About eighty vessels on an average had sailed thence in each of these years.

Taking the loss in these years, and compounding it with that in the fatal year, three sailors had been lost, but taking it in these four years by themselves, only two had been lost, in twenty-four vessels so employed.

On a comparison with the Slave-trade, the result would be, that two vessels to Africa would destroy more seamen than eighty-three sailing to Newfoundland.

There was this difference also to be noted, that the loss in the one trade was generally by the weather or by accident, but in the other by cruel treatment or disease; and that they, who went out in a declining state of health in the one, came home generally recovered, whereas they, who went out robust in the other, came home in a shattered condition.
At Plymouth I laid the foundation of another committee.

The late William Cookworthy, the late John Prideaux, and James Fox, all of the society of the Quakers, and Mr.George Leach, Samuel Northcote, and John Saunders, had a principal share in forming it.