uld be in a similar proportion,
according to the number visited. These were great encouragements to me
to proceed. At length I arrived at the place of my last hope. On my
first day's expedition I boarded forty vessels, but found no one in
these who had been on the coast of Africa in the slave-trade. One or two
had been there in king's ships; but they never had been on shore. Things
were now drawing near to a close; and notwithstanding my success, as to
general evidence, in this journey, my heart began to beat. I was
restless and uneasy during the night. The next morning I felt agitated
again between the alternate pressure of hope and fear; and in this state
I entered my boat. The fifty-seventh vessel I boarded was the Melampus
frigate.--One person belonging to it, on examining him in the captain's
cabin, said he had been two voyages to Africa; and I had not long
discoursed with him, before I found, to my inexpressible joy, that he
was the man. I found, too, that he unravelled the question in dispute
precisely as our inferences had determined it. He had been two
expeditions up the river Calabar, in the canoes of the natives. In the
first of these they came within a certain distance of a village: they
then concealed themselves under the bushes, which hung over the water
from the banks. In this position they remained during the day-light; but
at night they went up to it armed, and seized all the inhabitants who
had not time to make their escape. They obtained forty-five persons in
this manner. In the second, they were out eight or nine days, when they
made a similar attempt, and with nearly similar success. They seized
men, women, and children, as they could find them in the huts. They then
bound their arms, and drove them before them to the canoes. The name of
the person thus discovered on board of the Melampus was Isaac Parker. On
inquiring into his character, from the master of the division, I found
it highly respectable. I found also afterward that he had sailed with
Captain Cook, with great credit to himself, round the world. It was also
remarkable, that my brother, on seeing him in London, when he went to
deliver his evidence, recognized him as having served on board the
Monarch, man-of-war, and as one of the most exemplary men in that ship.'

"Mr. Clarkson became, early in his career, acquainted with Mr.
Wilberforce. At their first interview, the latter frankly stated, 'that
the subject had often employed his thought