There were others also, who, though they were not so much impressed by the
considerations mentioned, yet objected to give their public testimony.
Those, whose livelihood, or promotion, or expectations, were dependent upon
the government of the country, were generally backward on these occasions.
Though they thought they discovered in the parliamentary conduct of Mr.
Pitt, a bias in favour of the cause, they knew to a certainty that the Lord
Chancellor Thurlow was against it. They conceived, therefore, that the
administration was at least divided upon the question, and they were
fearful of being called upon lest they should give offence, and thus injure
their prospects in life. This objection was very prevalent in that part of
the kingdom which I had selected for my tour.

The reader can hardly conceive how my mind was agitated and distressed on
these different accounts. To have travelled more than two months, to have
seen many who could have materially served our cause, and to have lost most
of them, was very trying. And though it is true that I applied a remedy, I
was not driven to the adoption of it till I had performed more than half my
tour. Suffice it to say, that after having travelled upwards of sixteen
hundred miles backwards and forwards, and having conversed with forty-seven
persons, who were capable of promoting the cause by their evidence, I could
only prevail upon nine, by all the interest I could make, to be examined.

On my return to London, whither I had been called up by the committee to
take upon me the superintendence of the evidence, which the privy council
was now ready again to hear, I found my brother: he was then a young
officer in the navy; and as I knew he felt as warmly as I did in this great
cause, I prevailed upon him to go to Havre de Grace, the great slave-port
in France, where he might make his observations for two or three months,
and then report what he had seen and heard; so that we might have some one