to me next day, he came in high spirits. He said he had found
out the man whom I had seen. The man, however, when he talked to him about
the murder of Peter Green, acknowledged every thing concerning it. Ormond
intimated that this man was to sail again in the same ship under the
promise of being an officer, and that he had been kept on board, and had
been enticed to a second voyage, for no other purpose than that he might be
prevented from divulging the matter. I then asked Ormond, whether he
thought the man would acknowledge the murder in my hearing. He replied,
that, if I were present, he thought he would not say much about it, as he
was soon to be under the same captain, but that he would not deny it. If
however I were out of sight, though I might be in hearing, he believed he
would acknowledge the facts.
By the assistance of Mr. Falconbridge, I found a public-house, which had
two rooms in it. Nearly at the top of the partition between them was a
small window, which a person might look through by standing upon a chair. I
desired Ormond, one evening, to invite the man into the larger room, in
which he was to have a candle, and to talk with him on the subject. I
purposed to station myself in the smallest in the dark, so that by looking
through the window I could both see and hear him, and yet be unperceived
myself. The room, in which I was to be, was one, where the dead were
frequently carried to be owned. We were all in our places at the time
appointed. I directly discovered that it was the same man with whom I had
conversed on board the ship in the wet docks. I heard him distinctly relate
many of the particulars of the murder, and acknowledge them all. Ormond,
after having talked with him some time, said, "Well, then, you believe
Peter Green was actually murdered?" He replied, "If Peter Green was not
murdered, no man ever was." What followed I do not know. I had heard quite
enough; and the room was so disagreeable in smell, that I did not choose to
stay in it longer than was absolutely necessary.
I was now quite satisfied that the murder had taken place, and my first
thought was to bring the matter before the mayor, and to take up three of
the officers of the ship. But, in mentioning my intention to my friends, I
was dissuaded from it. They had no doubt but that in Liverpool, as there
was now a notion that the Slave-trade would become a subject of
parliamentary inquiry, every effort would be made to overthrow me. Th
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