THE BLACKAMOOR UNCHAIN’D

The Negro was chained to the mainmast, and the vessel was clearing for Jamaica. No better prospect appeared at journey’s end for him than the slave block, the plantation, the cane-brake, and the lash.

What remedy?

But let us take things in order.

That my learned friend, Dr. Sam: Johnson, detector of crimes and righter of wrongs, was openly zealous in opposing the institution of human slavery, is well known.

“Here’s to the next insurrection of the Negroes in the West Indies!”

Such was the toast with which, I am told, he once scandalized some very grave scholars at Oxford.

Insurrections there were in plenty among the black slaves on the plantations of Jamaica, and they were put down in torture and blood. Such episodes rouzed my moral friend’s deepest indignation.

“Jamaica!—great wealth and dreadful wickedness—a den of tyrants!” I have heard him growl.

“It is impossible,” he declared more coolly, “not to conceive that men in their original state were equal.”

That he genuinely thought so, in spite of his spectacular attacks on frantick “levellers” like Mrs. Macaulay, was abundantly proved by the tenderness and respect he extended to his black servant, Frank Barber.

Frank came to him from that very “den of tyrants,” Jamaica, brought thence in his boyhood as body-servant to a plantation owner. Left his freedom and a legacy in his owner’s will, Frank came into Johnson’s service before my time, in the year 1752, close upon Mrs. Johnson’s lamented death; and Johnson’s “boy” he had been ever since.

Tho’ in this spring of 1772 he was thirty years of age or more, he still looked the youthful foot-boy, for he was of slender make and low stature, and his blue-black countenance never lost its look of innocence. He was narrow of shoulder and flank, and had a thin neck, spindle shanks, and long slim black hands faintly pink in the palm. His head was round and fuzzed with closecurled woolly hair. His thick lips pursed, his large black eyes shewed an ivory gleam as they moved. He spoke softly, with a lazy lilt, but correctly, for Dr. Johnson had seen him well schooled.

On 21 March, 1772, I—James Boswell, advocate, your most obedient—came once more from my dwelling in Edinburgh to visit my friends in London. Setting myself to rights, I hastened to wait upon my revered friend Dr. Sam: Johnson at his house in Johnson’s Court.

Frank answered the door, trim in fustian breeches and striped waistcoat.

“You are welcome to London, Mr. Boswell. Dr. Johnson is with Miss Williams. This way, sir.”

In the ground-floor apartment of Miss Williams, the blind poetess, I found Dr. Johnson by the teapot, and a storm brewing in it. While Frank procured and dressed the viands, Miss Williams presided over the household economy, and the pair, thus divided in authority, were often at odds. Today, in her lady-like soft voice, she scolded Dr. Johnson about the alleged short-comings of his black attendant.

“So, Dr. Johnson,” she uttered sarcastically, “there (pointing at Frank)—there stands your ‘scholar,’ your ‘philospher’—”

Frank beat a hasty retreat.

“—upon educating whom you have spent so many hundreds of pounds! And how are you repaid? Waste! Where’s the rest of the pork and pease? Where’s yesterday’s loaf? Who drank the milk jug empty?”

“Perhaps the Pook, who sweeps the hearth by night, and drinks out the milk in payment,” suggested my friend, rallying her mildly. “We had such beneficent Brownies about the kitchen, Mr. Boswell, when I was a child in Lichfield.”

“I doubt it not,” returned Miss Williams smartly, she being Welsh and of a credulous turn, “and that’s another thing. Your house is haunted, sir, there’s something walks in the attick.”

“Frank by name, I suppose, since he is bedded there.”

“It has walked while Frank was before me.”

“It walks in the attick and eats the cold victuals,” I summed up. “Here’s a mystery for you, sir.”

“’Tis soon solved. Follow me, Mr. Boswell, to the attick.”

“Where you’ll find, I warrant you, that Frank has been up to mischief,” Miss Williams tossed after us.

