Copy of a letter from William Wood, Leeds, to Henry Beaufoy, 9 December 1789.

Dear Sr

         I am much obliged to you for a handsome copy of your fine Speeches on the Corporation & Test Acts, which I received a few days since.  I shall preserve them as a pleasing remembrance of our early friendship, as well as on account of the forcible reasoning & eloquence which they contain on a subject, on which we both entertain the same sentiments tho placed in different situations & moving in very different spheres of action.   I also perfectly agree with you in thinking that moderation & coolness are the most likely means to promote our success; & am happy to find, that agitated as the subject has been in almost every part of the kingdom, a sobriety of temper has been generally preserved which testifies that we are not actuated by any factious views, but depend upon the justice of our cause; & only mean to employ in its support fair and dispassionate argument.  As you express some anxiety with respect to Mr Wilberforce I have taken the liberty to enclose a printed copy of our answer to his letter which contained the reasons of his former vote on this business.  With respect to myself I know not whether I was more surprized or mortified when I first learnt that he was not with us.  I had always till then considered him as an enlightened friend to civil & religious liberty.  As such I cordially wished him success when he proposed himself as a candidate for this County & did every thing in my power to promote it.  Many of my brethren had entertained the same opinion of him & were equally hurt with myself at his taking a part which we could not reconcile with any liberal views either of civil policy or mental freedom.  We were still more hurt when we learnt from himself, that he opposed us not so much because he thought the professed object of our application unreasonable as because he dreaded its consequences & apprehended that we meditated a farther attack upon the established church.  This had been so uniformly disclaimed by ourselves & by the Dissenters in general & had been so clearly stated in your admirable speech preparatory to the motion that we could not avoid considering the intimation as no very indirect impeachment of  our veracity, & had we expressed our first feelings, it would have been in the language of indignation.  But as we wished to convince & not to irritate, we unanimously resolved to suppress every emotion of that kind, & to combat Mr Wilberforces reasons only with serious argument.  We meant to avoid every thing which might appear personal, but at the same time we wished to be firm, & to shew how far in our apprehension Mr Wilberforces avowed principles, if pursued to their natural consequence, will extend.  How far we have succeeded you yourself will judge.  We intended no disrespect to Mr Wilberforce & have no reason to suppose that he considers it in that light.  What general effect may be produced on the minds of the Yorkshire Dissenters by another vote against or by absence from the house when the question is again debated, it is impossible for an individual to determine.  Hitherto no unfavourable relations have been formed with respect to Mr Wilberforce; we consider the matter as adhue sub judice, & patiently wait his leisure for the farther discussion of the subject when we shall attend to his reasoning, with the same candour as we wish him to attend to ours.   I remain   &c

[In A Brief Memoir of the Rev. Thomas Langdon, Baptist Minister, of Leeds (London, 1837), p. 151, is a letter from Wilberforce to Langdon, dated 23 February 1792, which reveals that at least Langdon, despite no doubt his indignation at Wilberforce’s dismissal of the Dissenter’s claim on the repeal issue and his voting against the petition, nevertheless did continue to support Wilberforce in his fight to end the slave-trade.  Wilberforce’s slave-trade bill would come before Parliament again in early April 1792, and a motion for the “gradual” abolition of the slave-trade was passed by a vote of 238 to 85.  On 23 April Parliament voted 151 to 132 to begin the date of gradual abolition on 1 January 1796.  Wilberforce writes,

Sir,

      Particular business, which carried me from my own house, has prevented till this evening my having  my letters read to me, which arrived by yesterday’s post.  Your obliging favour calls for an immediate answer.

        I shall seize the first leisure half hour for the perusal of your Circular Letter: meanwhile, I beg you to believe that I feel in their full force your assurances of the approbation of yourself and your associates.  It is indeed a matter of unspeakable joy to me, to find the great cause in which I am so much interested, thus triumphing over all lesser differences; and I trust that, through the divine blessing, our united and persevering efforts will finally be crowned with success. . . .

February 23rd, 1792.]

Text: Text Acts Papers, no. 31, Unitarian Collection, UCC 3/6/6, John Rylands University Library of Manchester. Numerous corrections have been made on this letter, most likely a first draft.