A report having gone abroad that the committee of privy council would only examine those who were interested in the continuance of the trade, I found it necessary to call upon Mr. Pitt again, and to inform him of it, when I received an assurance that every person whom I chose to send to the council in behalf of the committee should be heard.  This gave rise to a conversation relative to those witnesses whom we had to produce on the side of the abolition.  And here I was obliged to disclose our weakness in this respect.  I owned with sorrow that, though I had obtained specimens and official documents in abundance to prove many important points, yet I had found it difficult to prevail upon persons to be publicly examined on this subject.  The only persons we could then count upon, were Mr. Ramsay, Mr. H. Gandy, Mr. Falconbridge, Mr. Newton, and the Dean of Middleham.  There was one, however, who would be a host of himself, if we could but gain him.  I then mentioned Mr. Norris.  I told Mr. Pitt the nature[A] and value of the testimony which he had given me at Liverpool, and the great zeal he had discovered to serve the cause.  I doubted, however, if he would come to London for this purpose, even if I wrote to him; for he was intimate with almost all the owners of slave-vessels in Liverpool, and, living among these, he would not like to incur their resentment by taking a prominent part against them.  I therefore entreated Mr. Pitt to send him a summons of council to attend, hoping that Mr. Norris would then be pleased to come up, as he would be enabled to reply to his friends that his appearance had not been voluntary.  Mr. Pitt, however, informed me, that a summons from a committee of privy council, sitting as a board, was not binding upon the subject; and therefore that I had no other means left, but of writing to him, and he desired me to do this by the first post.

[Footnote A:  See his evidence, Chap.  XVII.]

This letter I accordingly wrote, and sent it to my friend William Rathbone, who was to deliver it in person, and to use his own influence at the same time; but I received for answer, that Mr. Norris was then in London.  Upon this I tried to find him out, to entreat him to consent to an examination before the council.  At length I found his address; but before I could see him, I was told by the Bishop of London that he had come up as a Liverpool delegate in support of the Slave Trade.  Astonished at this information, I made the bishop acquainted with the case, and asked him how it became me to act; for I was fearful lest, by exposing Mr. Norris, I should violate the rights of hospitality on the one hand, and by not exposing him that I should not do my duty to the cause I had undertaken on the other.  His advice was, that I should see him, and ask him to explain the reasons of his conduct.  I called upon him for this purpose, but he was out.  He sent me, however, a letter soon afterwards, which was full of flattery; and in which, after having paid high