I
had not secured one witness within this distance. This was truly
disheartening. I was subject to the whims and the caprice of those, whom I
solicited on these occasions[A]. To these I was obliged to accommodate
myself. When at Edinburgh, a person who could have given me material
information, declined seeing me, though he really wished well to the cause.
When I had returned southward as far as York, he changed his mind; and he
would then see me. I went back, that I might not lose him. When I arrived,
he would give me only private information. Thus I travelled, backwards and
forwards, four hundred miles to no purpose. At another place a circumstance
almost similar happened, though with a different issue. I had been for two
years writing about a person, whose testimony was important. I had passed
once through the town, in which he lived; but he would not then see me. I
passed through it now, but no entreaties of his friends could make him
alter his resolution. He was a man highly respectable as to situation in
life; but of considerable vanity. I said therefore to my friend, on leaving
the town, You may tell him that I expect to be at Nottingham in a few days;
and though it be a hundred and fifty miles distant, I will even come back
to see him, if he will dine with me on my return.
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