But not less energy and courage have been displayed in India and
the East by men of various nations, in other lines of action more
peaceful and beneficent than that of war.  And while the heroes of
the sword are remembered, the heroes of the gospel ought not to be
forgotten.  From Xavier to Martyn and Williams, there has been a
succession of illustrious missionary labourers, working in a spirit
of sublime self-sacrifice, without any thought of worldly honour,
inspired solely by the hope of seeking out and rescuing the lost
and fallen of their race.  Borne up by invincible courage and
never-failing patience, these men have endured privations, braved
dangers, walked through pestilence, and borne all toils, fatigues,
and sufferings, yet held on their way rejoicing, glorying even in
martyrdom itself.  Of these one of the first and most illustrious
was Francis Xavier.  Born of noble lineage, and with pleasure,
power, and honour within his reach, he proved by his life that
there are higher objects in the world than rank, and nobler
aspirations than the accumulation of wealth.  He was a true
gentleman in manners and sentiment; brave, honourable, generous;
easily led, yet capable of leading; easily persuaded, yet himself
persuasive; a most patient, resolute and energetic man.  At the age
of twenty-two he was earning his living as a public teacher of
philosophy at the University of Paris.  There Xavier became the
intimate friend and associate of Loyola, and shortly afterwards he
conducted the pilgrimage of the first little band of proselytes to
Rome.

When John III. of Portugal resolved to plant Christianity in the
Indian territories subject to his influence, Bobadilla was first
selected as his missionary; but being disabled by illness, it was
found necessary to make another selection, and Xavier was chosen.
Repairing his tattered cassock, and with no other baggage than his
breviary, he at once started for Lisbon and embarked for the East.
The ship in which he set sail for Goa had the Governor on board,
with a reinforcement of a thousand men for the garrison of the
place.  Though a cabin was placed at his disposal, Xavier slept on
deck throughout the voyage with his head on a coil of ropes,
messing with the sailors.  By ministering to their wants, inventing
innocent sports for their amusement, and attending them in their
sickness, he wholly won their hearts, and they regarded him with
veneration.

Arrived at Goa, Xavier was shocked at the depravity of the people,
settlers as well as natives; for the former had imported the vices
without the restraints of civilization, and the latter had only
been too apt to imitate their bad example.  Passing along the
streets of the city, sounding his handbell as he went, he implored
the people to send him their children to be instructed.  He shortly
succeeded in collecting a large number of scholars, whom he
carefully taught day by day, at the same time visiting the sick,
the lepers, and the wretched of all classes, with the object of
assuaging their miseries, and bringing them to the Truth.  No cry
of human suffering which reached him was disregarded.  Hearing of
the degradation and misery of the pearl fishers of Manaar, he set
out to visit them, and his bell again rang out the invitation of
mercy.  He baptized and he taught, but the latter he could only do
through interpreters.  His most eloquent teaching was his
ministration to the wants and the sufferings of the wretched.

On he went, his hand-bell sounding along the coast of Comorin,
among the towns and villages, the temples and the bazaars,
summoning the natives to gather about him and be instructed.  He
had translations made of the Catechism, the Apostles' Creed, the
Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and some of the devotional offices
of the Church.  Committing these to memory in their own tongue he
recited them to the children, until they had them by heart; after
which he sent them forth to teach the words to their parents and
neighbours.  At Cape Comorin, he appointed thirty teachers, who
under himself presided over thirty Christian Churches, though the
Churches were but humble, in most cases consisting only of a
cottage surmounted by a cross.  Thence he passed to Travancore,
sounding his way from village to village, baptizing until his hands
dropped with weariness, and repeating his formulas until his voice
became almost inaudible.  According to his own account, the success
of his mission surpassed his highest expectations.  His pure,
earnest, and beautiful life, and the irresistible eloquence of his
deeds, made converts wherever he went; and by sheer force of
sympathy, those who saw him and listened to him insensibly caught a
portion of his ardour.

Burdened with the thought that "the harvest is great and the
labourers are few," Xavier next sailed to Malacca and Japan, where
he found himself amongst entirely new races speaking other tongues.
The most that he could do here was to weep and pray, to smooth the
pillow and watch by the sick-bed, sometimes soaking the sleeve of
his surplice in water, from which to squeeze out a few drops and
baptize the dying.  Hoping all things, and fearing nothing, this
valiant soldier of the truth was borne onward throughout by faith
and energy.  "Whatever form of death or torture," said he, "awaits
me, I am ready to suffer it ten thousand times for the salvation of
a single soul."  He battled with hunger, thirst, privations and
dangers of all kinds, still pursuing his mission of love, unresting
and unwearying.  At length, after eleven years' labour, this great
good man, while striving to find a way into China, was stricken
with fever in the Island of Sanchian, and there received his crown
of glory.  A hero of nobler mould, more pure, self-denying, and
courageous, has probably never trod this earth.

