We were now advanced far into February, when we were alarmed by the intelligence that the Lords of the Council were going to prepare their report.  At this time we had sent but few persons to them to examine, in comparison with our opponents, and we had yet eighteen to introduce:  for answers had come into my tables of questions from several places, and persons had been pointed out to us by our correspondents, who had increased our list of evidences to this number.  I wrote therefore to them, at the desire of the committee for the abolition, and gave them the names of the eighteen, and requested that all of them might be examined.  I requested also, that they would order, for their own inspection, certain muster-rolls of vessels from Poole and Dartmouth, that they might be convinced that the objection which the Earl of Sandwich had made in the House of Lords, against the abolition of the Slave-trade, had no solid foundation.  In reply to my first request they informed me, that it was impossible, in the advanced state of the session (it being then the middle of March), that the examinations of so many could be taken; but I was at liberty, in conjunction with the Bishop of London, to select eight for this purpose.  This occasioned me to address them again; and I then found, to my surprise and sorrow, that even this last number was to be diminished; for I was informed in writing, “that the Bishop of London having laid my last letter before their Lordships, they had agreed to meet on the Saturday next, and on the Tuesday following, for the purpose of receiving the evidence of some of the gentlemen named in it.  And it was their Lordships’ desire that I would give notice to any three of them (whose information I might consider as the most material) of the above determination, that they might attend the committee accordingly.”

This answer, considering the difficulties we had found in collecting a body of evidence, and the critical situation in which we then were, was peculiarly distressing; but we had no remedy left us, nor could we reasonably complain.  Three therefore were selected, and they were sent to deliver their testimony on their arrival in town.

But before the last of these had left the council-room, who should come up to me but Mr. Arnold!  He had but lately arrived at Bristol from Africa; and having heard from our friends there that we had been daily looking for him, he had come to us in London.  He and Mr. Gardiner were the two surgeons, as mentioned in the former volume, who had promised me, when I was in Bristol, in the year 1787, that they would keep a journal of facts for me during the voyages they were then going to perform.  They had both of them kept this promise.  Gardiner, I found, had died upon the Coast, and his journal, having been discovered at his death, had been buried with him in great triumph.  But Arnold had survived, and he came now to offer us his services in the cause.