There was no appearance of mischief about the woebegone figure on the bed in the attick. A quilt was pulled about the narrow shoulders, the round woolly head was turned to the wall.

“What, Frank lad, art ill, boy?” enquired Dr. Johnson with concern.

The blue-black countenance turned to us. Simultaneously there was a clatter on the stair, and Frank Barber came into the room.

We stared. The unknown blackamoor was thin and gaunt, and his kinky head was bandaged. He turned dark eyes upon us, and said nothing.

“So here’s our ghost,” observed Dr. Johnson.

“And our Brownie too,” I added, “that eats up the victuals.”

“I found him starving in the street,” burst out Frank. “Sure, sir, you’d never grudge him a bite and a sup?”

“Why, boy, you know I would not,” rejoined Johnson gravely, “so why this secrecy?”

“I promised it him, sir. He’s an escaped slave, and fears recapture.”

“A slave? In London?” I interjected.

“Why, then,” replied Dr. Johnson, “he’s but one of many. The West Indians bring them hither, as Frank was brought. Well, my lad, account for yourself. Who’s your master?”

“Stand up!” admonished Frank anxiously, “and make a reverence to the gentleman.”

The fellow came slowly to his feet. Like Frank, he was low of stature and slender of build, with lank shanks and long slim hands, and his dusky visage bore a look both innocent and proud. He wore an old shirt of Frank’s and nothing else. He executed a kind of awkward salaam, at which Frank nodded approval, and spoke in a musical drawl.

“Cap’n Standart, Sallee Plantation, Jamaica. Cap’n beat me—”

“He beat him without provocation,” put in Frank, “under drink taken, and broke his head, as you see.” The fellow nodded and touched his bandage. “What could he do but run, and what could I do but succour him?”

“What’s your name, boy?” asked my friend gently.

“Quashie, marsa.”

“He may stay?” enquired Frank anxiously.

“Quashie may stay, and share your couch and your victuals.”

To my surprise, Quashie, beaming, expressed his satisfaction in song:

“Calipash! Calipee!” his ditty ran, in a sweet plaintive voice:

“Calipash! Calipee!

“O how happy us all be!”

He even essayed a little dance step on his long slim black feet.

“No more o’ that, Quashie!” said Frank sharply, scandalized; “make your reverence and retire.”

“Well, be easy, Quashie,” smiled Dr. Johnson, “Frank shall take care of you till we see what must be done with you.”

“Not go back to Cap’n!” cried Quashie in alarm. “Never!”

“I hope not, Quashie. But ’tis a touchy affair, and must be thought on. Come, Mr. Boswell.”

He led the way down the stair, shaking his head.

“What will become of poor Quashie, I know not.”

“Surely,” I said, “no man can hold a slave in England?”

“That’s to be seen,” replied my friend. “The matter is sub judice before Lord Chief Justice Mansfield. There’s a cause before him between an escaped slave, Somerset by name, and his former master. Till ’tis settled. Quashie must keep close.”

“What hinders the settling?”

“There are fourteen thousand such slaves in England. My Lord Mansfield shrinks from freeing them all at once with his single word. He’d like to find an excuse, as he has done before, lack of documents or so, to set this particular slave free and spare the general judgment. But this time he’s caught a Tartar. Somerset won’t have it, nor will his sponsor, the noted crusader against slavery, Mr. Granville Sharp. Nor, for his part, will the master neither.

“But Lord Mansfield procrastinates, and thus the fate of Quashie hangs in the balance, and that of fourteen thousand like him. Meanwhile the boy is Captain Standart’s property, and may be shipped out for Jamaica, there to be worked, lashed, even killed, at pleasure. We must keep him under cover.”

That was easier said than done. If one black boy in Johnson’s Court was a curiosity, two were a nine days’ wonder. Soon we had a visitation.

