expressed a wish of making of them, but that matters did not appear ripe at our first interview.  Our proposal, however, was approved, and an assurance was given, that an union should take place as soon as it was judged to be seasonable.  It was resolved also, that one day in the week[A] should be appointed for a meeting at the house of James Phillips, where as many might attend as had 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.  As to what became of the remainder, the muster-rolls did not inform us; this, therefore, was left to us as a subject for our future inquiry.