Hence I should be obliged to keep the whole crew at my own expense till the day of trial, which might not be for months to come.

He doubted not that, in the interim, the merchants and others would inveigle many of them away by making them boatswains and other inferior officers in some of their ships; so that, when the day of trial should come, I should find my witnesses dispersed and gone.

He observed moreover, that, if any of the officers of the ship had any notion of going out again under the same owners[A], I should have all these against me.

To which he added that, if I were to make a point of taking up the cause of those whom I found complaining of hard usage in this trade, I must take up that of nearly all who sailed in it; for that he only knew of one captain from the port in the Slave-trade, who did not deserve long ago to be hanged.

Hence I should get into a labyrinth of expense, and difficulty, and uneasiness of mind, from whence I should not easily find a clew to guide me.
[Footnote A: The seamen of the Alfred informed the purser of their ill usage.