The visitant was a thin, sallow, upright personage in a red coat. He presented himself in the one-pair-of-stairs sitting room, bowed stiffly, curtly uttered his name—“Captain Standart, to command—” and came straight to the point:

“It comes to my ears, sir, that you are detaining my neger slave Quashie, and I require you’ll hand him over instanter.”

Standing four-square before the fire-place in his old rusty brown broadcloth, Dr. Johnson put up his well-marked brows.

“Require?”

“Yes, sir, require. I demand my property.”

“Your property? That’s to be seen.”

“Aye, sir, my property, to the value of fifty pounds, which he’ll fetch on the slave black in Jamaica.”

“You must catch him first,” smiled Johnson.

“I’ll catch him, never fear,” snarled Captain Standart, “and I’ll have the law on you for a thief.”

“As to that, the law shall decide.”

But the Captain was breathing fire and alcohol. He had come to bully his antagonist, and when one threat failed to move my intrepid friend, he was ready with another.

“D-mn the law!” he exclaimed. “You shall answer to me in person.”

“Why, so I do, I answer, do your worst.”

“You shall answer in the field.”

“How, a duello!” I exclaimed, half aghast, half excited.

“If old square-toes don’t fear me,” sneered the Captain uncivilly.

“I hold the duello in abhorrence,” said my moral friend calmly, “yet I don’t fear you. I’ll meet you, sir, at the time and place, and with the weapons of my choice, as is the right of the challenged.”

“Then chuse,” snapped the soldier.

“I chuse here and now, and for weapons—here are weapons to hand (indicating the fire-irons). You may take the poker, and I’ll make shift with the tongs.”

So saying, he seized them up and made them to snap a scant inch from the startled slave-owner’s nose.

“Unheard of!” ejaculated the Captain, backing off.

“You have no taste for my weapons? Nor I for yours. I’ll not run you through or shoot you down, sir, for Scripture bids us do no murder; but I’ll wring your nose if I can come at it,” cried the burly philosopher, snapping the tongs wildly, “so en garde!”

“The man is mad!” cried the Jamaican, dodging in alarm. He gained the door, flung it open, and was gone. We heard his boots clatter on the stair, and Dr. Johnson’s Olympian laughter followed him.

“A pretty brute to own a man,” he observed, sobering. “We must keep Quashie out of his hands.”

Again time passed. Quashie mended and grew strong. We would hear his delighted chuckle below stairs, or his mellow voice singing strange little melodies by the kitchen fire. He had a ditty for every contingency. “Rain crowd fly away” greeted the downpour. “Stranger come riding” announced the caller. “Calipash! Calipee!” did for grace before meat. This mysterious incantation, I learned, called upon the Jamaicans’ favorite comestible, green turtle.

No such regale of Aldermen adorned Dr. Johnson’s table; but Quashie was equally happy with the pork and pease, and gobbled it down. This pained Frank, who strove earnestly to improve his protégé’s demeanour; but cheerfulness was always breaking in. Miss Williams delighted to hear Quashie sing, and the pair quietly made up an alliance against Frank’s authority, at which Dr. Johnson smiled indulgently. He had come to repose confidence in Quashie’s ministrations, approved his progress under Frank’s tutelage, and meditated sending him, too, to be schooled in the country. But fate interposed.

One bright May morning, when we returned from breakfasting abroad, Quashie was gone.

“Where is Quashie?” repeated Miss Williams fretfully. “Why do you ask, sir, when you sent for him yourself, to fetch your prayer book to the Mitre?”

“My prayer book? What would I be about, with a prayer book at a tavern?”

“Nay, sir, who knows your whim? Frank was gone for provisions, and Quashie found the book where it lies on your bureau, and ran off with it.”

“He ran, I fear, straight into the hands of Captain Standart, who has thus tricked us all.”

“What’s to be done?” I cried.

“Nay, I know not. He may be any where, and meeting any fate, even death itself.”

“Come, sir,” I urged, making for the street door, “we cannot sit idle.”

