 The family counting house Hibbert, Purrier and Horton was extensively involved in the shipping and distribution of slave-produced goods, particularly sugar from Jamaica.As a result, (and also perhaps influenced by his wife's family connections to Huguenot Peter Isaac Thellusson, whose uncle, Sir Ralph Woodford, Governor of Trinidad, was a leading exponent of "free labour" from the East Indies), Hibbert became a leading member of the pro-slavery lobby, and acted as chairman of the Society of West India Merchants.Shortly after William Wilberforce first raised the abolition of slavery in Parliament in May 1789, Hibbert spoke at a meeting of merchants at the London Tavern, seeking to demolish Wilberforce's speech with a 40-minute address entitled 'The Slave Trade Indispensable...'.