road, in order the better to reflect upon the proper means of promoting
this great cause. The first place I resolved to visit was Bristol;
accordingly I directed my course thither. On turning a corner, within
about a mile of that city, at about eight in the evening, I came within
sight of it. The weather was rather hazy, which occasioned it to look of
unusual dimensions. The bells of some of the churches were then ringing;
the sound of them did not strike me till I had turned the corner before
mentioned, when it came upon me at once; it filled me, almost directly,
with a melancholy for which I could not account. I began now to tremble,
for the first time, at the arduous task I had undertaken, of attempting
to subvert one of the branches of the commerce of the great place which
was then before me. I began to think of the host of people I should have
to encounter in it; I anticipated much persecution in it also; and I
questioned whether I should even get out of it alive. But in journeying
on I became more calm and composed; my spirits began to return. In these
latter moments I considered my first feelings as useful, inasmuch as
they impressed upon me the necessity of extraordinary courage, and
activity, and perseverance, and of watchfulness, also, over my own
conduct, that I might not throw any stain upon the cause I had
undertaken. When, therefore, I entered the city, I entered it with an
undaunted spirit, determining that no labour should make me shrink, nor
danger, nor even persecution, deter me from my pursuit.

My first introduction was by means of a letter to Harry Gandy, who had
then become one of the religious society of the Quakers. This
introduction to him was particularly useful to me; for he had been a
seafaring man. In his early youth he had been of a roving disposition;
and, in order to see the world, had been two voyages in the Slave Trade,
so that he had known the nature and practices of it. This enabled him to
give me much useful information on the subject; and as he had frequently
felt, as he grew up, deep affliction of mind for having been concerned
in it, he was impelled to forward my views as much as possible, under an
idea that he should be thus making some reparation for the indiscreet
and profane occupations of his youth.

I was also introduced to the families of James Harford, John Lury,
Matthew Wright, Philip, Debell Tucket, Thomas Bonville, and John Waring;
all of whom were of the same religious