The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade | Page 3

rejoiced to do it. But I found it
otherwise, and this frequently to my sorrow. There was an aversion in
persons to appear before such a tribunal as they conceived the privy

council to be. With men of shy or timid character this operated as an
insuperable barrier in their way. But it operated more or less upon all. It
was surprising to see what little circumstances affected many. When I
took out my pen and ink to put down the information, which a person
was giving me, he became evidently embarrassed and frightened. He
began to excuse himself from staying, by alleging that he had nothing
more to communicate, and he took himself away as quickly as he could
with decency. The sight of the pen and ink had lost me so many good
evidences, that I was obliged wholly to abandon the use of them, and to
betake myself to other means. I was obliged for the future to commit
my tables of questions to memory, and endeavour by practice to put
down, after the examination of a person, such answers as he had given
me to each of them.
Others went off because it happened that immediately on my interview,
I acquainted them with the nature of my errand, and solicited their
attendance in London. Conceiving that I had no right to ask them such
a favour, or terrified at the abruptness and apparent awfulness of my
request, some of them gave me an immediate denial, which they would
never afterwards retract. I began to perceive in time that it was only by
the most delicate management that I could get forward on these
occasions. I resolved therefore for the future, except in particular cases,
that, when I should be introduced to persons who had a competent
knowledge of this trade, I would talk with them upon it as upon any
ordinary subject, and then leave them without saying any thing about
their becoming evidences. I would take care, however, to commit all
their conversation to writing, when it was over, and I would then try to
find out that person among their relations or friends, who could apply
to them for this purpose with the least hazard of a refusal.
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 to counteract any false
statement of things which might be made relative to the subject in that
quarter.
At length the examinations were resumed, and with them the contest, in
which our own reputation and the fate of our cause were involved. The
committee for the abolition had discovered one or two willing
evidences during my absence, and Mr. Wilberforce, who was now
recovered from his severe indisposition, had found one or two others.
These added to my