Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African: To which are Prefixed, Memoirs of his Life
9781465666758
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
THE extraordinary Negro, whose Life I am about to write, was born A. D. 1729, on board a ship in the Slave trade, a few days after it had quitted the coast of Guinea for the Spanish West-Indies; and, at Carthagena, he received from the hand of the Bishop, Baptism, and the name of Ignatius. A disease of the new climate put an early period to his mother’s existence; and his father defeated the miseries of slavery by an act of suicide. At little more than two years old, his master brought him to England, and gave him to three maiden sisters, resident at Greenwich; whose prejudices had unhappily taught them, that African ignorance was the only security for his obedience, and that to enlarge the mind of their slave would go near to emancipate his person. The petulance of their disposition surnamed him Sancho, from a fancied resemblance to the ’Squire of Don Quixote. But a patron was at hand, whom Ignatius Sancho had merit enough to conciliate at a very early age. The late Duke of Montagu lived on Blackheath: he accidentally saw the little Negro, and admired in him a native frankness of manner as yet unbroken by servitude, and unrefined by education—he brought him frequently home to the Duchess, indulged his turn for reading with presents of books, and strongly recommended to his mistresses the duty of cultivating a genius of such apparent fertility. His mistresses, however, were inflexible, and even threatened on angry occasions to return Ignatius Sancho to his African slavery. The love of freedom had increased with years, and began to beat high in his bosom.—Indignation, and the dread of constant reproach arising from the detection of an amour, infinitely criminal in the eyes of three Maiden Ladies, finally determined him to abandon the family. His noble patron was recently dead.—Ignatius flew to the Duchess for protection, who dismissed him with reproof.—He retired from her presence in a state of despondency and stupefaction. Enamoured still of that liberty, the scope of whose enjoyment was now limited to his last five shillings, and resolute to maintain it with life, he procured an old pistol for purposes which his father’s example had suggested as familiar, and had sanctified as hereditary. In this frame of mind the futility of remonstrance was obvious. The Duchess secretly admired his character; and at length consented to admit him into her household, where he remained as butler till her death, when he found himself, by her Grace’s bequest and his own œconomy, possessed of seventy pounds in money, and an annuity of thirty. Freedom, riches, and leisure, naturally led a disposition of African texture into indulgences; and that which dissipated the mind of Ignatius completely drained the purse. In his attachment to women, he displayed a profuseness which not unusually characterizes the excess of the passion.—Cards had formerly seduced him; but an unsuccessful contest at cribbage with a Jew, who won his cloaths, had determined him to abjure the propensity which appears to be innate among his countrymen.—A French writer relates, that in the kingdoms of Ardrah, Whydah, and Benin, a Negro will stake at play his fortune, his children, and his liberty. Ignatius loved the theatre to such a point of enthusiasm, that his last shilling went to Drury-Lane, on Mr. Garrick’s representation of Richard.—He had been even induced to consider the stage as a resource in the hour of adversity, and his complexion suggested an offer to the manager of attempting Othello and Oroonoko; but a defective and incorrigible articulation rendered it abortive. He turned his mind once more to service, and was retained a few months by the Chaplain at Montagu-house. That roof had been ever auspicious to him; and the present Duke soon placed him about his person, where habitual regularity of life led him to think of a matrimonial connexion, and he formed one accordingly with a very deserving young woman of West-Indian origin.