Other missionaries have followed Xavier in the same field of work,
such as Schwartz, Carey, and Marshman in India; Gutzlaff and
Morrison in China; Williams in the South Seas; Campbell, Moffatt
and Livingstone in Africa.  John Williams, the martyr of Erromanga,
was originally apprenticed to a furnishing ironmonger.  Though
considered a dull boy, he was handy at his trade, in which he
acquired so much skill that his master usually entrusted him with
any blacksmiths work that required the exercise of more than
ordinary care.  He was also fond of bell-hanging and other
employments which took him away from the shop.  A casual sermon
which he heard gave his mind a serious bias, and he became a
Sunday-school teacher.  The cause of missions having been brought
under his notice at some of his society's meetings, he determined
to devote himself to this work.  His services were accepted by the
London Missionary Society; and his master allowed him to leave the
ironmonger's shop before the expiry of his indentures.  The islands
of the Pacific Ocean were the principal scene of his labours--more
particularly Huahine in Tahiti, Raiatea, and Rarotonga.  Like the
Apostles he worked with his hands,--at blacksmith work, gardening,
shipbuilding; and he endeavoured to teach the islanders the art of
civilised life, at the same time that he instructed them in the
truths of religion.  It was in the course of his indefatigable
labours that he was massacred by savages on the shore of Erromanga-
-none worthier than he to wear the martyr's crown.

The career of Dr. Livingstone is one of the most interesting of
all.  He has told the story of his life in that modest and
unassuming manner which is so characteristic of the man himself.
His ancestors were poor but honest Highlanders, and it is related
of one of them, renowned in his district for wisdom and prudence,
that when on his death-bed he called his children round him and
left them these words, the only legacy he had to bequeath--"In my
life-time," said he, "I have searched most carefully through all
the traditions I could find of our family, and I never could
discover that there was a dishonest man among our forefathers:  if,
therefore, any of you or any of your children should take to
dishonest ways, it will not be because it runs in our blood; it
does not belong to you:  I leave this precept with you--Be honest."
At the age of ten Livingstone was sent to work in a cotton factory
near Glasgow as a "piecer."  With part of his first week's wages he
bought a Latin grammar, and began to learn that language, pursuing
the study for years at a night school.  He would sit up conning his
lessons till twelve or later, when not sent to bed by his mother,
for he had to be up and at work in the factory every morning by
six.  In this way he plodded through Virgil and Horace, also
reading extensively all books, excepting novels, that came in his
way, but more especially scientific works and books of travels.  He
occupied his spare hours, which were but few, in the pursuit of
botany, scouring the neighbourhood to collect plants.  He even
carried on his reading amidst the roar of the factory machinery, so
placing the book upon the spinning jenny which he worked that he
could catch sentence after sentence as he passed it.  In this way
the persevering youth acquired much useful knowledge; and as he
grew older, the desire possessed him of becoming a missionary to
the heathen.  With this object he set himself to obtain a medical
education, in order the better to be qualified for the work.  He
accordingly economised his earnings, and saved as much money as
enabled him to support himself while attending the Medical and
Greek classes, as well as the Divinity Lectures, at Glasgow, for
several winters, working as a cotton spinner during the remainder
of each year.  He thus supported himself, during his college
career, entirely by his own earnings as a factory workman, never
having received a farthing of help from any other source.  "Looking
back now," he honestly says, "at that life of toil, I cannot but
feel thankful that it formed such a material part of my early
education; and, were it possible, I should like to begin life over
again in the same lowly style, and to pass through the same hardy
training."  At length he finished his medical curriculum, wrote his
Latin thesis, passed his examinations, and was admitted a
licentiate of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons.  At first he
thought of going to China, but the war then waging with that
country prevented his following out the idea; and having offered
his services to the London Missionary Society, he was by them sent
out to Africa, which he reached in 1840.  He had intended to
proceed to China by his own efforts; and he says the only pang he
had in going to Africa at the charge of the London Missionary
Society was, because "it was not quite agreeable to one accustomed
to work his own way to become, in a manner, dependent upon others."
Arrived in Africa he set to work with great zeal.  He could not
brook the idea of merely entering upon the labours of others, but
cut out a large sphere of independent work, preparing himself for
it by undertaking manual labour in building and other handicraft
employment, in addition to teaching, which, he says, "made me
generally as much exhausted and unfit for study in the evenings as
ever I had been when a cotton-spinner."  Whilst labouring amongst
the Bechuanas, he dug canals, built houses, cultivated fields,
reared cattle, and taught the natives to work as well as worship.
When he first started with a party of them on foot upon a long
journey, he overheard their observations upon his appearance and
powers--"He is not strong," said they; "he is quite slim, and only
appears stout because he puts himself into those bags (trowsers):
he will soon knock up."  This caused the missionary's Highland
blood to rise, and made him despise the fatigue of keeping them all
at the top of their speed for days together, until he heard them
expressing proper opinions of his pedestrian powers.  What he did
in Africa, and how he worked, may be learnt from his own
'Missionary Travels,' one of the most fascinating books of its kind
that has ever been given to the public.  One of his last known acts
is thoroughly characteristic of the man.  The 'Birkenhead' steam
launch, which he took out with him to Africa, having proved a
failure, he sent home orders for the construction of another vessel
at an estimated cost of 2000l.  This sum he proposed to defray out
of the means which he had set aside for his children arising from
the profits of his books of travels.  "The children must make it up
themselves," was in effect his expression in sending home the order
for the appropriation of the money.

