Amazing Grace

• He had talked with sailors who crewed on the ships.



• He had interviewed witnesses who spoke of the crimes.



• He had held in his hands the cruel restraints.



• He had heard from passengers who'd barely survived.

Wilberforce had the evidence, alright. But Britain's slave trade was legal, so the crimes weren't crimes and the wrongs weren't punishable. As one hundred thousand Africans were wrenched from their homes every year - to become "owned" by foreigners - people in the slave-trading business could ignore their plight because Parliament allowed it.

With extraordinary dedication, however, the Cambridge University essayist (Clarkson) and Parliament's youngest member (Wilberforce) staked out a new path. Their journey, to illegalize Britain's slave trade, would take twenty years.