I had felt so deeply for the usage of the seamen in
this cruel traffic, which indeed had embittered all my journey, that I
had no less than nine prosecutions at law upon my hands on their
account, and nineteen witnesses detained at my own cost. The committee
in London could give me no assistance in these cases. They were the
managers of the public purse for the abolition of the Slave Trade, and
any expenses of this kind were neither within the limits of their
object, nor within the pale of their duty. From the individuals
belonging to it, I picked up a few guineas by way of private
subscription, and this was all. But a vast load still remained upon me,
and such as had occasioned uneasiness to my mind. I thought it,
therefore, imprudent to detain the evidences for this purpose for so
long a time, and I sent them back to Liverpool. I commenced, however, a
prosecution against the captain at common law for his barbarous usage of
them, and desired that it might be pushed on as vigorously as possible;
and the result was, that his attorney was so alarmed, particularly after
knowing what had been done by Sir Sampson Wright, that he entered into a
compromise to pay all the expenses of the suit hitherto incurred, and to
give Ormond and Murray a sum of money as damages for the injury which
they themselves had sustained.
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