But yet even these were backward in supporting me.
All that they did was just privately to see me, to tell me that I was
right, and to exhort me to persevere: but as to coming forward to be
examined publicly, my object was so unpopular, and would become so much
more so when brought into parliament, that they would have their houses
pulled down, if they should then appear as public instruments in the
annihilation of the trade. With this account I was obliged to rest
satisfied; nor could I deny, when I considered the spirit, which had
manifested itself, and the extraordinary number of interested persons in
the place, that they had some reason for their fears: and that these fears
were not groundless, appeared afterwards; for Dr. Binns, a respectable
physician belonging to the religious society of the Quakers, and to whom
Isaac Hadwen had introduced me, was near falling into a mischievous plot,
which had been laid against him, because he was one of the subscribers to
the Institution for the Abolition of the Slave-trade, and because he was
suspected of having aided me in prompting that object.
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