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Having heard by accident, that the inhabitants of the town of Bridgewater had sent a petition to the House of Commons, in the year 1785, for the abolition of the Slave-trade, as has been related in a former part of the work, I determined, while my feelings were warm, to go there, and to try to find out those who had been concerned in it, and to confer with them as the tried friends of the cause. The time seemed to me to be approaching, when the public voice should be raised against this enormous evil. I was sure that it was only necessary for the inhabitants of this favoured island to know it, to feel a just indignation against it. Accordingly I set off. My friend George Fisher, who was before mentioned to have been of the religious society of the Quakers, gave me an introduction to the respectable family of Ball, which was of the same religious persuasion. I called upon Mr. Sealey, Anstice, Crandon, Chubb, and others. I laid open to those, whom I saw, the discoveries I had made relative to the loss and ill treatment of seamen; at which they seemed to be much moved; and it was agreed, that, if it should be thought a proper measure, (of which I would inform them when I had consulted the committee,) a second petition should be sent to Parliament from the inhabitants, praying for the abolition of the Slave-trade.
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- The History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade by the British Parliament , pp. 320 - 344Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1808