“’Twill not help to run about at random. No, sir, we must have intelligence to proceed upon.”

As we stood at the door, wondering thus which way to turn, a hackney coach clattered into the court, and pulled up before us.

“One of you Sam: Johnson?” demanded the coachman hoarsely.

“I am Sam: Johnson.”

The coachman dropped the reins. His nag drooped in an attitude of repose, and the fellow descended. He smelled of gin and horse.

“This is your prayer book?”

He shewed the neat script on the fly leaf: Sam: Johnson, Johnson’s Court.

I could sense my friend’s excitment, but he answered calmly enough:

“It is mine. How did you come by it?”

“Worth a little something, an’t it?” demanded the coachman.

“Perhaps; and more, if you tell me where you got it.”

“I didn’t steal it,” said the fellow truculently.

“Of course not. Where did you find it, then? For a shilling (producing one).”

“Two,” said the Jehu instantly.

For answer I pulled a shilling from my pocket and held it up next to Johnson’s. The coachman looked from shilling to shilling, seemed minded to have more, and then shrugged.

“At the West India docks.”

“At the docks! Does a ship lie there?”

“Yes, sir, the Guinea Gold is laden; she’ll sail for Jamaica with the morning tide.”

“Bravo, Quashie!” cried Dr. Johnson. “By dropping the book, he has contrived to send us a message. You, friend, is your coach for hire?”

“What else?”

“Then here’s your two shillings, and a third for earnest. You shall be ours for the day.”

“Ben Handey’s at your sarvice, gentlemen both.”

I was for speeding straight to the docks. But the first errand, it seemed, was to the milliner, whither Frank was sent with a billet, and whence he returned with a large band-box. Meanwhile, Dr. Johnson donned his best array, full-skirted purple camlet coat and large bushy grizzled wig of state.

Soon our little entourage was ready to take coach. Dr. Johnson carried his stout oak stick. Frank Barber attended us. At him I stared. He was tricked out like a courtesan’s monkey, in a brocaded caftan—somewhat the worse for wear—and a large swathed turban with fringes enclosed his inky countenance.

“Well, Dr. Johnson,” I remarked, “I never thought to see you attended by such a gaudy page.”

“Among West Indian nabobs,” replied my friend, “it behooves us to cut a figure. Frank, have you the gallipot?”

“Yes, sir (shewing such a small pot as ladies use for pomatum).”

“Have you the tools?”

“In my waistcoat pockets, sir.”

“Then let us go. Drive on, Handey.”

A motley posse, we rattled towards the docks. I marvelled how we were to gain access to the ship; but I was soon instructed.

We scented the vessel before we saw it.

“Phew,” I ejaculated, “what cargo does she carry, that stinks so pernitiously?”

“Don’t you know, sir? She’s a slaver. ’Tis human cargo that smells so high. Pah!” Ben Handey spat emphatically. “Guinea gold, that’s slaves, sir. The stench of ’em can’t be quelled. She beats about the triangle—gauds and cloth out to the Guinea coast, there to trade for slaves, and carry them by the middle passage for sale in Jamaica, and so home laden with rum, sugar, and tobacco. ’Tis very profitable.”

“’Tis infamous,” growled Dr. Johnson. “But what does she in London port? That’s a Liverpool trade.”

“Nay, I know not, but there she lies.”

The Guinea Gold was a dirty-looking vessel of small tonnage, with dingy sails furled, linked to the dock by a plank walk. From the deck a burly person in authority looked across. Dr. Johnson measured him, and coolly mounted.

“Captain—?”

“Westover, what then?”

“From the City Wharfinger,” I recited my lesson. I knew not whether there was such an official, but as it fell out, Captain Westover, unused to London port, knew no more than I; and my words were backed by a most impressive document of Johnson’s concocting, gaudily sealed in red. The Captain frowned at it myopically.

