"REVEREND SIR,--It would perhaps look like an insult upon your humanity to apologize for the liberty I am taking. I am one of those people whom the vulgar and illiberal call 'Negurs.' The first part of my life was rather unlucky, as I was placed in a family who judged ignorance to be the best and only security for obedience. By unwearied application I got a little reading and writing. Through God's blessing, the latter part of my life has been truly fortunate, for I have spent it in the service of one of the best families in the kingdom. My chief pleasure has been books. How very much, good sir, am I, among millions, indebted to you for the character of your amiable Uncle Toby! I declare I would walk ten miles, in dog-days, to shake hands with the honest Corporal. Your sermons have touched me to the heart, and I hope have amended it. In your tenth discourse I find this very affecting passage: 'Consider how great a part of our species, in all ages, down to this, have been trodden under the feet of cruel and capricious tyrants, who would neither hear their cries nor pity their distresses. Consider Slavery, what a bitter draught it is, and how many millions are made to drink of it.' "I am sure you will forgive me if I beseech you to give some attention to Slavery, as it is practised at this day in the West Indies. That subject, handled in your striking manner, would perhaps ease the yoke of many; but if only of one, what a feast for a benevolent heart! and sure I am, you are an Epicurean[1] in acts of charity. You, who are universally read and as universally admired, could not fail. Dear sir, think that in me you behold the uplifted hands of thousands of my brother Moors. You pathetically observe that grief is eloquent. Figure to yourself their attitudes, hear their supplications, and you cannot refuse." Mr. Sterne wrote the following reply:-- "July 27th, 1766. "There is a strange coincidence, Sancho, in the little events of this world, as well as the great ones. I had been writing a tender tale of the sorrows of a poor, friendless negro girl, and my eyes had scarce done smarting with it, when your letter, in behalf of so many of her brethren and sisters, came to me. But why _her_ brethren or _your_ brethren, Sancho, any more than _mine_? It is by the finest tints, and the most insensible gradations, that nature descends from the fairest face to the sootiest complexion. At which of these tints are the ties of blood to cease? and how many shades lower in the scale must we descend, ere mercy is to vanish with them?