This answer, considering the difficulties we had found in collecting a body of evidence, and the critical situation in which we were, was peculiarly distressing; but we had no remedy left us, nor could we reasonably complain.  Three therefore were selected, and they were sent to deliver their testimony on their arrival in town.

But before the last of these had left the council room, who should come up to me but Dr. Arnold?  He had but lately arrived at Bristol from Africa; and having heard from our friends there that we had been daily looking for him, he had come to us in London.  He and Mr. Gardiner were the two surgeons, as mentioned in the former chapter, who had promised me, when I was in Bristol, in the year 1787, that they would keep a journal of facts during the voyages they were then going to perform.  They had both kept this promise.  Gardiner, I found, had died upon the coast; and his journal, having been discovered at his death, had been buried with him in great triumph.  But Arnold had survived, and he came now to offer us his services in the cause.

As it was a pity that such correct information as that taken down in writing upon the spot should be lost (for all the other evidences, except Dr. Spaarman and Mr. Wadstrom, had spoken from their memory only), I made all the interest I could to procure a hearing for Mr. Arnold.  Pleading now for the examination of him only, and under these particular circumstances, I was attended to.  It was consented, in consequence of the little time which was now left for preparing and printing the report, that I should make out his evidence from his journal under certain heads.  This I did.  Mr. Arnold swore to the truth of it, when so drawn up, before Edward Montague, Esquire, a master in Chancery.  He then delivered the paper in which it was contained to the lords of the council, who, on receiving it, read it throughout, and then questioned him upon it.

At this time, also, my brother returned with accounts and papers relative to the Slave Trade from Havre de Grace; but as I had pledged myself to offer no other person to be examined, his evidence was lost.  Thus, after all the pains we had taken, and in a contest, too, on the success of which our own reputation and the fate of Africa depended, we were obliged to fight the battle with sixteen less than we could have brought into the field; while our opponents, on the other hand, on account of their superior advantages, had mustered all their forces, not having omitted a single man.

I do not know of any period of my life in which I suffered so much, both in body and mind, as from the time of resuming these public inquiries by the privy council, to the time when they were closed.  For I had my weekly duty to attend at the committee for the abolition during this interval.  I had to take down the examinations of all the evidences who came to London, and to make certain copies of these.  I had to summon these to town, and to make provision