“As Inspector of Wharves,” said I glibly, “I am directed to view your ship before she sails; and my friend comes with me, Colonel Johnson, a wealthy nabob of Barbadoes, who having money to put out, desires to see how the slave trade goes on.”

“Scurvily,” grumbled the Captain; “but view what you will. Mr. MacNeill!”

MacNeill proved to be the ship’s supercargo, a sandy little tight-mouthed person who led us about in silence. We walked the deck, where sailor-men in loose pantaloons and tarry pigtails busied themselves mysteriously with coils of rope. They stared curiously at Frank’s gauds, but said nothing. I drew from my pocket the tablets I invariably carry about me (to record my friend’s memorable discourses) and officiously made notes. Quashie, the real object of our search, was nowhere to be seen.

From the deck we descended the stair to the chart room and the officers’ quarters. All was narrow and dark and empty, but shipshape and ready to clear. No Quashie.

We passed forward to the forecastle, where dwelt the crew. We saw their few hammocks and sleeping gear trussed up out of the way against the wooden side. Well forward, a thin sailor in greasy slops scoured a pot. He gave us a surly look. No Quashie.

“So, sir,” said MacNeill, “you’ve seen how we live. Will it please you go up?”

“No, sir,” said Johnson, “we’ll go down.”

“As you will,” shrugged MacNeill. “The hold is in order, but I fear it won’t please you.”

The stench from the open hatch was already turning our stomachs, but we descended the narrow ladder, and stood in the darkness of the hold. I felt Frank shudder. As our eyes adjusted, we saw that the airless space, barely six feet high, was ringed round about by a double shelf, too low for a man to sit erect. MacNeill became voluble.

“On these shelves,” said he, “we may transport two or three hundred blacks from Guinea to Jamaica, chained two and two—”

The chains were visible, stapled to the wall.

“And on the voyage out to Guinea, as you see, the shelves serve for the trinkets and trade goods.”

Indeed the surfaces were crammed with boxes and bales. Loading was done, and the ship was ready to sail.

“And what’s this ironmongery?” With his oak stick, Dr. Johnson poked at a tangle of implements in a recess.

“Why, sir, to control the negers.”

With a shudder I made out the sinister shape of a cat-o’-nine-tails with barbed lashes, spiked collars, leg-irons, and manacles. My gorge rose.

“Well thought on,” said Johnson coolly; “and what’s backwards of the hatch?”

“More shelves, sir; and there, of course, the mainmast is stepped.”

We made it out by the faint light from the hatch over head, a great oak tree trunk, affixed to the ship’s spine; and against it, as if embracing it, sat poor Quashie. His slim wrists were encircled with iron bracelets, rivetted on, and a chain round the mast held him fast, so that he could sit or stand against it, but not turn away. He had no song now. He rolled his eyes upon us in silent despair.

“What’s to do here?” asked Johnson, still maintaining his character of a stranger from Barbadoes.

“’Tis a runaway slave, sir, consigned to Jamaica to be sold. They’ll teach him better there, I warrant you,” said MacNeill with satisfaction.

“And a good thing too,” Dr. Johnson seconded the sentiment. “You, Frank, you scoundrel, look on him and be warned,” he added with affected menace.

“Yes, marsa,” said Frank.

“Well, let us go. Pray, Mr. MacNeill, go you before. You, Mister Wharfinger (politely naming me by my supposed function), shall boost from behind, and so I’ll get myself up this precipice.”

MacNeill shewed his agility by scampering up. Dr. Johnson put one foot to the ladder, and paused. His oak stick had vanished, and must be found. Frank and I were put to the search:

“Go you abaft the mainmast, Frank, and you, Mister Wharfinger, forward. And, Bozzy (calling after me), turn over the ironmongery.”

Inwardly shrinking, I did so, setting up a prolonged clangour and clatter, before the lost object finally came to light by the ladder foot. Satisfied, my friend ascended another rung of the ladder, and again paused. This time the delay was caused by a slightly loose shoe buckle, which must be (with much difficulty and a handy scrap of packthread) secured, lest the wearer trip in ascending.

