WILBERFORCE AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES:
HENRY THORNTON. (PART II.)

In noticing the private life of Henry Thornton, we cannot omit the influence which Wilberforce exercised over his character. The acquaintance which had sprung up between them under John Thornton's roof had produced on the discerning mind of the younger man a strong impression. He saw that Wilberforce was in his religious convictions thoroughly sincere; that his conduct was directed by his convictions, and that his character grew with a rapid progress to a higher and purer elevation. These signs greatly struck this honest and watchful observer. Suspicious himself of professions, and bringing principles to the test of actions, he saw that in this case religion was a reality and a moral power. "When I entered life," he says, "I saw a great deal of dishonourable conduct among people who made great professions of religion. In my father's house I met with persons of this sort. This so disgusted me, that, had it not been for the admirable pattern of consistency and disinterestedness which I saw in Mr. Wilberforce, I should have been in danger of a sort of infidelity.".

Entering Parliament soon after this time, plunged into the engagements of a large borough, immersed in City business, Henry Thornton had little time for idle leisure. But when he noticed Wilberforce's habits, his resolution, in spite of weak health and indifferent eyesight, to consecrate a fixed portion of each day to religious thought; to do his public work well and manfully, but, whatever was his work, to reserve an unbroken morning hour for religion, and an inviolate Sabbath, he was greatly impressed. He saw also-for Wilberforce was careful to introduce him to his friends-men engaged in active business, yet in the midst of their engagements finding time for

calm reflection: this confirmed the impression. "I owed much to Wilberforce," he says, "in every sense, soon after I came out in life, for his enlarged mind, his affectionate and condescending manners, and his very superior piety, were exactly calculated to supply what was wanting to my improvement and my establishment in a right course. It is chiefly through him that I have been introduced to a variety of other most valuable associates." (Life i. 374.) Wilberforce used to carry him to attend his favourite preachers in London, Newton and Scott, between whom and Henry Thornton a pleasant inter

course arose.

On his father's death, in 1792, Henry Thornton had to seek a home, and he persuaded Wilberforce to share it with him. He purchased Mr. Lubbock's house and grounds at Battersea Rise, to which an extensive demesne was attached. Reserving for himself one house, which he enlarged, he built two other houses on his demesne, one of which, the nearest, he let to Mr. Grant; the other, separated by shrubberies that melted into each other, became, under the name of Broomfield, the residence, first of Pitt's brother-in-law, Eliot; in later days, of Wilberforce. In this villa Pitt used to spend some of his brief holidays, and in his intercourse with the two friends he planned the Thornton Library, which has received so many pleasant groups of genial friends. Here, after his brief estrangement from Wilberforce, Pitt met him once more, through Eliot's friendly artifice, and resumed the close intercourse which was only interrupted by death. In this centre villa the two friends led a bachelor life, and spent all the leisure they could snatch-the one, from his house in Palace Yard, and its whirl of multifarious guests; Henry Thornton, from King's Arms Yard, in the heart of the City, where he passed his working days. Here they took counsel with Eliot and Grant on questions of philanthropy or politics; on the infant colony of Sierra Leone (see Life i. 122); on the resolution passed in the House of Commons on India in 1793; on the varying fortunes of the AntiSlavery warfare; who could speak, who could write, who could arrange and organize petitions. Some milder interests occupied their minds. In 1789, when both the friends, then in delicate health, resorted to the Bath waters, a visit made by Wilberforce to Cowslip Green, where Hannah More "had shut herself up in the country, to devote her talents," writes Wilberforce," to the instruction of a set of wretched people, sunk in heathen darkness," led to an enterprise of benevolence which long engaged both the friends. At this time Wilberforce visited the sisters in their cottage, and being sent by them to inspect the Cliffs of Cheddar, his compassionate heart was touched by the savage degradation of that neglected people. He engaged, if Hannah More would undertake the trouble of

In

reclaiming them, that he would bear the cost; and any calls for money he would readily meet, "for," he writes, "I have a rich banker in London, Mr. H. Thornton, whom I cannot oblige so much as by drawing on him for purposes like these." In 1791, when the two friends were again at Bath, Henry Thornton accompanied Wilberforce to Cowslip Green, and thus began that intimate friendship between Hannah More and Henry Thornton which lasted through their lives, and grew closer after Thornton's marriage, when other ties arose to cement it. In 1794 Hannah More visited the two friends at Battersea Rise. She writes to her sister of the care taken of her "by the two masters," the carriages placed at her disposal, the hospitality, society, and pleasant converse. By this time she had learned to value her new friend. Wilberforce, indeed, had early told her what sort of person he was. 1789 he had written of him "as a most excellent, upright, pure, and generous young man." He had chosen him as his "pleasant companion," when he settled in a villa near Bath, and had dwelt on the rational and agreeable life which they led together, retirement mixed with study, greatly relished "after the bustle to which they had been so long condemned." But Hannah More soon learned for herself what sort of man Henry Thornton was. She had found his purse open to her in all her difficulties; and, better than his purse, his counsels. Trials had fallen on her and her sister in their benevolent labours: threats of prosecution, calumnious charges, raised by obstinate prejudice and envenomed jealousy; the rancorous bitterness of the rich proving more odious than the boorish apathy of the poor. So, when these things came upon her, she poured forth her story to her thoughtful friend. And no matter how busy the story found him-busy at his bank, in parliament, on committees, busy with his colony, helping Wilberforce on abolition (1793), or assisting him to make up his mind on the question of peace with France (1794)-he was never too busy to send advice to her. Take a specimen, written some years after, in 1798, but applicable to previous years: -"Your sister Patty has seldom been more entirely out in her judgment than when she said you would tire us with your school stories. After pondering over the wars in Ireland and Egypt, it is a relief to turn ones eyes to Cheddar and to Wedmore, and to hear of the conflicts you are sustaining with the Arabs of your region." No matter what the subject, he is ready. She is publishing a series of Tracts, half political, half religious: he reviews, retouches, and prints them. He writes some himself. "While we are taking down a dull evidence," he writes from the Finance Committee, "I seize a few minutes to write to you on the subject of Tracts. I have to tell you that I thought it right to prepare a Tract to be included in the

printed volume." Again: "I have some thoughts of writing the second part of the Communion Tract, another of prayers for families, and one for Christmas-day." (MS. Letter, 1797-8.)

