British composer, writer and grocer
Ignatius Sancho (c. 1729 – 14 December 1780) was a composer, actor, and writer. He is the first known Black Briton to vote in a British election. He gained fame in his time as "the extraordinary Negro", and to 18th-century British abolitionists he became a symbol of the humanity of Africans and immorality of the slave trade. The Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African, edited and published two years after his death, is one of the earliest accounts of African slavery written in English by a former slave of Spanish and English families.
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Were I as rich in worldly commodity, as in hearty will, I would thank you most princely for your very welcome and agreeable letter;- but, were it so, I should not proportion my gratitude to your wants;- for, blessed be the God of thy hope!- thou wantest nothing- more than, what's in thy possession, or in thy power to possess:- I would neither give thee Money, nor Territory, Women, nor Horses, nor Camels, nor the height of Asiatic pride, Elephants;- I would give thee Books
... how comes it that- without the advantages of a twentieth generationship of noble blood flowing uncontaminated in your veins- without the customary three years dissipation at college- and the (nothing-to-be-done without) four years perambulation on the Continent- without all these needful appendages- with little more than plain sense, sheer good-nature, and a right honest heart- thou canst,
... confess now- could you lie with the wife of your friend? could you debauch his sister? could you defraud a poor creditor? could you by gambling rejoice in the outwitting a novice of all his possessions?- No! why then thou art a silly fellow, incumbered with three abominable inmates; to wit- Conscience, Honesty, and Good-nature
Self-love, my friend, bewitches parents to give too much indulgence to infantine foibles;- the constant cry is, "Poor little soul, it knows no better!" If it swears, that's a sign of wit and spirit; if it fibs, it's so cunning and comical; if it steals, 'tis only a paw trick- and the mother exultingly cries, "My Jacky is so sharp, we can keep nothing from him!"
Commerce was meant by the goodness of the Deity to diffuse the various goods of the earth into every part, to unite mankind in the blessed chains of brotherly love, society, and mutual dependence: the enlightened Christian should diffuse the riches of the Gospel of peace, with the commodities of his respective land. Commerce attended with strict honesty, and with Religion for its companion, would be a blessing to every shore it touched at. In Africa, the poor wretched natives, blessed with the most fertile and luxuriant soil, are rendered so much the more miserable for what Providence meant as a blessing: the Christians' abominable traffic for slaves, and the horrid cruelty and treachery of the petty Kings- encouraged by their Christian customers- who carry them strong liquors, to enflame their national madness, and powder, and bad fire-arms, to furnish them with the hellish means of killing and kidnapping. But enough- it is a subject that sours my blood