In the meantime, and unable to answer the question to his own satisfaction, he concentrated on his journalistic career. The losses to English merchants, owing to the collapse of trade around the globe, was the story of the season, and Gibson frequently attended Parliament, which was also much taken up with the unrest in Manchester, where over one thousand stocking looms had been smashed by bands of angry unemployed weavers.
He was in the public gallery, watching the debate late one afternoon, when another spectator quietly applied to him. “Sir, pardon me, but are you familiar with the persons in the House?” Gibson turned to behold a man of middle years holding a pair of opera glasses over his long, aquiline nose.
“I cannot name every member of the House, sir,” Gibson returned. “But there you may see the Prime Minister, just leaving the chamber, and there is the Home Secretary.”
“Aha. I am obliged to you, sir.” The stranger then moved along and Gibson heard him repeat the same question to others in the gallery.
The debate on the house floor devolved into a dreary going-over of accounts, and Gibson, always bored by money matters, could not attend to it. He decided to go in search of Lord Delingpole, who was a reliably candid source of information for the behind-the-scenes struggles of the Tory government.
He found the earl in a passageway, disputing vigorously but with good humour with some other peers, but upon spying Gibson, Delingpole broke off and grabbed his arm, dragging him along the corridor, and pushing against the tide of men who were leaving the house chambers to return to their meeting rooms.
“Gibson, you scoundrel! I’ve been told you are writing for the Edinburgh Review now! Why are you scribbling for a Whig publication! Are you for sale to the highest bidder? Shall we see your name listed in the next directory of the Covent Garden filles de joie? “Tall, fine figure, brown haired, good teeth, enjoys saucy repartee?”
Gibson repressed the urge to retort that the appellation bestowed upon him by Lord Delingpole might more accurately be applied to politicians, and said only, “Your Lordship, I have never claimed allegiance to either Tory or Whig, only to the cause of abolition, which happily has distinguished adherents on both sides. I was asked to write a refutation of a recent publication which defended the practise of slavery.”
“Well then, well then. How was your trip to Portsmouth?”
“When it wasn’t tedious, it was horrible.”
“Yes. I shan’t forget the poor old First Lord, with tears in his eyes, unfolding the matter in the House.”
“Having been on service in Africa, and having been faced with the prospect of dying far from home, I too was particularly affected by the unhappy fate of our sailors in the Baltic.”
“But... do you agree with the verdict of the courts-martial that the tragedy did not come about by any negligence or error on the part of the Navy? Your article will not be critical of the administration, I presume?”
“The fleet was advised that no one should attempt the voyage after the first of November, and the convoy set out almost three weeks after the deadline. I shall report the Navy verdict: the capsizing of the ships in winter storms was an act of god.”
“You are well aware, I am sure, the delay was occasioned not by the Navy, but by the merchant ships they were escorting.”
“So the god in question is Mammon.”
“Very well. You may stay with me, for here comes the prime minister, and if you can keep a civil tongue in your head I will present you.”
Gibson had barely time to express his thanks when a slender man of middle age, dressed all in black, paused to greet Lord Delingpole. Gibson had seen the prime minister from the gallery on numerous occasions, but he was inwardly surprised upon meeting him in the flesh. Most political leaders, like Lord Castlereagh or Lord Delingpole, commanded whatever room they entered. Heads turned, conversations paused. By contrast, Spencer Perceval was quiet and unobtrusive, and had Gibson not known he was, in fact, the prime minister, he might have taken him for a minor functionary about the House of Commons.
“Mr. Perceval, may I present to your notice the writer, William Gibson, the author of Amongst the Slavers.” Gibson straightened up from his profound bow and realized that he towered over the diminutive prime minister. Gibson was also struck by the man’s pallor—his skin was nearly translucent—but he wore a serene expression. The weight of his responsibilities must be crushing, Gibson thought to himself. The nation was in its eighteenth year of war with the French, the national debt was fathomless, and the population was dangerously restless—how did the man maintain such an appearance of tranquillity?
“I am most gratified to meet you, Mr. Gibson. I have read your account of your adventures in Africa with the greatest avidity. The portraits you painted of the sufferings of the unhappy Africans cannot fail to sway opinion in favour of the abolitionist cause.”
“Sir, you do me great honour.”
The prime minister raised his voice, so that it echoed all along the corridor: “We will continue to prosecute the war against slavery, if I may so term it, with unremitting zeal. The trade embargoes, we trust, shall not only fatally wound the French adventurer but put a stop to the commerce in human souls.”
Satisfied, Perceval allowed Lord Delingpole to take his elbow and steer him away from the others, while Gibson followed.
“The upcoming debate is a critical one, sir,” Delingpole said quietly. “The Whigs have public opinion with them. The problem is—how to persuade our own men to vote against the best
