Boswell’s melancholy did not proceed from any constitutional disorder. He was involved in debt, and his creditors were importunate. His father was again appealed to, and the liabilities were discharged. Rejoicing in his deliverance he communicated the good news to Dr. Johnson. On the 16th November the Doctor thus conveyed his congratulations:—
“I had great pleasure in hearing that you are at last on good terms with your father. Cultivate his kindness by all honest and manly means. Life is but short: no time can be afforded but for the indulgence of real sorrow, or contest upon questions seriously momentous. Let us not throw away any of our days upon useless resentment, or contend who shall hold out longest in stubborn malignity. It is best not to be angry, and best, in the next place, to be quickly reconciled. May you and your father pass the remainder of your time in reciprocal benevolence!”
In December Mrs. Boswell presented her husband with a second son, who was christened David. A delicate child, he survived only a few months.
Writing to Dr. Johnson on the 8th July, 1777, Boswell claims merit in having refrained from visiting London since the spring of 1776, and proposes that the Doctor should meet him at Carlisle, and from thence complete his tour of the English cathedrals. To this proposal Johnson did not accede, but the friends agreed to meet in September at Ashbourne, in the hospitable residence of Dr. Taylor. At this meeting Boswell intimated his desire to obtain a permanent residence in London as an English barrister. This scheme Dr. Johnson warmly disapproved, and entreated his companion to be satisfied with his prospective advantages as a Scottish landowner.
In his more important legal causes Boswell had recourse to Dr. Johnson’s assistance. At Ashbourne he asked help in a case of importance. Joseph Knight, a negro, having been brought to Jamaica in the usual course of the slave trade, was purchased by a Scottish gentleman in the island, who afterwards returned to Scotland. Soon after his arrival Knight claimed his freedom, and brought an action to enforce it.[62] The case was now pending, and Boswell induced Dr. Johnson to dictate an argument on the negro’s behalf. In recording it he is careful to add that he was personally an upholder of the slave trade. He writes:—
“I record Dr. Johnson’s argument fairly upon this particular case; where, perhaps, he was in the right. But I beg leave to enter my most solemn protest against his general doctrine with respect to the slave trade. For I will resolutely say that his unfavourable notion of it was owing to prejudice and imperfect or false information. The wild and dangerous attempt which has for some time been persisted in to obtain an Act of our Legislature to abolish so very important and necessary a branch of commercial interest must have been crushed at once, had not the insignificance of the zealots, who vainly took the lead in it, made the vast body of planters, merchants, and others, whose immense properties are involved in that trade, reasonably enough suppose that there could be no danger. The encouragement which the attempt has received excites my wonder and indignation; and though some men of superior abilities have supported it, whether from a love of temporary popularity when prosperous, or a love of general mischief when desperate, my opinion is unshaken. To abolish a status which in all ages God has sanctioned and man has continued, would not only be robbery to an innumerable class of our fellow-subjects, but it would be extreme cruelty to the African savages, a portion of whom it saves from massacre, or intolerable bondage in their own country, and introduces into a much happier state of life, especially now when their passage to the West Indies, and their treatment there, is humanely regulated. To abolish that trade would be to—
“——Shut the gates of mercy on mankind.”
The political success of Edmund Burke induced Boswell to indicate his readiness to co-operate with him in regard to the American colonies. To Mr. Burke he wrote as follows:—
“Edinburgh, March 3, 1778.
“Dear Sir,—Upon my honour I began a letter to you some time ago, and did not finish it because I imagined you were then near your apotheosis, as poor Goldsmith said upon a former occasion, when he thought your party was coming into administration; and being one of your old Barons of Scotland, my pride could not brook the appearance of paying my court to a minister amongst the crowd of interested expectants on his accession. At present I take it for granted that I need be under no such apprehension, and therefore I resume the indulgence of my inclination. This may be perhaps a singular method of beginning a correspondence; and in one sense may not be very complimentative. But I can sincerely assure you, dear sir, that I feel and mean a genuine compliment to Mr. Burke himself. It is generally thought no meanness to solicit the notice and favour of a man in power; and surely it is much less a meanness to endeavour by honest means to have the honour and pleasure of being on an agreeable footing with a man of superior knowledge, abilities, and genius.