Amazing Grace

Go on! Go on, you lazy nag!

Stop a moment!

Go on!

Go on!

Wilber.

Wilber, you're not well enough.

For once, let it pass.

If you leave your horse alone

for an hour, he might recover.

And who the hell are you?

Hey.

I've seen him speak in London.

That's William Wilberforce.

- Now what?

- Leave it.

- Welcome home, sir.

- You're so late!

The mud stole half a day.

But Marianne, look.

I have a surprise for you.

- I hope a pleasant one.

- Wilber. Wilber, is that you?

Oh, it is, half of me. My idiotic

body is playing games with me again.

- I promised we'd make him well.

- Eat something.

Breakfast, perhaps.

Not too early. I'm on holiday.

Isn't that right, cousin Henry?

Don't you talk to each other?

Haven't you told him he's killing himself?

Now he's with us, he'll be fine.

What time is it?

This is your 3 a.m. dose.

So, cousin, you're waking me up

to give me medicine to help me sleep.

Ah. Now you're taking on the medical

profession, as well as everyone else.

Did you sleep?

Sleep is more exhausting than being awake.

The laudanum will sharpen your dreams.

It replays my life to mock me and shows

me things I should have done but didn't.

Wilber, Parliament doesn't deserve you.

Your last bill was defeated because

four of your loyal supporters

took free tickets to a comic opera '

rather than stay to vote.

In my dreams,

I turned over their tables.

But you know the worst thing?

I can't sing any more.

You remember how well I used to sing?

Marianne and I will find a way

to restore your voice.

The Romans believed this water

would restore the dead to life.

Most pump water I've investigated

works in the opposite direction.

So?

- What was so urgent?

- Did I say it was urgent?

Marianne, are you expecting someone else?

Inside this building, you will find

the secret of health and happy life.

In a glass of water?

You may have noticed,

since I married Marianne,

I have been a picture of health.

- I'm very happy for you.

- It is almost a scientific fact.

Marriage and health are twins.

Inseparable.

Single men wither away and die

in rooms that smell of feet and armpits.

Henry, what are you babbling on about?

Love, Wilberforce.

Come. Come, we're late.

The water has been here a million years.

How can we be late?

- So, what shall we discuss next?

- I don't know.

The abolition of the slave trade.

How about that?

Marianne, if I'd known you were so

starved of political conversation,

I'd have wrapped up a Tory and

sent him to your home by mail

for you to shout at.

Ah, now, look at that.

Here we are discussing the

abolition of the slave trade

and in walks my husband with

William Wilberforce himself,

the most committed abolitionist

in England and also, of course,

the most unmarried.

Oh. Look over there. It's Marianne.

And who's the charming-looking

woman with her?

- Marianne's here?

- Never mind about her.

Look at the woman she's with.

Barbara Spooner.

Very committed to very many good causes.

And also entirely unmarried.

Marianne, you're outrageous!

I do not need you or anyone else

to find a wife for me!

Carriage! Carriage over here.

- I'll never forgive him.

- I'll never forgive her.

However, Mr Wilberforce,

if we had met in other circumstances,

I would have told you how deeply

I admire your tireless efforts

to force our ridiculous Parliament

to abolish the slave trade.

If you had, I would have changed

the subject and talked about botany.

Botany? Why botany?

Anything but politics.

I'm in Bath to be cured of politics.

Well, I would have been bored by botany.

So, even in other circumstances,

it would have been a disaster.

- Good day to you.

- Good day to you.

Some simple truths about this horrendous war

need to be restated for the

benefit of my honourable friends.

Simple fact. We have the rebels

on the anvil and a hammer in our hands.

There is no question that our military force

is far superior to that of the Americans.

But we must distinguish

between force and justice.

Where did this terrier spring from?

I believe he's a Yorkshire terrier, My Lord.

...rather than able statesmen.

Surely it is time for the fat

fellow and his friends opposite

to make way for others who

consider the good of their country

of greater moment than their own personal interests.

Doesn't he know what dangers await

anyone who talks sense in this place?

Oh, I think he's equal to the dangers.

My honourable friend suggests

we surrender to the revolutionaries.

Revolution is like a pox.

It spreads from person to person.

I bow to my honourable friend's

superior knowledge and experience

in all matters regarding the pox.

Why would we withdraw from America

when half of the Americans are loyal to the Crown?

Less than one in four Americans are loyal.

If he calls that half,

I'd hate to be his wife and share half his bed.

Mr Foreign Secretary.

My honourable and young friend

should explain to the House

the difference between appeasement

and surrender.

Hear, hear!

The difference between appeasement and

surrender is merely a matter of time

and perhaps 10,000 more young lives

wasted for no reason.

Go on.

Two guineas.

Sweet Prospero, why hast thou forsaken me?

Brave in the House, but at the table a mouse.

Your Grace, you know these merchant

boys are richer than we are.

Aye. I have ten guineas left.

So ten it is.

In or out, Wilberforce?

- A pencil and paper.

- No, no, no.

Brooks's Club house rules. No IOUs.

Amongst gentlemen, perhaps,

but Wilberforce is a tradesman.

You gamble with what you have with you.

Wilberforce, will you take my IOU?

- We split the pot and call it evens.

- To hell with that. Payment in kind.

There's nothing you have I'd want, Your Grace.

Tarleton, fetch my n*gger.

My coach driver.

Go and wake him up and bring him in now.

I bought a n*gger in Port of Spain.

He eats better than I do, so he's strong as an ox.

He'd fetch at least 25 guineas at the West India Dock.

The game is over.

What's wrong, Wilberforce?

If I hadn't brought the boy to London,

he'd have been worked to

death in a sugar cane field.

I saved his miserable life. There.

I raise the stakes.

Wilberforce? In the game or out?

Evening.

You act as if you'd never seen slavery before.

For me it's like arsenic.

Each new tiny dose doubles the effect.

- You're not afraid of Clarence.

- Because he's the son of the king?

So, you want

- "bloody noses and cracked crowns"?

- Shakespeare, Henry IV.

- A play about England changing.

- As it will soon change.- Only if we change it.

You don't believe you and I could change things?

I would change myself first.

Do you remember, Billy, at Cambridge

I had a reputation as something of a singer?

I do remember.

So I think I'm going to go and sing them a song.

Silence!

Silence!

You sound like a chorus of bloody tomcats.

Now, let me introduce you to

somebody who does it properly.

I dedicate this song to my honourable friend,

His Grace, the Duke of Clarence.

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