening period? Or do they think that any little advantages of the kind which they state, can have any weight in that scale of expediency in which this great question ought undoubtedly to be tried?

On the present occasion the most powerful considerations call upon us to abolish the slave trade; and if we refuse to attend to them on the alleged ground of pledged faith and contract, we shall depart as widely from the practice of Parliament as from the path of moral duty.

The result of all I have said is, that there exists no impediment, no obstacle, no shadow of reasonable objection on the ground of pledged faith, or even on that of national expediency, to the abolition of this trade. On the contrary, all the arguments drawn from those sources plead for it, and they plead much more loudly, and much more strongly in every part of the question, for an immediate than for a gradual abolition.