CHAPTER VIII.
_Continuation of the fourth class of forerunners and coadjutors up to 1787--Bennet Langton--Dr.Baker--Lord and Lady Scarsdale--Author visits Ramsay at Teston--Lady Middleton and Sir Charles (now Lord Barham)--Author declares himself at the house of the latter ready now to devote himself to the cause--reconsiders this declaration or pledge--his reasoning and struggle upon it--persists in it--returns to London--and pursues the work as now a business of his life._ I had purposed, as I said before, when I determined to publish my Essay, to wait to see how the world would receive it, or what disposition there would be in the public to favour my measures for the abolition of the Slave-trade.

But the conversation, which I had held on the thirteenth of March with William Dillwyn, continued to make such an impression upon me, that I thought now there could be no occasion for waiting for such a purpose.

It seemed now only necessary to go forward.

Others I found had already begun the work.

I had been thrown suddenly among these, as into a new world of friends.