Part 23

Be assured, Mr. President, I shall not tread on forbidden ground. To the occasion and to your Association I shall be loyal; but let me be loyal also to myself. Thank God, the great volume of the Past is always open, with its lessons of warning and example. Nor will the assembly which now does me the honor to listen to me be disposed to imitate the pious pirates of the Caribbean Sea, who daily recited the Ten Commandments, always omitting the injunction, "Thou shalt not steal." I know well the sensitiveness of certain consciences. This is natural. It is according to the decrees of Providence, that whosoever has been engaged in meanness or wickedness should be pursued, wherever he moves, by reproving voices, speaking to him from the solitudes of Nature, from the darkness of night, from the hum of the street, and from every book that he reads, like fiery tongues at Pentecost, until at last the confession of Satan himself can alone express his wretchedness:--

"Me miserable! which way shall I fly? Which way I fly is Hell: _myself am Hell!_"

GRANVILLE SHARP was born at Durham, in 1735. His family was of great respectability and of ancient lineage. His grandfather was Archbishop of York, confidential chaplain and counsellor of the renowned Chancellor, Heneage Finch, Lord Nottingham. His less conspicuous father was archdeacon and prebendary of the Church, who, out of his ecclesiastical emoluments, knew how to dispense charity, while rearing his numerous children to different pursuits. Of these, Granville was the youngest son, and, though elder brothers were educated for professional life, he was destined to trade, a portion being set apart by his father to serve as his apprentice-fee in London. With this view his back was turned upon the learned languages, and his instruction was confined chiefly to writing and arithmetic; but at this time he read and enjoyed all the plays of Shakespeare, perched in an apple-tree of his father's orchard. When fifteen years old, he was bound as apprentice to a Quaker linen-draper in London, and at this tender age left his father's house. Of his apprenticeship he has given an interesting glimpse.

"After I had served about three years of my apprenticeship, my master, the Quaker, died, and I was turned over to a Presbyterian, or rather, as he was more properly called, an Independent. I afterward lived some time with an Irish Papist, and also with another person, who, I believe, had no religion at all."[144]

[144] Memoirs, by Prince Hoare, (London, 1820,) p. 28.

Although always a devoted member of the Church of England, these extraordinary experiences in early life placed him above the prejudice of sect, and inspired a rule of conduct worthy of perpetual memory, which he presents as follows.

"It has taught me to make a proper distinction between the OPINIONS of men and their PERSONS. The former I can freely condemn, without presuming to judge the individuals themselves. Thus freedom of argument is preserved, as well as Christian charity, leaving personal judgment to Him to whom alone it belongs."[145]

[145] Memoirs, p. 29.

Only two years before the enrolment of Granville Sharp among London apprentices,--that class so famous in local history,--another person, kindred in benevolence, and now in fame, Howard, the philanthropist, on whose career Burke has cast the illumination of his genius, finished service in the same place, as apprentice to a wholesale grocer. I do not know that these two congenial natures--or yet another contemporary of lowly fortunes, Robert Raikes, the inventor of Sunday schools--ever encountered in the world. But they are joined in example,--and the life of an apprentice, in all its humilities, seems radiant with their presence, as with heavenly light. Perhaps among the apprentices of Boston there may be yet a Granville Sharp or John Howard. And just in proportion as the moral nature asserts its rightful supremacy here will such a character be hailed of higher worth than the products of all the mills of Lowell, backed by all the dividends and discounts of State Street.

Shortly after the completion of his apprenticeship and entrance upon business, Sharp lost both his parents, and very soon thereafter, abandoning trade, obtained a subordinate appointment as supernumerary clerk in the Ordnance Office, where, after six years' service, he became simply "clerk in ordinary." Meanwhile, conscientiously fulfilling this life of routine and labor, not unlike the toils of Charles Lamb at the India House, he pursued, in moments saved from business and snatched from sleep, a series of studies, which, though undervalued by his modesty, the scholar may envy. That he might better enjoy and vindicate that Book which he reverently accepted as the rule of life, he first studied Greek and then Hebrew, obtaining such command of both languages as to employ them skilfully in the field of theological controversy. Music and French he studied also, and our own English tongue too, on the pronunciation of which he wrote an excellent essay.

