Amazing Grace

- Get up! - Up!

Get up!

Come on, you lazy nag!

Stop a moment!

Go on!

Go on!

Wilber...

wilber, you're not well enough.

Go on, you lazy draggard!

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?

Ah, it is. Half of me.

My idiotic body's playing games with me again.

I promised we'd make him well.

You must come and eat something.

A breakfast, perhaps. Not too early. I'm on holiday.

Isn't that right, cousin Henry?

Don't you boys 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 3:00 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 anymore.

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, wilber,

since I married marianne, I have been a picture of health.

I'm very happy for you.

It is, uh... 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 in the middle of 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.

And 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 honorable 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 little bloody terrier spring from?

I believe he's a Yorkshire terrier, my lord.

Madmen 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.

Mmm.

My honorable friend suggests we surrender

to the revolutionaries.

Revolution is like a pox...

it spreads from person to person.

I bow to my honorable 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.

Perhaps my honorable 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.

Two guineas.

Ah, sweet prospero, why hast thou forsaken me?

Ah.

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 10 guineas left.

So 10 it is.

In or out, Wilberforce?

A pencil and paper.

No, no, no.

Brook's club house rules... no I.O.U.S.

Amongst gentlemen, perhaps.

But Wilberforce is a tradesman.

You gamble with what you have with you.

Wilberforce, will you take my I.O.U.?

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 nigger.

My coach driver... go wake him up

and bring him in now!

I bought a nigger 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 by now.

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 the fourth.

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?