He
suggested certain amendments for consideration and discussion, which, if
they had been agreed upon, must have been carried again to the lower house
and sanctioned there before the bill could have been complete. But it
appeared afterwards, that there would have been no time for the latter
proceeding. Earl Stanhope, therefore, pressed this circumstance peculiarly
upon the Lords who were present. He observed, that the King was to dismiss
the parliament next day, and therefore they must adopt the bill as it
stood, or reject it altogether. There was no alternative, and no time was
to be lost. Accordingly he moved for an immediate division on the first of
the amendments proposed by Lord Thurlow. This having taken place, it was
negatived. The other amendments shared the same fate; and thus, at length,
passed through the upper house, as through an ordeal as it were of fire,
the first bill that ever put fetters upon that barbarous and destructive
monster, The Slave-trade.
The next day, or on Friday, July the eleventh, the King gave his assent to
it, and, as Lord Stanhope had previously asserted in the House of Lords,
concluded the session.
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