On quitting Parliament, Mr. Buxton had looked forward to a period of repose; but this expectation was not realized. Even before that time, an idea had suggested itself to his mind, the development of which proved more than sufficient occupation for all his remaining years.

“I well remember,” writes one of his sons, “the commencement of that long train of toils, anxieties, and sorrows. While my father and I were staying at Earlham, in the beginning of the summer of 1837, he walked into my room one morning, at an early hour, and sitting down on my bedside, told me that he had been lying awake the whole night, reflecting on the subject of the Slave Trade, and that he believed he had hit upon the true remedy for that portentous evil.”

Two years before this time, he had moved an address for making our treaties on this subject with foreign powers more stringent, and the penalties of the crime more severe. The idea that now struck him so forcibly, was this,—that “Though strong external measures ought still to be resorted to, the deliverance of Africa was to be effected, by calling out her own resources.”

For some months he was compelled to defer the following up of this new train of thought; but on reaching home at the fall of the year, he addressed himself to the pursuit with all his heart and mind, and never was his character shown more clearly than in his conduct of this great affair.