PITT, William, the Younger.

£8,500 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Autograph letter signed ("W Pitt") to William Eden, 1st Baron Auckland. Autograph letter signed by Pitt the Younger as prime minister to his close advisor William Eden, at the height of Eden's influence as envoy to France, in which Pitt attempts to gauge potential French support for the early Abolitionist movement spearheaded by his friend and political ally William Wilberforce, and the prospect of a joint Anglo-French abolition of the trade."You have had a letter from my friend Wilberforce, on a scheme which may appear to some people chimerical but which I really believe may with proper management be made practicable. If it can, I am sure it is an object well worth attending to and perhaps you may be able to learn the private sentiments of the French Government upon it... to Judge whether it can be carried further. I mean the idea of the two nations agreeing to discontinue the villainous traffic now carried on in Africa".1787 saw the foundation of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and was also the year in which Wilberforce took political leadership of the Abolition movement. There is no evidence that any overtures Eden made to France for a joint anti-slave trade approach made any impression - had this letter achieved its aim, the history of transantlantic slavery would have been vastly different. Although Pitt's support for the movement to abolish slavery was unflagging throughout his tenure as prime minister, the eventual abolition of the trade would not occ

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