There was one, however, who would be a host of himself, if we could but gain him.
I then mentioned Mr.Norris.I told Mr.Pitt the nature[A] and value of the testimony which he had given me at Liverpool, and the great zeal he had discovered to serve the cause.

I doubted, however, if he would come to London for this purpose, even if I wrote to him; for he was intimate with almost all the owners of slave-vessels in Liverpool, and living among these he would not like to incur their resentment, by taking a prominent part against them.

I therefore entreated Mr.Pitt to send him a summons of council to attend, hoping that Mr.Norris would then be pleased to come up, as he would be enabled to reply to his friends, that his appearance had not been voluntary.

Mr.Pitt, however, informed me, that a summons from a commitee of privy council sitting as a board of trade was not binding upon the subject, and therefore that I had no other means left but of writing to him, and he desired me to do this by the first post.
[Footnote A: See his evidence Chap.

xvii.] This letter I accordingly wrote, and sent it to my friend William Rathbone, who was to deliver it in person, and to use his own influence at the same time; but I received for answer, that Mr.Norris was then in London.