In compliance with their wishes, I determined upon both these works.  But I resolved to retire into the country, that, by being subject to less interruption there, I might the sooner finish them.  It was proper, however, that I should settle many things in London, before I took my departure from it; and, among these, that I should find out George Ormond and Patric Murray, whom I had sent from Liverpool on account of the information they had given me relative to the murder of Peter Green.  I saw no better way than to take them before Sir Sampson Wright, who was then at the head of the police of the metropolis.  He examined, and cross-examined them several times, and apart from each other.  He then desired their evidence to be drawn up in the form of depositions, copies of which he gave to me.  He had no doubt that the murder would be proved.  The circumstances of the deceased being in good health at nine o’clock in the evening, and of his severe sufferings till eleven, and of the nature of the wounds discovered to have been made on his person, and of his death by one in the morning, could never, he said, be done away, by any evidence, who should state that he had been subject to other disorders, which might have occasioned his decease.  He found himself therefore compelled to apply to the magistrates of Liverpool, for the apprehension of three of the principal officers of the ship.  But the answer was, that the ship had sailed, and that they, whose names had been specified, were then, none of them, to be found in Liverpool.

It was now for me to consider, whether I would keep the two witnesses, Ormond and Murray, for a year, or perhaps longer, at my own expense, and run the hazard of the death of the officers in the interim, and of other calculable events.  I had felt so deeply for the usage of the seamen in this cruel traffic, which indeed had embittered all my journey, that I had no less than nine prosecutions at law upon my hands on their account, and nineteen witnesses detained at my own cost.  The commitee in London could give me no assistance in these cases.  They were the managers of the public purse for the abolition of the Slave-trade, and any expenses of this kind were neither within the limits of their object, nor within the pale of their duty.  From the individuals belonging to it, I picked up a few guineas by way of private subscription, and this was all.  But a vast load still remained upon me, and such as had occasioned uneasiness to my mind.  I thought it therefore imprudent to detain the evidences for this purpose for so long a time, and I sent them back to Liverpool.  I commenced, however, a prosecution against the captain at common law for his barbarous usage of them, and desired that it might be pushed on as vigorously as possible; and the result was, that his attorney was so alarmed, particularly after knowing what had been done by Sir Sampson Wright, that he entered into a compromise to pay all the expenses of the suit hitherto incurred, and to give Ormond