He gave me a melancholy confirmation of all the three cases.  He told me also that one Joseph Cunningham had been a severe sufferer, and that there was reason to fear that Charles Horseler, another of the crew, had been so severely beaten over the breast with a knotted end of a rope (which end was of the size of a large ball, and had been made on purpose) that he died of it.  To this he added, that it was now a notorious fact, that the captain of the Alfred, when mate of a slave-ship, had been tried at Barbadoes for the murder of one of the crew, with whom he had sailed, but that he escaped by bribing the principal witness to disappear[A].

[Footnote A:  Mr. Sampson, who was surgeon’s mate of the ship, in which the captain had thus served as a mate, confirmed to me afterwards this assertion, having often heard him boast in the cabin, “how he had tricked the law on that occasion.”]

The reader will see, the further I went into the history of this voyage, the more dismal it became.  One miserable account, when examined, only brought up another.  I saw no end to inquiry.  The great question was, what was I to do?  I thought the best thing would be to get the captain apprehended, and make him stand his trial either for the murder of Thomas or of Charles Horseler.  I communicated with the late Mr. Burges, an eminent attorney and the deputy town-clerk, on this occasion.  He had shown an attachment to me on account of the cause I had undertaken, and had given me privately assistance in it.  I say privately; because, knowing the sentiments of many of the corporate body at Bristol, under whom he acted, he was fearful of coming forward in an open manner.  His advice to me was, to take notes of the case for my own private conviction, but to take no public cognizance of it.  He said that seamen, as soon as their wages were expended, must be off to sea again.  They could not generally, as landsmen do, maintain themselves on shore.  Hence I should be obliged to keep the whole crew at my own expense till the day of trial, which might not be for months to come.  He doubted not that, in the interim, the merchants and others would inveigle many of them away by making them boatswains and other inferior officers in some of their ships; so that, when the day of trial should come, I should find my witnesses dispersed and gone.  He observed moreover, that, if any of the officers of the ship had any notion of going out again under the same owners[A], I should have all these against me.  To which he added that, if I were to make a point of taking up the cause of those whom I found complaining of hard usage in this trade, I must take up that of nearly all who sailed in it; for that he only knew of one captain from the port in the Slave-trade, who did not deserve long ago to be hanged.  Hence I should get into a labyrinth of expense, and difficulty, and uneasiness of mind, from whence I should not easily find a clew to guide me.