The career of John Howard was throughout a striking illustration of
the same power of patient purpose.  His sublime life proved that
even physical weakness could remove mountains in the pursuit of an
end recommended by duty.  The idea of ameliorating the condition of
prisoners engrossed his whole thoughts and possessed him like a
passion; and no toil, nor danger, nor bodily suffering could turn
him from that great object of his life.  Though a man of no genius
and but moderate talent, his heart was pure and his will was
strong.  Even in his own time he achieved a remarkable degree of
success; and his influence did not die with him, for it has
continued powerfully to affect not only the legislation of England,
but of all civilised nations, down to the present hour.

Jonas Hanway was another of the many patient and persevering men
who have made England what it is--content simply to do with energy
the work they have been appointed to do, and go to their rest
thankfully when it is done -


"Leaving no memorial but a world
Made better by their lives."


He was born in 1712, at Portsmouth, where his father, a storekeeper
in the dockyard, being killed by an accident, he was left an orphan
at an early age.  His mother removed with her children to London,
where she had them put to school, and struggled hard to bring them
up respectably.  At seventeen Jonas was sent to Lisbon to be
apprenticed to a merchant, where his close attention to business,
his punctuality, and his strict honour and integrity, gained for
him the respect and esteem of all who knew him.  Returning to
London in 1743, he accepted the offer of a partnership in an
English mercantile house at St. Petersburg engaged in the Caspian
trade, then in its infancy.  Hanway went to Russia for the purpose
of extending the business; and shortly after his arrival at the
capital he set out for Persia, with a caravan of English bales of
cloth making twenty carriage loads.  At Astracan he sailed for
Astrabad, on the south-eastern shore of the Caspian; but he had
scarcely landed his bales, when an insurrection broke out, his
goods were seized, and though he afterwards recovered the principal
part of them, the fruits of his enterprise were in a great measure
lost.  A plot was set on foot to seize himself and his party; so he
took to sea and, after encountering great perils, reached Ghilan in
safety.  His escape on this occasion gave him the first idea of the
words which he afterwards adopted as the motto of his life--"NEVER
DESPAIR."  He afterwards resided in St. Petersburg for five years,
carrying on a prosperous business.  But a relative having left him
some property, and his own means being considerable, he left
Russia, and arrived in his native country in 1755.  His object in
returning to England was, as he himself expressed it, "to consult
his own health (which was extremely delicate), and do as much good
to himself and others as he was able."  The rest of his life was
spent in deeds of active benevolence and usefulness to his fellow
men.  He lived in a quiet style, in order that he might employ a
larger share of his income in works of benevolence.  One of the
first public improvements to which he devoted himself was that of
the highways of the metropolis, in which he succeeded to a large
extent.  The rumour of a French invasion being prevalent in 1755,
Mr. Hanway turned his attention to the best mode of keeping up the
supply of seamen.  He summoned a meeting of merchants and
shipowners at the Royal Exchange, and there proposed to them to
form themselves into a society for fitting out landsmen volunteers
and boys, to serve on board the king's ships.  The proposal was
received with enthusiasm:  a society was formed, and officers were
appointed, Mr. Hanway directing its entire operations.  The result
was the establishment in 1756 of The Marine Society, an institution
which has proved of much national advantage, and is to this day of
great and substantial utility.  Within six years from its
formation, 5451 boys and 4787 landsmen volunteers had been trained
and fitted out by the society and added to the navy, and to this
day it is in active operation, about 600 poor boys, after a careful
education, being annually apprenticed as sailors, principally in
the merchant service.

Mr. Hanway devoted the other portions of his spare time to
improving or establishing important public institutions in the
metropolis.  From an early period he took an active interest in the
Foundling Hospital, which had been started by Thomas Coram many
years before, but which, by encouraging parents to abandon their
children to the charge of a charity, was threatening to do more
harm than good.  He determined to take steps to stem the evil,
entering upon the work in the face of the fashionable philanthropy
of the time; but by holding to his purpose he eventually succeeded
in bringing the charity back to its proper objects; and time and
experience have proved that he was right.  The Magdalen Hospital
was also established in a great measure through Mr. Hanway's
exertions.  But his most laborious and persevering efforts were in
behalf of the infant parish poor.  The misery and neglect amidst
which the children of the parish poor then grew up, and the
mortality which prevailed amongst them, were frightful; but there
was no fashionable movement on foot to abate the suffering, as in
the case of the foundlings.  So Jonas Hanway summoned his energies
to the task.  Alone and unassisted he first ascertained by personal
inquiry the extent of the evil.  He explored the dwellings of the
poorest classes in London, and visited the poorhouse sick wards, by
which he ascertained the management in detail of every workhouse in
and near the metropolis.  He next made a journey into France and
through Holland, visiting the houses for the reception of the poor,
and noting whatever he thought might be adopted at home with
advantage.  He was thus employed for five years; and on his return
to England he published the results of his observations.  The
consequence was that many of the workhouses were reformed and
improved.  In 1761 he obtained an Act obliging every London parish
to keep an annual register of all the infants received, discharged,
and dead; and he took care that the Act should work, for he himself
superintended its working with indefatigable watchfulness.  He went
about from workhouse to workhouse in the morning, and from one
member of parliament to another in the afternoon, for day after
day, and for year after year, enduring every rebuff, answering
every objection, and accommodating himself to every humour.  At
length, after a perseverance hardly to be equalled, and after
nearly ten years' labour, he obtained another Act, at his sole
expense (7 Geo. III. c. 39), directing that all parish infants
belonging to the parishes within the bills of mortality should not
be nursed in the workhouses, but be sent to nurse a certain number
of miles out of town, until they were six years old, under the care
of guardians to be elected triennially.  The poor people called
this "the Act for keeping children alive;" and the registers for
the years which followed its passing, as compared with those which
preceded it, showed that thousands of lives had been preserved
through the judicious interference of this good and sensible man.

