The
Act was ineffectual in giving relief, and in 1779 by 39 Geo. III. c. 56
all colliers were 'declared to be free from their servitude.' The last
of these emancipated slaves died in the year 1844. _Tranent and its
Surroundings_, by P. M'Neill, p. 26. See also _Parl. Hist_. xxix.
1109, where Dundas states that it was only 'after several years'
struggle that the bill was carried through both Houses.'
[576] See _ante_, ii. 13.
[577] 'The Utopians do not make slaves of the sons of their slaves; the
slaves among them are such as are condemned to that state of life for the
commission of some crime.' Sir T. More's _Utopia--Ideal Commonwealths_,
p. 129.
[578] The Rev. John Newton (Cowper's friend) in 1763 wrote of the
slave-trade, in which he had been engaged, 'It is indeed accounted a
genteel employment, and is usually very profitable, though to me it did
not prove so, the Lord seeing that a large increase of wealth could not
be good for me.' Newton's _Life_, p. 148. A ruffian of a London
Alderman, a few weeks before _The Life of Johnson_ was published, said
in parliament:--'The abolition of the trade would destroy our
Newfoundland fishery, which the slaves in the West Indies supported _by
consuming that part of the fish which was fit for no other consumption_,
and consequently, by cutting off the great source of seamen, annihilate
our marine.
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