“Well, sir, what’s the matter?” called MacNeill impatiently.

“Nothing, sir, all’s put to rights. Here we come. Frank! Where’s that rascal?”

“Here, marsa.” Caftan and turban appeared beside us.

“Up we go! Boost, Frank! And you, Mister Wharfinger, pray pass up my stick and follow on.”

I followed on. When I came up out of the noisome hold, I saw the departing flick of a brocade hem at the officers’ stair head, and heard my friend’s sonorous voice saying:

“Make haste, Frank! You must take coach and hurry to Johnson’s. Court with a billet.”

At the stair foot, MacNeill stood gazing upward and scratching his ear. I tapped his shoulder and mumbled something about his papers. In his musty lair next the chart room, he placed them before me. After solemn scrutiny, I pronounced them in order, as indeed they were for aught I knew. Gratified, the supercargo pressed upon me some specimens of the ship’s lading: sundry gaudy scraps of coarse cloth, with a handful of brummagem glass beads. I uttered profuse thanks, and took elaborate leave of him.

When I issued at last into the blessed clean air of the deck, Dr. Johnson’s servitor had a written billet clutched in his greasy black hand, and was crossing the plank to the wharf, the while his master called after him:

“And hark’ee, Frank, bid the coachman make haste in returning.”

An emphatick nod shook the turban fringes, and Ben Handey’s coach jiggled them from our sight.

“All done?” rasped Captain Westover behind me.

“The report must be writ on the spot,” cut in Dr. Johnson. “Be about it, Mister Wharfinger. You’ve time till Frank returns with an answer.”

“An answer to what?” growled the Captain suspiciously.

“To my billet, sir,” replied my friend blandly. “Now as to the blacks aboard ship, sir, pray tell, how do you manage—?”

He drew the scowling fellow into private discourse by the rail. My ears cauught scraps of the slaver’s profane complaints about the perversity of the blackamoors and the difficulties of the slave trade. Warned by a glance from Dr. Johnson, I perched on a coil of rope, drew forth my tablets, and fell to scribbling. Having nothing official to record, I began to narrate the affecting story of Quashie. How would it end?

I did not see Frank come aboard, but when our hackney coach was once more perceived upon the wharf, Dr. Johnson pronounced:

“Frank must be returned. Frank!” he bellowed. “Where’s my lacquey? He needs a beating. Frank!”

At this moment, who should come striding up the gang-plank but—Captain Standart! At sight of us he started.

“What, old square-toes, what do you here? After Quashie, no doubt? Well, I have him safe, sir. He’ll soon learn his lesson,”

“No doubt, sir,” said Dr. Johnson coldly. “I’ll bid you good day, sir. Frank!”

Up from below came Frank, his brocades gleaming, his wooley head bare.

“Quashie!” cried Captain Standart, collaring him. “’Tis my black (shaking him)! How have you got loose? And in these cloathes!”

“No, sir,” said Frank smoothly, in his best schooled English, “I am not your black: I am Dr. Johnson’s black, and I desire you’ll not detain me.”

“There’s something deep here,” muttered Stan-dart, loosing him reluctantly, “and I’ll get to the bottom of it.”

“Do,” said Johnson, “go as deep in iniquity as you please, but stand out of my way (gripping his oaken stick). You, Frank, you scoundrel, where’s your headgear?”

“Alack, sir, blown overboard.”

Dr. Johnson caught him a smart box o’ the ear.

“Be off, you ideot!”

To my amazement, the lofty philosopher, brandishing his stick, cudgelled Frank before him down the plank onto the wharf, while the black protected his pate with his arms. Captain Westover by the rail roared with laughter as at a comedy, and Captain Standart snorted and turned on his heel.

