Transcriber's note: Italic font is indicated by _underscores_. Small upper-case letters are indicated by +plus signs+. LETTERS OF THE LATE IGNATIUS SANCHO, AN AFRICAN. To which are prefixed, +MEMOIRS of his LIFE+. THE THIRD EDITION. LONDON: PRINTED BY J. NICHOLS; +And Sold by C. DILLY, in the POULTRY+. MDCCLXXXIV. ADVERTISEMENT. THE Editor of these Letters thinks proper to obviate an objection, which she finds has already been suggested, that they were originally written with a view to publication. She declares, therefore, that no such idea was ever expressed by Mr. Sancho; and that not a single letter is here printed from any duplicate preserved by himself, but all have been collected from the various friends to whom they were addressed. Her motives for laying them before the publick were, the desire of shewing that an untutored African may possess abilities equal to an European; and the still superior motive, of wishing to serve his worthy family. And she is happy in thus publicly acknowledging she has not found the world inattentive to the voice of obscure merit. THE LIFE OF IGNATIUS SANCHO. “Quamvis ille niger, quamvis tu candidus esses.” +Virgil.+ 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.