ld still continue. But yet even these were
backward in supporting me. All that they did was just privately to see
me, to tell me that I was right, and to exhort me to persevere: but as
to coming forward to be examined publicly, my object was so unpopular,
and would become so much more so when brought into parliament, that they
would have their houses pulled down, if they should then appear as
public instruments in the annihilation of the trade. With this account I
was obliged to rest satisfied; nor could I deny, when I considered the
spirit, which had manifested itself, and the extraordinary number of
interested persons in the place, that they had some reason for their
fears; and that these fears were not groundless, appeared afterwards;
for Dr. Binns, a respectable physician belonging to the religious
society of the Quakers, and to whom Isaac Hadwen had introduced me, was
near falling into a mischievous plot, which had been laid against him,
because he was one of the subscribers to the institution for the
abolition of the Slave Trade, and because he was suspected of having
aided me in promoting that object.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Hostile disposition towards the author increases, on account of his
known patronage of the seamen employed in the Slave Trade; manner of
procuring and paying them at Liverpool; their treatment and
mortality.--Account of the murder of Peter Green; trouble taken by the
author to trace it; his narrow escape.--Goes to Lancaster, but returns
to Liverpool; leaves the latter place.

It has appeared that a number of persons used to come and see me, out of
curiosity, at the King's Arms tavern; and that these manifested a bad
disposition towards me, which was near breaking out into open insult.
Now the cause of all this was, as I have observed, the knowledge which
people had obtained relative to my errand at this place. But this
hostile disposition was increased by another circumstance, which I am
now to mention. I had been so shocked at the treatment of the seamen
belonging to the slave-vessels at Bristol, that I determined, on my
arrival at Liverpool, to institute an inquiry concerning it there also.
I had made considerable progress in it, so that few seamen were landed
from such vessels, but I had some communication with them; and though no
one else would come near me, to give me any information about the trade,
these were always forward to speak to me, and to tell me their
grievances, if it wer