CLARKSON, THOMAS, was born March 26, 1760, at Wisbeacb, Cambridgeshire, where his father, who was a clergyman, was master of the free grammar school. He was at first educated under his father, and after that was sent to St. Paul's School, London, and thence to St. John's College, Cambridge, where be gained the prize for a Latin dissertation proposed for the middle bachelors. In the following year, 1785, the Vice-Chancellor of the University announced as the subject of a Latin dissertation for the senior bachelors, 'Anne liceat invitos in servitutem dare r (' Is it right to make slaves of others against their The prize was awarded to Clarkson for his essay, which was read with great applause in the Senate House, in June, 1786. He had used much industry in collecting materials for this dissertation, and had become greatly excited by what he bad read of the miseries to which the slaves were subjected in the carrying on of the trade. He resolved to ruse all his efforts to get it suppressed, and in order to do so relinquished his chances of advancement in the church, for which he had been intended, and in which he had taken deacon's orders.
He translated his essay into English, and its publication brought him into connection with a small body of Quakers who hal for several years formed an association for the suppression of the alave-trade, and he was afterwards introduced to Mr. Wilberforce, and other persona of influence. William Penn in 1668 had denounced the trade as cruel, impolitic, and unchristian; in 1727, at a general yearly meeting of the Quakers in London, it was declared "that the importing of negroes is cruel and unjust, and is severely censured by the meeting ;" and in 1760 a similar meeting passed a resolution to exclude from their society all who "participated in any way in that guilty traffic." While Mr. Wilberforce, seconded by a party which gradually increased, repeatedly brought the queation before the House of Commons, Mr. Clarkson was labouring without the walla of parliament, was collecting evidence, writing letters and pamphlets, and attending meetings at Liverpool and Bristol, then the chief centres of the trade, and at Plymouth, Bridgewater, and other places. He even went to Paris, and remained
there six months in the greatest heat of the French revolution, fur nishing Mirabeau with materials for speeches againat the trade, which were delivered before the French Convention, but without producing the desired effect. In England however, after more than twenty years of incessant exertion, the cause was won : a law for the entire abolition of the trade in slaves was passed March 25, 1807, Mr. Wilberforce having first brought the subject before parliament in 1787.
But the exertions of Clarkson and his supporters, who had now become numerous, did not terminate with the suppreasion of the trade in slaves. The struggle was afterwards continued during another twenty years for the total abolition of slavery in the British West India Islands. In 1833 their efforts were again crowned with success, by the passing of the Emancipation Act, which liberated nearly a million of slaves, and awarded twenty millions of pounds sterling as compen sation to their late owners. Decliniog health had prevented Clarkson from appearing in public during the latter years of the movement. Cataract had formed in both his eyes, and for a short time he was quite blind. He underwent an operation which completely restored his sight, and in 1840 he made his last public appearance at a meeting of the Anti-Slavery Convention at Exeter Hall, over which the Duke of Sussex presided. His talents and untiring energy were unanimously acknowledged, and ho was enthusiastically greeted as the patriarch of the cause. He died at his residence, Playford Hall, Sussex, Septem ber 26, 1846, at the age of eight-six.
Besides several pamphlets and other small works, all bearing more or less directly on the one great object to which he had devoted his life, Mr. Clarkson published, in 1806, 'A Portraiture of Quakerism,' 3 vols. 8vo ; in 1808, The History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade,' 2 vols. 8vo; in 1813, Memoirs of the Public and Private Life of William Penn,' 2 vols. 8vo ; and in 1836, 'Researches, Antediluvian, Patriarchal, and Historical; 8vo.
(Thomas Taylor, Biographical Sketch of Thomas Clarkson ; Gentle man's Magazine.)