William Wilberforce had spent nine years fighting to end the British slave trade. On March 15, 1796, his bill finally looked like it might pass. But his opponents handed out free tickets to a popular opera premiere that same night. Several lukewarm supporters went to the show, and the bill lost 74 to 70. Wilberforce wrote in his diary that enough were at the opera to have carried it. Crushed and ill, he thought about quitting. Then old John Newton wrote to him, reminding him that though he could not do all the good he wished, some good was done, and that he had not labored in vain. Wilberforce kept going. In 1807 Parliament abolished the slave trade.
