"Inquire of Mr Owen, at the Angel Inn, behind St Clement's Church in the Strand."
From the Edinburgh Evening Courant, 18th April 1768.
"A BLACK BOY TO SELL.
"TO BE SOLD, A BLACK BOY, with long hair, stout made, and well-limbed—is good tempered, can dress hair, and take care of a horse indifferently. He has been in Britain nearly three years.
"Any person that inclines to purchase him may have him for £40. He belongs to Captain Abercrombie at Broughton.
"This advertisement not to be repeated."
There was at that time probably more of this description of property in Britain than in Virginia. It had become fashionable, as one may see in Hogarth. Such advertisements—they were abundant—might furnish an apt text on which a philosophical historian could speculate on the probable results to this country, had not Mansfield gone to the root of the matter by denying all property in slaves.
So much for the chances which still remain to the devourer of books, if, after having consumed all the solid volumes within his reach, he should be reduced to shreds and patches of literature,—like a ship's crew having resort to shoe-leather and the sweepings of the locker.