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Clarkson, Thomas, 1760-1846

"The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839)"

I thought that others might be found in it who wished to
leave it upon principle, and that these would unbosom themselves to me:
and I thought it not improbable that I might fall in with others, who
had come unexpectedly into a state of independence, and that these might
be induced, as their livelihood would be no longer affected by giving me
information, to speak the truth.
I persevered for weeks together under this hope, but could find no one
of all those, who had been applied to, who would have any thing to say
to me. At length, Walter Chandler had prevailed upon a young gentleman,
of the name of Gardiner, who was going out as surgeon of the Pilgrim, to
meet me. The condition was, that we were to meet at the house of the
former, but that we were to enter in and go out at different times, that
is, we were not to be seen together.
Gardiner, on being introduced to me, said at once, that he had often
wished to see me on the subject of my errand, but that the owner of the
Pilgrim had pointed me out to him as a person whom he would wish him to
avoid. He then laid open to me the different methods of obtaining slaves
in Africa, as he had learned from those on board his own vessel in his
first, or former, voyage.


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