Wherever a philanthropic work was to be done in London, be sure
that Jonas Hanway's hand was in it.  One of the first Acts for the
protection of chimney-sweepers' boys was obtained through his
influence.  A destructive fire at Montreal, and another at
Bridgetown, Barbadoes, afforded him the opportunity for raising a
timely subscription for the relief of the sufferers.  His name
appeared in every list, and his disinterestedness and sincerity
were universally recognized.  But he was not suffered to waste his
little fortune entirely in the service of others.  Five leading
citizens of London, headed by Mr. Hoare, the banker, without Mr.
Hanway's knowledge, waited on Lord Bute, then prime minister, in a
body, and in the names of their fellow-citizens requested that some
notice might be taken of this good man's disinterested services to
his country.  The result was, his appointment shortly after, as one
of the commissioners for victualling the navy.

Towards the close of his life Mr. Hanway's health became very
feeble, and although he found it necessary to resign his office at
the Victualling Board, he could not be idle; but laboured at the
establishment of Sunday Schools,--a movement then in its infancy,--
or in relieving poor blacks, many of whom wandered destitute about
the streets of the metropolis,--or, in alleviating the sufferings
of some neglected and destitute class of society.  Notwithstanding
his familiarity with misery in all its shapes, he was one of the
most cheerful of beings; and, but for his cheerfulness he could
never, with so delicate a frame, have got through so vast an amount
of self-imposed work.  He dreaded nothing so much as inactivity.
Though fragile, he was bold and indefatigable; and his moral
courage was of the first order.  It may be regarded as a trivial
matter to mention that he was the first who ventured to walk the
streets of London with an umbrella over his head.  But let any
modern London merchant venture to walk along Cornhill in a peaked
Chinese hat, and he will find it takes some degree of moral courage
to persevere in it.  After carrying an umbrella for thirty years,
Mr. Hanway saw the article at length come into general use.

Hanway was a man of strict honour, truthfulness, and integrity; and
every word he said might be relied upon.  He had so great a
respect, amounting almost to a reverence, for the character of the
honest merchant, that it was the only subject upon which he was
ever seduced into a eulogium.  He strictly practised what he
professed, and both as a merchant, and afterwards as a commissioner
for victualling the navy, his conduct was without stain.  He would
not accept the slightest favour of any sort from a contractor; and
when any present was sent to him whilst at the Victualling Office,
he would politely return it, with the intimation that "he had made
it a rule not to accept anything from any person engaged with the
office."  When he found his powers failing, he prepared for death
with as much cheerfulness as he would have prepared himself for a
journey into the country.  He sent round and paid all his
tradesmen, took leave of his friends, arranged his affairs, had his
person neatly disposed of, and parted with life serenely and
peacefully in his 74th year.  The property which he left did not
amount to two thousand pounds, and, as he had no relatives who
wanted it, he divided it amongst sundry orphans and poor persons
whom he had befriended during his lifetime.  Such, in brief, was
the beautiful life of Jonas Hanway,--as honest, energetic, hard-
working, and true-hearted a man as ever lived.

The life of Granville Sharp is another striking example of the same
power of individual energy--a power which was afterwards transfused
into the noble band of workers in the cause of Slavery Abolition,
prominent among whom were Clarkson, Wilberforce, Buxton, and
Brougham.  But, giants though these men were in this cause,
Granville Sharp was the first, and perhaps the greatest of them
all, in point of perseverance, energy, and intrepidity.  He began
life as apprentice to a linen-draper on Tower Hill; but, leaving
that business after his apprenticeship was out, he next entered as
a clerk in the Ordnance Office; and it was while engaged in that
humble occupation that he carried on in his spare hours the work of
Negro Emancipation.  He was always, even when an apprentice, ready
to undertake any amount of volunteer labour where a useful purpose
was to be served.  Thus, while learning the linen-drapery business,
a fellow apprentice who lodged in the same house, and was a
Unitarian, led him into frequent discussions on religious subjects.
The Unitarian youth insisted that Granville's Trinitarian
misconception of certain passages of Scripture arose from his want
of acquaintance with the Greek tongue; on which he immediately set
to work in his evening hours, and shortly acquired an intimate
knowledge of Greek.  A similar controversy with another fellow-
apprentice, a Jew, as to the interpretation of the prophecies, led
him in like manner to undertake and overcome the difficulties of
Hebrew.

