ABSTRACT
John Baker Holroyd, the first Earl of Sheffield (1735–1821) was one of the leading authorities of his time on commercial and agricultural matters. He had been in the Commons since 1780 and was raised to an Irish peerage as Baron Sheffield of Dunamore in 1781. As an Irish peer he also sat as one of the MPs for the city of Bristol, succeeding Edmund Burke in that capacity, and undertook an active part in desence of the city’s interests in the slave trade. He took an especially prominent role in the opposition to Wilberforce’s motion to abolish the trade in 1791. He was later (1802) raised to a United Kingdom peerage and finally created Earl of Sheffield in 1812. He was also an intimate friend of Edward Gibbon and the editor of his posthumous works. Sheffield argues that abolishing the trade was an impracticable aim and unjust procedure: other nations would take over the British share to the detriment of the nation’s commerce and abolition would be an unwarranted interference in the business and prerogatives of the colonial legislature as well as an attack upon their rights of property. Sheffield maintains that abolition is likely to ‘prejudice our commerce and our shipping, to overset every principle we have hitherto held relative to property, to promote civil commotion, perhaps insurrections, both of whites and blacks’ (p. 4 in original edn). The extract printed here develops Sheffield’s basic points against abolition and argues that the slaves are better off under a regulated British trade, controlled by the colonial legislatures of the West Indies. Sheffield concludes his address with an appeal to prominent abolitionist sympathisers, especially Pitt, to think again about the consequences of their actions.
