confined to one gloomy and heart-breaking subject for months. It had no
respite, and my health began now materially to suffer.

But the contents of these letters were particularly grievous, on account of
the severe labours which they necessarily entailed upon me in other ways
than those which have been mentioned. It was my duty, while the privy
council examinations went on, not only to attend to all the evidence which
was presented to us by our correspondents, but to find out and select the
best. The happiness of millions depended upon it. Hence I was often obliged
to travel during these examinations, in order to converse with those who
had been pointed out to us as capable of giving their testimony; and, that
no time might be lost, to do this in the night. More than two hundred miles
in a week were sometimes passed over on these occasions.

The disappointments too, which I frequently experienced in these journeys,
increased the poignancy of the suffering, which arose from a contemplation
of the melancholy cases which I had thus travelled to bring forward to the
public view. The reader at present can have no idea of these. I have been
sixty miles to visit a person, of whom I had heard, not only as possessing
important knowledge, but as espousing our opinions on this subject. I have
at length seen him. He has applauded my pursuit at our first interview. He
has told me, in the course of our conversation, that neither my own pen,
nor that of any other man, could describe adequately the horrors of the
Slave-trade, horrors which he himself had witnessed. He has exhorted me to
perseverance in this noble cause. Could I have wished for a more favourable
reception?--But mark the issue. He was the nearest relation of a rich
person concerned in the traffic; and if he were to come forward with his
evidence publicly, he should ruin all his expectations from that quarter.
In the same week I have visited another at a still greater distance. I have
met with similar applause. I have heard him describe scenes of misery which