2-949-851 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Autographed letter from 'Thomas Clarkson the slave abolitionist addressed to James Phillips Esq', 1796-02-21. British anti-slavery campaigner Thomas Clarkson writes to his colleague and fellow abolitionist James Phillips, a Quaker printer who produced much of the abolitionist literature of the time. '...I was extremely glad to find that [William] Wilberforce had carried his Motion in the subject of the Slave Trade...I have desired him also to see you because I am sure that if your were consulted, you could render essential service to the Bill. I have also stated to him the idea of calling a Committee on the Occasion. Who so proper to aid him as our Committee? Who so proper to know of every thing that is [illegible] on this great subject. What collective Body of men know so much of the subject. It is impossible to say to what this vote of the H[ouse] of Commons may lead...'.