. Life and public services of Hon. Wm. E. Gladstone . years old at the time ofits passage, were declaredfree, though subject tosuch restrictions as mightbe necessary for their sup-port and maintenance; allpersons over that age,registered as slaves, wereto be apprenticed to theirmasters for a stated lengthof time, to be fixed byParliament; the Government was to remunerate the slave-ownersfor the loss thus occasioned, and the sum of £20,000,000 was setaside for that purpose. This was the Act of Emancipation as itpassed the House; it differed but slightly from the bill proposedby the Colonial Sec
. Life and public services of Hon. Wm. E. Gladstone . years old at the time ofits passage, were declaredfree, though subject tosuch restrictions as mightbe necessary for their sup-port and maintenance; allpersons over that age,registered as slaves, wereto be apprenticed to theirmasters for a stated lengthof time, to be fixed byParliament; the Government was to remunerate the slave-ownersfor the loss thus occasioned, and the sum of £20,000,000 was setaside for that purpose. This was the Act of Emancipation as itpassed the House; it differed but slightly from the bill proposedby the Colonial Secretary. The debate was a bitter one, and sometimes assumed a person-al form, or as nearly that as the rules of the House of Commonswill allow. It was the business of those whc had profited by it todefend the iniquitous system of traffic in human beings and theevils resulting from it. There was at least one such in the House. There is not a stone in the walls of Liverpool but is cementedby the blood of Africans/ the people of that city had once been. William Wilberforce. 62 The Beginning of Public Life. told, and truly. Much of the wealth which had enabled the elder to take such a high position among his fel-low-merchants had been, like theirs, drawn from West Indian es-tates, where the labor was done altogether by slaves. These es-tates were so large, and Mr. Gladstones name so well known(Sir Eobert Peel had in 1819 quoted the opinion of Mr. Glad-stone, the great Liverpool merchant, as high authority uponsome question of expedience), that they formed a convenient ex-ample. During the course of the debate, Lord Howick referredto the decrease in the number of slaves on an estate in Dem-erara, owned by Mr. Gladstone, and which he claimed was pro-duced by the inhuman manner in which the slaves were elder Gladstone was without a seat in the House of Com-mons at this time, and hence he was referred to by name; andhis son found himself obliged to answer the ac
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