ught that others might
be found in it, who wished to leave it upon principle, and that these would
unbosom themselves to me. And I thought it not improbable that I might fall
in with others, who had come unexpectedly into a state of independence, and
that these might be induced, as their livelihood would be no longer
affected by giving me information, to speak the truth.

I persevered for weeks together under this hope, but could find no one of
all those, who had been applied to, who would have any thing to say to me.
At length Walter Chandler had prevailed upon a young gentleman, of the name
of Gardiner, who was going out as surgeon of the Pilgrim, to meet me. The
condition was, that we were to meet at the house of the former, but that we
were to enter in and go out at different times, that is, we were not to be
seen together.

Gardiner, on being introduced to me, said at once, that he had often wished
to see me on the subject of my errand, but that the owner of the Pilgrim
had pointed me out to him as a person, whom he would wish him to avoid. He
then laid open to me the different methods of obtaining slaves in Africa,
as he had learned from those on board his own vessel in his first, or
former, voyage. He unfolded also the manner of their treatment in the
Middle Passage, with the various distressing scenes which had occurred in
it. He stated the barbarous usage of the seamen as he had witnessed it, and
concluded by saying, that there never was a subject, which demanded so
loudly the interference of the legislature as that of the Slave-trade.

When he had finished his narrative, and answered the different questions
which I had proposed to him concerning it, I asked him in as delicate a
manner as I could, How it happened, that, seeing the trade in this horrible
light, he had consented to follow it again? He told me frankly, that he had
received a regular medical education, but that his relations, being poor,
had not been able to set him up in his profession. He had saved a little
money in his last voyage. In that, which he was now to perform, he hoped to
save a little more. With the profits of both voyages together, he expected
he should be able to furnish a shop in the line of his profession, when he
would wipe his hands of this detestable trade.

I then asked him, Whether upon the whole he thought he had judged
prudently, or whether the prospect of thus enabling himself to become
independent, would counterbalance t