“Make haste, Ben,” said Dr. Johnson, “for Captain Standart has gone below; he’ll explode any minute.”

As the Jehu encouraged his tired nag to exertion, sure enough there was a roar from the ship, and as we clattered away, Captain Standart started to the rail, his saturnine visage purple, and shook his fist after us.

BEN HANDEY: What ails the fellow?

JOHNSON (smiling): He has discovered the disappearance of Quashie.

BOSWELL: But what of the chain and manacles?

JOHNSON: ’Twas Frank that managed it. The hog’s lard did it, boy?

FRANK: Yes, sir. The bracelets were meant for sailors’ fists, not hands like ours (holding up a slim paw), and being well greased with hog’s lard, such a hand could slip through. To my relief; for hammer and chisel, tho’ I carried them about me, could not but prove noisier even than Mr. Boswell stirring up the ironmongery. Well, we got the fetters off, and caftan and turban on, while you, sirs, raised a dust at the ladder foot; and so Quashie passed for me long enough to slip away.

BOSWELL: What would you have done, Dr. Johnson, had the supercargo, becoming suspicious, descended the ladder again to oversee our proceedings?

JOHNSON: First tripping up his heels with my staff, sir, I should have then encumbered him with help, long enough for Quashie in Frank’s caftan to make the best of his way up the ladder.

BOSWELL: Caftan? What then does Frank wear?

FRANK: A man may wear two caftans, one above the other.

BOSWELL: (enlightened): But not two turbans.

“So the turban must seem lost,” smiled Dr. Johnson. “Sorry I am, Frank, that I had to beat you for it.”

“More convincingly,” rejoined Frank, “than painfully.”

“It gave us a spectacular scene to exit by,” observed Dr. Johnson, “and diverted the attention of the slavers momentarily from Quashie, long enough for us to elude them. We should not care to be in their hands now.”

“So I was thinking, waiting in the hold for Quashie to get well away,” said Frank. “I knew not but I should see Jamaica and slavery again.”

“Well, boy, you have done nobly.”

“Why Frank?” I burst out, aggrieved. “Why not me? Why was I excluded from the scheam?”

“Your face, my dear Bozzie,” replied my friend, “is a window to your mind. Had you known ’twas Quashie between the turban fringes, your demeanor would have told the world of it.”

“No, sir, you wrong me,” said I quietly. “Could I fail to know one from ’tother, after weeks of seeing them together? Yet when you said ‘Frank,’ was I to cry ‘Quashie’? To what end, think you did I clatter and clash the ironmongery so long and loud? To what end did I hold the supercargo in discourse while you sent off the black post-haste? No, sir, I have played my part, even uninstructed.”

“Well done, Bozzy!” cried Dr. Johnson. “And prodigious well done, Frank! Between you, you have saved Quashie from slavery and oppression!”

Yet tho’ Quashie had been rescued from the vengeful Captain, in the Court of King’s Bench before Lord Mansfield, Quashie’s freedom, with Somerset’s, still hung in the balance. I left England in late May. Not until June did I have a jubilant communication from Dr. Sam Johnson:

“You will rejoice to know, sir, that Somerset, and with him Quashie and all the rest, is finally free, by the noble efforts of Mr. Granville Sharp, and the judicial dictum of Lord Mansfield, who said:

“The air of England has long been too pure for a slave, and every man is free who breathes it!”

[Affairs like this one happened more than once in 18th Century London, and more than once the heroic abolitionist Granville Sharp (not, in reality, Dr. Sam: Johnson, strongly anti-slavery though he was) saved the abused Negro from a Jamaica-bound vessel, as we read in the Memoirs (Prince Hoare, Memoirs of Granville Sharp, Esq., London: Henry Colburn, 1828, 2 vols.). Lord Mansfield’s judgment in the Somerset case, which at last put a stop to such disgraceful episodes, is history. For a similar decision in the Scottish court, some time later, both Boswell and Johnson labored mightily.]