Given that background Stephen was in no position to chide Carlyle if indeed he might wish to. Though expressed in brutal terms was Carlyle that far from what Wilberforce was obliged to accept in Sierra Leone? A sketch of that tangled history from a source likely to offer a charitable reading:
Sierra Leone Company
A Guardian review of a book on the Clapham Sect by Stephen Tomkins is, guess what, harsher:
wiberforce condoned slavery
Addendum:
William Wilberforce was influenced by the same escape clause which colonizers often offer as an excuse - ‘We are in principle in favour of independence/freedom for X, Y, Z countries but we feel that they are not ready for it yet. Our duty of care does not permit us to simply throw them into an unfamiliar state of freedom. It would lead to chaos.
Later in the same year (1816) he began publicly to denounce slavery itself, though he did not demand immediate emancipation, as "They had always thought the slaves incapable of liberty at present, but hoped that by degrees a change might take place as the natural result of the abolition."
(from Wikipedia Entry on William Wilberforce:wilberforce
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