But the contents of these letters afforded the circumstances, which gave birth to so much suffering.  They contained usually some affecting tale of woe.  At Bristol my feelings had been harassed by the cruel treatment of the seamen, which had come to my knowledge there:  but now I was doomed to see this treatment over again in many other melancholy instances; and additionally to take in the various sufferings of the unhappy slaves.  These accounts I could seldom get time to read till late in the evening, and sometimes not till midnight, when the letters containing them were to be answered.  The effect of these accounts was in some instances to overwhelm me for a time in tears, and in others to produce a vivid indignation, which affected my whole frame.  Recovering from these, I walked up and down the room.  I felt fresh vigour, and made new determinations of perpetual warfare against this impious trade.  I implored strength that I might proceed.  I then sat down, and continued my work as long as my wearied eyes would permit me to see.  Having been agitated in this manner, I went to bed:  but my rest was frequently broken by the visions which floated before me.  When I awoke, these renewed themselves to me, and they flitted about with me for the remainder of the day.  Thus I was kept continually harassed:  my mind was confined to one gloomy and heart-breaking subject for months.  It had no respite, and my health began now materially to suffer.

But the contents of these letters were particularly grievous, on account of the severe labours which they necessarily entailed upon me in other ways than those which have been mentioned.  It was my duty, while the privy council examinations went on, not only to attend to all the evidence which was presented to us by our correspondents, but to find out and select the best.  The happiness of millions depended upon it.  Hence I was often obliged to travel during these examinations, in order to converse with those who had been pointed out to us as capable of giving their testimony; and, that no time might be lost, to do this in the night.  More than two hundred miles in a week were sometimes passed over on these occasions.

The disappointments too, which I frequently experienced in these journeys, increased the poignancy of the suffering, which arose from a contemplation of the melancholy cases which I had thus travelled to bring forward to the public view.  The reader at present can have no idea of these.  I have been sixty miles to visit a person, of whom I had heard, not only as possessing important knowledge, but as espousing our opinions on this subject.  I have at length seen him.  He has applauded my pursuit at our first interview.  He has told me, in the course of our conversation, that neither my own pen, nor that of any other man, could describe adequately the horrors of the Slave-trade, horrors which he himself had witnessed.  He has exhorted me to perseverance in this noble cause.