"Bury the Chains" Chapter 11 Summary

Chapter 11 of Adam Hochschild's Bury the Chains begins by finishing the story of King George III, started in Chapter 9. After months of being ill, he recovers and Parliament is resumed. So William Wilberforce now has the task of addressing the issue of slavery in the 1789 session of Parliament, and thus began the hearings of the Privy Council. As abolitionists presented the plethora of evidence they had against slavery, people who believed in slavery had an explanation for everything. When the Privy Council took a break, Clarkson rode 1600 miles in two months, searching for more witnesses. In the city of Plymouth, he met up with Equiano, who created a diagram of the slave ship Brookes, fully loaded with slaves. Clarkson, James Phillips and other committee members expanded the diagram to include 482 slaves, even though the Brookes normally travelled with 609 to 740 slaves. When the last witness was finished with his testimony, John Arnold, the doctor Clarkson had make a diary of what was happening while he was on a slave ship, returned from his voyage and was ready to present his findings. James Stephen returns to London in 1789 and met up with Wilberforce, only to leave London a few months later, to return to the West Indies, where he secretly begins sending committee information. After Wilberforce gives a 3.5 hour speech in Parliament, Parliament decides that the issue must be debated in the House. Wilberforce works with Ramsay, who dies in 1789. Molyneux wrote to his son that he had killed Ramsay.