But the circumstance which gave the bias and direction to the main
labours of his life originated in his generosity and benevolence.
His brother William, a surgeon in Mincing Lane, gave gratuitous
advice to the poor, and amongst the numerous applicants for relief
at his surgery was a poor African named Jonathan Strong.  It
appeared that the negro had been brutally treated by his master, a
Barbadoes lawyer then in London, and became lame, almost blind, and
unable to work; on which his owner, regarding him as of no further
value as a chattel, cruelly turned him adrift into the streets to
starve.  This poor man, a mass of disease, supported himself by
begging for a time, until he found his way to William Sharp, who
gave him some medicine, and shortly after got him admitted to St.
Bartholomew's hospital, where he was cured.  On coming out of the
hospital, the two brothers supported the negro in order to keep him
off the streets, but they had not the least suspicion at the time
that any one had a claim upon his person.  They even succeeded in
obtaining a situation for Strong with an apothecary, in whose
service he remained for two years; and it was while he was
attending his mistress behind a hackney coach, that his former
owner, the Barbadoes lawyer, recognized him, and determined to
recover possession of the slave, again rendered valuable by the
restoration of his health.  The lawyer employed two of the Lord
Mayor's officers to apprehend Strong, and he was lodged in the
Compter, until he could be shipped off to the West Indies.  The
negro, bethinking him in his captivity of the kind services which
Granville Sharp had rendered him in his great distress some years
before, despatched a letter to him requesting his help.  Sharp had
forgotten the name of Strong, but he sent a messenger to make
inquiries, who returned saying that the keepers denied having any
such person in their charge.  His suspicions were roused, and he
went forthwith to the prison, and insisted upon seeing Jonathan
Strong.  He was admitted, and recognized the poor negro, now in
custody as a recaptured slave.  Mr. Sharp charged the master of the
prison at his own peril not to deliver up Strong to any person
whatever, until he had been carried before the Lord Mayor, to whom
Sharp immediately went, and obtained a summons against those
persons who had seized and imprisoned Strong without a warrant.
The parties appeared before the Lord Mayor accordingly, and it
appeared from the proceedings that Strong's former master had
already sold him to a new one, who produced the bill of sale and
claimed the negro as his property.  As no charge of offence was
made against Strong, and as the Lord Mayor was incompetent to deal
with the legal question of Strong's liberty or otherwise, he
discharged him, and the slave followed his benefactor out of court,
no one daring to touch him.  The man's owner immediately gave Sharp
notice of an action to recover possession of his negro slave, of
whom he declared he had been robbed.

About that time (1767), the personal liberty of the Englishman,
though cherished as a theory, was subject to grievous
infringements, and was almost daily violated.  The impressment of
men for the sea service was constantly practised, and, besides the
press-gangs, there were regular bands of kidnappers employed in
London and all the large towns of the kingdom, to seize men for the
East India Company's service.  And when the men were not wanted for
India, they were shipped off to the planters in the American
colonies.  Negro slaves were openly advertised for sale in the
London and Liverpool newspapers.  Rewards were offered for
recovering and securing fugitive slaves, and conveying them down to
certain specified ships in the river.

The position of the reputed slave in England was undefined and
doubtful.  The judgments which had been given in the courts of law
were fluctuating and various, resting on no settled principle.
Although it was a popular belief that no slave could breathe in
England, there were legal men of eminence who expressed a directly
contrary opinion.  The lawyers to whom Mr. Sharp resorted for
advice, in defending himself in the action raised against him in
the case of Jonathan Strong, generally concurred in this view, and
he was further told by Jonathan Strong's owner, that the eminent
Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, and all the leading counsel, were
decidedly of opinion that the slave, by coming into England, did
not become free, but might legally be compelled to return again to
the plantations.  Such information would have caused despair in a
mind less courageous and earnest than that of Granville Sharp; but
it only served to stimulate his resolution to fight the battle of
the negroes' freedom, at least in England.  "Forsaken," he said,
"by my professional defenders, I was compelled, through the want of
regular legal assistance, to make a hopeless attempt at self-
defence, though I was totally unacquainted either with the practice
of the law or the foundations of it, having never opened a law book
(except the Bible) in my life, until that time, when I most
reluctantly undertook to search the indexes of a law library, which
my bookseller had lately purchased."

The whole of his time during the day was occupied with the business
of the ordnance department, where he held the most laborious post
in the office; he was therefore under the necessity of conducting
his new studies late at night or early in the morning.  He
confessed that he was himself becoming a sort of slave.  Writing to
a clerical friend to excuse himself for delay in replying to a
letter, he said, "I profess myself entirely incapable of holding a
literary correspondence.  What little time I have been able to save
from sleep at night, and early in the morning, has been necessarily
employed in the examination of some points of law, which admitted
of no delay, and yet required the most diligent researches and
examination in my study."

