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Show 292 A DAY SP:ENT AT ally carne to me, when thus pcrsccutc<l, as the author of their miseries and their ruin . From their supplications and wants it would ha vc been ungenerous and ungrateful to have fled. ':l_lhcsc diffurcnt circumstnncCR, by acting together, Lad at length brought me .into the situation just mentioned_; and I was therefore obliged, though very reluctantly, to be borne out of the field, where I Lacl placed the great honor and glor; of my life." I may as well add here that a hlr. Whithread, to whom Clarkson mentioned this latter cause of distress, generously offered to repair the pecuniary losses of all who had suffered in this cause. One anecdote will be a specimen of the energy with which Clarkson pur· sued evidence. It had been vary strenuously asserted and maintained that the subjects of the slave trade were only such unfortunates as had become prisoners of vmr, and who, if not c::trricd out of the country in this manner, would be exposed to death or some more dreadful doom in their own country. IJ.'bis was one of those stories which no body bel icvcd, and yet was particularly useful in the hancb of the opposition, be· cause it was difficult legally to disprove it. It wa.; perfectly well known that in very many cases slave· PLAYPORD ilALL. 293 traders made direct incursions into the country, kidnapped, and carriccl off the inlrabiLanls of whole viJ. bgcs, but the question was, bow to establish it? A gentleman whom Clm·kson accidentally met on one of his journeys, informed him that be had been in c6mp: my, about a year bciOrc, with a sailor, a very respectable looking young- man, who had actua1ly been engaged in one of these expeditions ; he lud spcn t half an hour with J1im at :tn inn; he described ltis person, but knew nothing of his name or the place of his abode, all he knew was tl>ot be belonged to a ship of "-·ar in orUinary, but kne"w nothing of the port. Clark· son determined that this man sl10ulcl be proclucc\1 as a witness, unJ. knew 110 better way than to go personally to all the ships in ordinary, until the individual was found. llc actually visited every sea-port town, and boorcled every s'>ip, till in the very last port and on the very last ship which rcmnincd, the imlividual was found, ancl found to be posscssccl of just the facts ~:lcl information whici were necessary. By the labors of Clarkson and his cotcmporarics an incred lblc cxcitc4 mcnt was produced. tlu·ougho11t nll E!1glancl. ~Phe piciurcs and models of sLn-c sllips, accounts of tliC cruelties practised in the trade, were circulated with |
