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.