Mr. Sharp gave up every leisure moment that he could command during
the next two years, to the close study of the laws of England
affecting personal liberty,--wading through an immense mass of dry
and repulsive literature, and making extracts of all the most
important Acts of Parliament, decisions of the courts, and opinions
of eminent lawyers, as he went along.  In this tedious and
protracted inquiry he had no instructor, nor assistant, nor
adviser.  He could not find a single lawyer whose opinion was
favourable to his undertaking.  The results of his inquiries were,
however, as gratifying to himself, as they were surprising to the
gentlemen of the law.  "God be thanked," he wrote, "there is
nothing in any English law or statute--at least that I am able to
find out--that can justify the enslaving of others."  He had
planted his foot firm, and now he doubted nothing.  He drew up the
result of his studies in a summary form; it was a plain, clear, and
manly statement, entitled, 'On the Injustice of Tolerating Slavery
in England;' and numerous copies, made by himself, were circulated
by him amongst the most eminent lawyers of the time.  Strong's
owner, finding the sort of man he had to deal with, invented
various pretexts for deferring the suit against Sharp, and at
length offered a compromise, which was rejected.  Granville went on
circulating his manuscript tract among the lawyers, until at length
those employed against Jonathan Strong were deterred from
proceeding further, and the result was, that the plaintiff was
compelled to pay treble costs for not bringing forward his action.
The tract was then printed in 1769.

In the mean time other cases occurred of the kidnapping of negroes
in London, and their shipment to the West Indies for sale.
Wherever Sharp could lay hold of any such case, he at once took
proceedings to rescue the negro.  Thus the wife of one Hylas, an
African, was seized, and despatched to Barbadoes; on which Sharp,
in the name of Hylas, instituted legal proceedings against the
aggressor, obtained a verdict with damages, and Hylas's wife was
brought back to England free.

Another forcible capture of a negro, attended with great cruelty,
having occurred in 1770, he immediately set himself on the track of
the aggressors.  An African, named Lewis, was seized one dark night
by two watermen employed by the person who claimed the negro as his
property, dragged into the water, hoisted into a boat, where he was
gagged, and his limbs were tied; and then rowing down river, they
put him on board a ship bound for Jamaica, where he was to be sold
for a slave upon his arrival in the island.  The cries of the poor
negro had, however, attracted the attention of some neighbours; one
of whom proceeded direct to Mr. Granville Sharp, now known as the
negro's friend, and informed him of the outrage.  Sharp immediately
got a warrant to bring back Lewis, and he proceeded to Gravesend,
but on arrival there the ship had sailed for the Downs.  A writ of
Habeas Corpus was obtained, sent down to Spithead, and before the
ship could leave the shores of England the writ was served.  The
slave was found chained to the main-mast bathed in tears, casting
mournful looks on the land from which he was about to be torn.  He
was immediately liberated, brought back to London, and a warrant
was issued against the author of the outrage.  The promptitude of
head, heart, and hand, displayed by Mr. Sharp in this transaction
could scarcely have been surpassed, and yet he accused himself of
slowness.  The case was tried before Lord Mansfield--whose opinion,
it will be remembered, had already been expressed as decidedly
opposed to that entertained by Granville Sharp.  The judge,
however, avoided bringing the question to an issue, or offering any
opinion on the legal question as to the slave's personal liberty or
otherwise, but discharged the negro because the defendant could
bring no evidence that Lewis was even nominally his property.

The question of the personal liberty of the negro in England was
therefore still undecided; but in the mean time Mr. Sharp continued
steady in his benevolent course, and by his indefatigable exertions
and promptitude of action, many more were added to the list of the
rescued.  At length the important case of James Somerset occurred;
a case which is said to have been selected, at the mutual desire of
Lord Mansfield and Mr. Sharp, in order to bring the great question
involved to a clear legal issue.  Somerset had been brought to
England by his master, and left there.  Afterwards his master
sought to apprehend him and send him off to Jamaica, for sale.  Mr.
Sharp, as usual, at once took the negro's case in hand, and
employed counsel to defend him.  Lord Mansfield intimated that the
case was of such general concern, that he should take the opinion
of all the judges upon it.  Mr. Sharp now felt that he would have
to contend with all the force that could be brought against him,
but his resolution was in no wise shaken.  Fortunately for him, in
this severe struggle, his exertions had already begun to tell:
increasing interest was taken in the question, and many eminent
legal gentlemen openly declared themselves to be upon his side.

The cause of personal liberty, now at stake, was fairly tried
before Lord Mansfield, assisted by the three justices,--and tried
on the broad principle of the essential and constitutional right of
every man in England to the liberty of his person, unless forfeited
by the law.  It is unnecessary here to enter into any account of
this great trial; the arguments extended to a great length, the
cause being carried over to another term,--when it was adjourned
and re-adjourned,--but at length judgment was given by Lord
Mansfield, in whose powerful mind so gradual a change had been
worked by the arguments of counsel, based mainly on Granville
Sharp's tract, that he now declared the court to be so clearly of
one opinion, that there was no necessity for referring the case to
the twelve judges.  He then declared that the claim of slavery
never can be supported; that the power claimed never was in use in
England, nor acknowledged by the law; therefore the man James
Somerset must be discharged.  By securing this judgment Granville
Sharp effectually abolished the Slave Trade until then carried on
openly in the streets of Liverpool and London.  But he also firmly
established the glorious axiom, that as soon as any slave sets his
foot on English ground, that moment he becomes free; and there can
be no doubt that this great decision of Lord Mansfield was mainly
owing to Mr. Sharp's firm, resolute, and intrepid prosecution of
the cause from the beginning to the end.