Wilberforce is preparing his book; Henry Thornton must revise it. Bachelors in these days they were; but such a life of toil. Take as a specimen what he did in the construction of his African colony. The colony had been engaging his thoughts and time with unwearied labour. He writes to Mr. Babington, Nov. 16, 1791:-"The colony works me from morning till night; the importance of the thing strikes me, and fills my mind so much that at present business, politics, friendship seem all suspended for the sake of it." "Henry Thornton has been at it," writes Wilberforce, "the whole day for some months." Thornton writes to Babington that he hopes to escape from London as soon as the ship, freighted with colonists, has sailed. But that was only to be a change of work. For he was to engage "in preparing, in a retreat from this bustle, the laws and constitution of Sierra Leone." He draws up elaborate instructions, which he sends to Mr. Babington, for the direction of Zachary Macaulay, who was about to sail as second in command; and in his letter he refers to one of fifteen sheets which he had written and sent off to Mr. Clarkson.

These solitary labours are interspersed with others in which he must summon the Directors to his help. How severe these labours were, Mr. Wilberforce's journal shows:

"Oct. 13th. At Sierra Leone business till four o'clock, and again till past eleven at night. 14th. Sierra Leone business. 17th. Grant dined with us at H. Thornton's, and we discussed Sierra Leone. 18th. Meeting of Directors at H. Thornton's; dined there together, and at evening till late. 19th. Public meeting of directors at King's Head. 20th. Directors at H. Thornton's all morning." From this strain Wilberforce, worn at last, fled to the rural retreat of Yoxall Lodge. There he enjoyed some weeks of delightful rest. Not so his unwearied friend: no rest for him. At length he and Grant start for Gisborne's house. "At night Henry Thornton and Grant came in suddenly." They lay the case before their friends, and their voice is that they must all return to town. So back to the oar, and they ply it hard for a fortnight. "A fortnight at Henry Thornton's, in King's Arms Yard." Leisure seems unknown to them. They may be living at Battersea Rise; but the one friend is all day in the City, and Wilberforce in his study or at his books. "Dec. 26, 1794. Much political talk with Grant and Henry Thornton, making up my mind." 27th. Much again in political talk. "29th. To town, dined Palace Yard." Again a cabinet of friends on the question, should Wilberforce go to Yorkshire? "July, 1795. Grant and

"Consultation

Henry Thornton at breakfast, when we discussed what we ought to do." On the return from Yorkshire, the intercourse with Pitt is renewed, his line of policy explained to Wilberforce; on this he hastens for advice to Henry Thornton. Are the difficulties of the Empire over? Other difficulties begin. The case of Mr. Venn. Still the same pair of friends. Consultation and counsel. (Life ii. 136.) 1796. A cloud of political questions arises; the case of Lafayette; the prospects of the war. East India missions: still the eager philanthropist turns to his thoughtful friend. "Amended the motion, strengthened by Henry Thornton's advice and concurrence." on East India missions: discussing all evening." "Politics: Battersea Rise all day." "Talking politics with Henry Thornton." Are Church of England missions desirable? Should there be a new Society to undertake them? The idea is started in 1797, is matured in 1800. Simeon and Venn and others must be consulted; but always Henry Thornton. (1797.) "To town, and back to dine at Henry Thornton's, where Simeon and Grant, to talk over Mission scheme." (Life ii. 225.) Yet, in all this hurricane of work which the busy mind of Wilberforce stirs up round him, his patient friend toils on undisturbed in the circle of his own peculiar calling. He writes to Macaulay in his African exile, to help, to guide, to cheer him; he assists him when overwhelmed by disaster; he replaces with infinite pains what war and havoc have destroyed; he sends out fresh supplies of money, provisions, and men; he receives him when driven back sick; he encourages him to resume his work; he sends him to inspect English schools as models for schools on African soil; he confers with Eliot and Grant and Wilberforce, " dining early at three, that they might give a long evening to Sierra Leone."

At length on this busy life comes a welcome change-a streak of sunlight breaks to gild the dusky horizon. In one of the rare intervals of that bachelor leisure, when he was seeking health on the muirs of Buxton, a vision had crossed the path of the toiling man. He had put it from him, and had come back solitary to London. But now it met him once more. A dream hardly dwelt upon formerly, but dismissed as a passing fancy, was now to turn itself into a reality, and become his comfort and stay. But to explain this we leave St. Stephen's and the bankinghouse, and repair to the North, away from the sunny slopes of Clapham to the blustering shores of the Humber.

Nine miles from Hull there lived, during the last century, a merchant of note, Mr. Sykes. He was in the trade which engaged John Thornton, the Baltic trade; and in the same branch was another shrewd and successful merchant, William Wilberforce, grandfather of the philanthropist. When the old Wilberforce died, Mr. and Mrs. Sykes, who were friends of his widowed mother,