d leisure, and that I
should be there to make a report of my progress, by which we might all
judge of the fitness of the time of calling ourselves an united body.
Pleased now with the thought that matters were put into such a train, I
returned to my former objects.

[Footnote A: At these weekly meetings I met occasionally Joseph Woods,
George Harrison, and John Lloyd, three of the other members, who
belonged to the committee of the second class of forerunners and
coadjutors as before described. I had seen all of them before, but I do
not recollect the time when I first met them.]

It is not necessary to say anything more of the first of these objects,
which was that of the further distribution of my book, than that it was
continued, and chiefly by the same hands.

With respect to the enlargement of my knowledge, it was promoted
likewise. I now gained access to the Custom-House in London, where I
picked up much valuable information for my purpose.

Having had reason to believe that the Slave Trade was peculiarly fatal
to those employed in it, I wished much to get copies of many of the
muster-rolls from the Custom-House at Liverpool for a given time. James
Phillips wrote to his friend William Rathbone, who was one of his own
religious society, and who resided there, to procure them. They were
accordingly sent up. The examination of these, which took place at the
chambers of Richard Phillips, was long and tedious. We looked over them
together. We usually met for this purpose at nine in the evening, and we
seldom parted till one, and sometimes not till three in the morning.
When our eyes were inflamed by the candle, or tired by fatigue, we used
to relieve ourselves by walking out within the precincts of Lincoln's
Inn, when all seemed to be fast asleep, and thus, as it were, in
solitude and in stillness to converse upon them, as well as upon the
best means of the further promotion of our cause. These scenes of our
early friendship and exertions I shall never forget. I often think of
them both with astonishment and with pleasure. Having recruited
ourselves in this manner, we used to return to our work. From these
muster-rolls, I may now observe that we gained the most important
information: we ascertained, beyond the power of contradiction, that
more than half of the seamen who went out with the ships in the Slave
Trade did not return with them, and that of these so many perished, as
amounted to one-fifth of all employed.