It is unnecessary further to follow the career of Granville Sharp.
He continued to labour indefatigably in all good works.  He was
instrumental in founding the colony of Sierra Leone as an asylum
for rescued negroes.  He laboured to ameliorate the condition of
the native Indians in the American colonies.  He agitated the
enlargement and extension of the political rights of the English
people; and he endeavoured to effect the abolition of the
impressment of seamen.  Granville held that the British seamen, as
well as the African negro, was entitled to the protection of the
law; and that the fact of his choosing a seafaring life did not in
any way cancel his rights and privileges as an Englishman--first
amongst which he ranked personal freedom.  Mr. Sharp also laboured,
but ineffectually, to restore amity between England and her
colonies in America; and when the fratricidal war of the American
Revolution was entered on, his sense of integrity was so scrupulous
that, resolving not in any way to be concerned in so unnatural a
business, he resigned his situation at the Ordnance Office.

To the last he held to the great object of his life--the abolition
of slavery.  To carry on this work, and organize the efforts of the
growing friends of the cause, the Society for the Abolition of
Slavery was founded, and new men, inspired by Sharp's example and
zeal, sprang forward to help him.  His energy became theirs, and
the self-sacrificing zeal in which he had so long laboured single-
handed, became at length transfused into the nation itself.  His
mantle fell upon Clarkson, upon Wilberforce, upon Brougham, and
upon Buxton, who laboured as he had done, with like energy and
stedfastness of purpose, until at length slavery was abolished
throughout the British dominions.  But though the names last
mentioned may be more frequently identified with the triumph of
this great cause, the chief merit unquestionably belongs to
Granville Sharp.  He was encouraged by none of the world's huzzas
when he entered upon his work.  He stood alone, opposed to the
opinion of the ablest lawyers and the most rooted prejudices of the
times; and alone he fought out, by his single exertions, and at his
individual expense, the most memorable battle for the constitution
of this country and the liberties of British subjects, of which
modern times afford a record.  What followed was mainly the
consequence of his indefatigable constancy.  He lighted the torch
which kindled other minds, and it was handed on until the
illumination became complete.

Before the death of Granville Sharp, Clarkson had already turned
his attention to the question of Negro Slavery.  He had even
selected it for the subject of a college Essay; and his mind became
so possessed by it that he could not shake it off.  The spot is
pointed out near Wade's Mill, in Hertfordshire, where, alighting
from his horse one day, he sat down disconsolate on the turf by the
road side, and after long thinking, determined to devote himself
wholly to the work.  He translated his Essay from Latin into
English, added fresh illustrations, and published it.  Then fellow
labourers gathered round him.  The Society for Abolishing the Slave
Trade, unknown to him, had already been formed, and when he heard
of it he joined it.  He sacrificed all his prospects in life to
prosecute this cause.  Wilberforce was selected to lead in
parliament; but upon Clarkson chiefly devolved the labour of
collecting and arranging the immense mass of evidence offered in
support of the abolition.  A remarkable instance of Clarkson's
sleuth-hound sort of perseverance may be mentioned.  The abettors
of slavery, in the course of their defence of the system,
maintained that only such negroes as were captured in battle were
sold as slaves, and if not so sold, then they were reserved for a
still more frightful doom in their own country.  Clarkson knew of
the slave-hunts conducted by the slave-traders, but had no
witnesses to prove it.  Where was one to be found?  Accidentally, a
gentleman whom he met on one of his journeys informed him of a
young sailor, in whose company he had been about a year before, who
had been actually engaged in one of such slave-hunting expeditions.
The gentleman did not know his name, and could but indefinitely
describe his person.  He did not know where he was, further than
that he belonged to a ship of war in ordinary, but at what port he
could not tell.  With this mere glimmering of information, Clarkson
determined to produce this man as a witness.  He visited personally
all the seaport towns where ships in ordinary lay; boarded and
examined every ship without success, until he came to the very LAST
port, and found the young man, his prize, in the very LAST ship
that remained to be visited.  The young man proved to be one of his
most valuable and effective witnesses.

During several years Clarkson conducted a correspondence with
upwards of four hundred persons, travelling more than thirty-five
thousand miles during the same time in search of evidence.  He was
at length disabled and exhausted by illness, brought on by his
continuous exertions; but he was not borne from the field until his
zeal had fully awakened the public mind, and excited the ardent
sympathies of all good men on behalf of the slave.

