With respect to the enlargement of my knowledge, it was promoted likewise.
I now gained access to the Custom-house in London, where I picked up much
valuable information for my purpose.
Having had reason to believe that the Slave-trade was peculiarly fatal to
those employed in it, I wished much to get copies of many of the
muster-rolls from the Custom-house at Liverpool for a given time. James
Phillips wrote to his friend William Rathbone, who was one of his own
religious society, and who resided there, to procure them. They were
accordingly sent up. The examination of these, which took place at the
chambers of Richard Phillips, was long and tedious. We looked over them
together. We usually met for this purpose at nine in the evening, and we
seldom parted till one, and sometimes not till three in the morning. When
our eyes were inflamed by the candle, or tired by fatigue, we used to
relieve ourselves by walking out within the precincts of Lincoln's Inn,
when all seemed to be fast asleep, and thus, as it were, in solitude and in
stillness to converse upon them, as well as upon the best means of the
further promotion of our cause.
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