Morel's best allies, however, may have been the Christian missionaries who furnished him with eyewitness accounts and photographs of the atrocities, such as those given by the Americans William Morrison and William Henry Sheppard, and the British John Hobbis Harris and Alice Harris. The chocolate millionaire William Cadbury, a Quaker, was one of his main financial backers. The Belgian socialist leader Emile Vandervelde sent him copies of Belgian parliamentary debates and was recruited by Morel to successfully defend the missionaries Sheppard and Morrison "pro bono" in a libel suit brought by Kasai Rubber Company. Morel also had secret connections with some agents within the Congo Free State itself. Even the Church of England and American religious groups backed him.