After years of protracted struggle, the slave trade was abolished.
But still another great achievement remained to be accomplished--
the abolition of slavery itself throughout the British dominions.
And here again determined energy won the day.  Of the leaders in
the cause, none was more distinguished than Fowell Buxton, who took
the position formerly occupied by Wilberforce in the House of
Commons.  Buxton was a dull, heavy boy, distinguished for his
strong self-will, which first exhibited itself in violent,
domineering, and headstrong obstinacy.  His father died when he was
a child; but fortunately he had a wise mother, who trained his will
with great care, constraining him to obey, but encouraging the
habit of deciding and acting for himself in matters which might
safely be left to him.  His mother believed that a strong will,
directed upon worthy objects, was a valuable manly quality if
properly guided, and she acted accordingly.  When others about her
commented on the boy's self-will, she would merely say, "Never
mind--he is self-willed now--you will see it will turn out well in
the end."  Fowell learnt very little at school, and was regarded as
a dunce and an idler.  He got other boys to do his exercises for
him, while he romped and scrambled about.  He returned home at
fifteen, a great, growing, awkward lad, fond only of boating,
shooting, riding, and field sports,--spending his time principally
with the gamekeeper, a man possessed of a good heart,--an
intelligent observer of life and nature, though he could neither
read nor write.  Buxton had excellent raw material in him, but he
wanted culture, training, and development.  At this juncture of his
life, when his habits were being formed for good or evil, he was
happily thrown into the society of the Gurney family, distinguished
for their fine social qualities not less than for their
intellectual culture and public-spirited philanthropy.  This
intercourse with the Gurneys, he used afterwards to say, gave the
colouring to his life.  They encouraged his efforts at self-
culture; and when he went to the University of Dublin and gained
high honours there, the animating passion in his mind, he said,
"was to carry back to them the prizes which they prompted and
enabled me to win."  He married one of the daughters of the family,
and started in life, commencing as a clerk to his uncles Hanbury,
the London brewers.  His power of will, which made him so difficult
to deal with as a boy, now formed the backbone of his character,
and made him most indefatigable and energetic in whatever he
undertook.  He threw his whole strength and bulk right down upon
his work; and the great giant--"Elephant Buxton" they called him,
for he stood some six feet four in height--became one of the most
vigorous and practical of men.  "I could brew," he said, "one
hour,--do mathematics the next,--and shoot the next,--and each with
my whole soul."  There was invincible energy and determination in
whatever he did.  Admitted a partner, he became the active manager
of the concern; and the vast business which he conducted felt his
influence through every fibre, and prospered far beyond its
previous success.  Nor did he allow his mind to lie fallow, for he
gave his evenings diligently to self-culture, studying and
digesting Blackstone, Montesquieu, and solid commentaries on
English law.  His maxims in reading were, "never to begin a book
without finishing it;" "never to consider a book finished until it
is mastered;" and "to study everything with the whole mind."

When only thirty-two, Buxton entered parliament, and at once
assumed that position of influence there, of which every honest,
earnest, well-informed man is secure, who enters that assembly of
the first gentlemen in the world.  The principal question to which
he devoted himself was the complete emancipation of the slaves in
the British colonies.  He himself used to attribute the interest
which he early felt in this question to the influence of Priscilla
Gurney, one of the Earlham family,--a woman of a fine intellect and
warm heart, abounding in illustrious virtues.  When on her
deathbed, in 1821, she repeatedly sent for Buxton, and urged him
"to make the cause of the slaves the great object of his life."
Her last act was to attempt to reiterate the solemn charge, and she
expired in the ineffectual effort.  Buxton never forgot her
counsel; he named one of his daughters after her; and on the day on
which she was married from his house, on the 1st of August, 1834,--
the day of Negro emancipation--after his Priscilla had been
manumitted from her filial service, and left her father's home in
the company of her husband, Buxton sat down and thus wrote to a
friend:  "The bride is just gone; everything has passed off to
admiration; and THERE IS NOT A SLAVE IN THE BRITISH COLONIES!"

Buxton was no genius--not a great intellectual leader nor
discoverer, but mainly an earnest, straightforward, resolute,
energetic man.  Indeed, his whole character is most forcibly
expressed in his own words, which every young man might well stamp
upon his soul:  "The longer I live," said he, "the more I am
certain that the great difference between men, between the feeble
and the powerful, the great and the insignificant, is ENERGY--
INVINCIBLE DETERMINATION--a purpose once fixed, and then death or
victory!  That quality will do anything that can be done in this
world; and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities, will
make a two-legged creature a Man without it."



CHAPTER IX--MEN OF BUSINESS



"Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before
kings."--Proverbs of Solomon.

"That man is but of the lower part of the world that is not brought
up to business and affairs."--Owen Feltham


Hazlitt, in one of his clever essays, represents the man of
business as a mean sort of person put in a go-cart, yoked to a
trade or profession; alleging that all he has to do is, not to go
out of the beaten track, but merely to let his affairs take their
own course.  "The great requisite," he says, "for the prosperous
management of ordinary business is the want of imagination, or of
any ideas but those of custom and interest on the narrowest scale."
{24}  But nothing could be more one-sided, and in effect untrue,
than such a definition.  Of course, there are narrow-minded men of
business, as there are narrow-minded scientific men, literary men,
and legislators; but there are also business men of large and
comprehensive minds, capable of action on the very largest scale.
As Burke said in his speech on the India Bill, he knew statesmen
who were pedlers, and merchants who acted in the spirit of
statesmen.

If we take into account the qualities necessary for the successful
conduct of any important undertaking,--that it requires special
aptitude, promptitude of action on emergencies, capacity for
organizing the labours often of large numbers of men, great tact
and knowledge of human nature, constant self-culture, and growing
experience in the practical affairs of life,--it must, we think, be
obvious that the school of business is by no means so narrow as
some writers would have us believe.  Mr. Helps had gone much nearer
the truth when he said that consummate men of business are as rare
almost as great poets,--rarer, perhaps, than veritable saints and
martyrs.  Indeed, of no other pursuit can it so emphatically be
said, as of this, that "Business makes men."