The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808), Volume IIClarkson, Thomas
History
The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808), Volume II
Clarkson, Thomas
Slave trade -- Africa
At length I began my journey. I boarded all the ships of war lying in
ordinary at Deptford, and examined the different persons in each. From
Deptford I proceeded to Woolwich, where I did the same. Thence I hastened
to Chatham, and then, down the Medway, to Sheerness. I had now boarded
above a hundred and sixty vessels of war. I had found out two good and
willing evidences among them. But I could gain no intelligence of him, who
was the object of my search.
From Chatham, I made the best of my way to Portsmouth-harbour. A very
formidable task presented itself here. But the masters' boats were ready
for me; and I continued my pursuit. On boarding the Pegase, on the second
day, I discovered a very respectable person in the gunner of that ship. His
name was George Millar. He had been on board the Canterbury slave-ship at
the dreadful massacre at Calabàr. He was the only disinterested evidence
living, of whom I had yet heard. He expressed his willingness to give his
testimony, if his presence should be thought necessary in London. I then
continued my pursuit for the remainder of the day. On the next day, I
resumed and finished it for this quarter. I had now examined the different
persons in more than a hundred vessels in this harbour, but I had not
discovered the person I had gone to seek.
Matters now began to look rather disheartening, I mean, as far as my grand
object was concerned. There was but one other port left, and this was
between two and three hundred miles distant. I determined however to go to
Plymouth. I had already been more successful in this tour, with respect to
obtaining general evidence, than in any other of the same length; and the
probability was, that, as I should continue to move among the same kind of
people, my success would be in a similar proportion according to the number
visited. These were great encouragements to me to proceed. At length, I
arrived at the place of my last hope. On my first day's expedition I
boarded forty vessels, but found no one in these, who had been on the coast
of Africa in the Slave-trade. One or two had been there in King's ships;
but they had never been on shore. Things were now drawing near to a close;
and, notwithstanding my success as to general evidence in this journey, my
heart began to beat. I was restless and uneasy during the night. The next
morning, I felt agitated again between the alternate pressure of hope and
fear; and in this state I entered my boat. The fifty-seventh vessel, which
I boarded in this harbour, was the Melampus frigate. One person belonging
to it, on examining him in the captain's cabin, said he had been two
voyages to Africa; and I had not long discoursed with him, before I found,
to my inexpressible joy, that he was the man. I found too, that he
unravelled the question in dispute precisely as our inferences had
determined it. He had been two expeditions up the river Calabàr in the
canoes of the natives. In the first of these, they came within a certain
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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