With this
view, I endeavoured to anticipate the course which such a history would
take. I saw clearly, in the first place, that there were times, for months
together, when the commitee for the abolition of the Slave-trade was
labouring without me, and when I myself for an equal space of time was
labouring in distant parts of the kingdom without them. Hence I perceived
that, if my own exertions were left out, there would be repeated chasms in
this history, and, indeed, that it could not be completed without the
frequent mention of myself. And I was willing to hope that this would be so
obvious to the good sense of the reader, that if he should think me
vain-glorious in the early part of it, he would afterwards, when he
advanced in the perusal of it, acquit me of such a charge. This
consideration was the first, which removed my objection on this head. That
there can be no ground for any charge of ostentation, as far as the origin
of this history is concerned, so I hope to convince him there can be none,
by showing him in what light I have always viewed myself in connection with
the commitee, to which I have had the honour to belong.
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