These quiet pursuits were interrupted by an incident which belongs to the romance of truth. An unhappy African, by the name of Jonathan Strong, was brought as a slave from Barbadoes to London, where, after brutal outrage, at which the soul shudders, inflicted by the person who called himself master,--I regret to add lawyer also,--he was turned adrift on the unpitying stones of the great metropolis, lame, blind, and faint, with ague and fever, and without a home. In this plight, while staggering along in quest of medical care, he was met by the Good Samaritan, Granville Sharp, who, touched by his misfortunes, bound up his wounds, gave him charitable assistance, placed him in a hospital, and watched him through a protracted illness, until at last health and strength returned, and he was able to commence service as freeman in a respectable home. In this condition, after the lapse of two years, he was recognized in the street by his old master, who at once determined to entrap him, and to hold him as slave. By deceitful message the victim was tempted to a public house, where he was shocked to encounter his cruel claimant, who, without delay, seized and committed him to prison. Here again was the Good Samaritan, Granville Sharp, who lost no time in enjoining upon the keeper of the prison, at his peril, not to deliver the African to any person whatever, and then promptly invoked the intervention of the Mayor of London. At the hearing before this magistrate, it appeared that the claimant had already undertaken, by formal bill of sale, to convey the alleged slave to another person, who, by an agent, was in attendance to take him on board a ship bound for Jamaica. As soon as the case was stated, the Mayor gave judgment in words worthy of imitation. "The lad," said this righteous judge, "has not stolen anything, and is not guilty of any offence, and is therefore at liberty to go away." The agent of the claimant, not disheartened, seized him by the arm, and still claimed him as "property,"--yes, even as property! Sharp, in ignorance of legal proceedings, was for a moment perplexed, when the friendly voice of the coroner, who chanced to be near, whispered, "Charge him"; on which hint, our philanthropist, turning at once to the brazen-faced claimant, said, with justifiable anger of manner, "Sir, I charge you, in the name of the King, with an assault upon the person of Jonathan Strong, and all these are my witnesses,"--when, to avoid immediate commitment, and the yawning cell of the jail, he let go his piratical, slave-hunting grasp, "and all bowed to the Lord Mayor and came away, Jonathan following Granville Sharp, and no one daring to touch him."[146]

[146] Memoirs, pp. 32-35. Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, Vol. I. pp. 57-60.

But the end was not yet. By this accidental and disinterested act of humanity Sharp was exposed at the same time to personal insult and to a suit at law. The discomfited claimant--the same lawyer who had originally abandoned the slave in the streets of London--called on him "to demand gentlemanlike satisfaction"; to which the philanthropist replied, that, as "he had studied the law so many years, he should want no satisfaction that the law could give him." And he nobly redeemed his word; for he applied himself at once to his defence against the legal process instituted by the claimant for an alleged abstraction of _property_. Here begins his greatness.

It is in collision with difficulty that the sparks of genuine character appear. This simple-hearted man, now vindictively pursued, laid his case before an eminent solicitor, who, after ample consideration with learned counsel, among whom was the celebrated Sir James Eyre, did not hesitate to assure him, that, under the British Constitution, he could not be defended against the action. An opinion given in 1729, by the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General of the time, Yorke and Talbot,--two great names in the English law, and each afterwards Lord Chancellor,--was adduced, declaring, under their respective signatures, "that a slave, by coming from the West Indies to Great Britain or Ireland, either with or without his master, _doth not_ become free," and "that the master may legally compel him to return to the plantations"; and Lord Mansfield, the Chief Justice, was reported as strenuously concurring in this opinion, to the odious extent of delivering up fugitive slaves to their claimants. With these authorities against him, and forsaken by professional defenders, Sharp was not disheartened; but, though, according to his own striking language, "totally unacquainted either with the practice of the law or the foundations of it, having never in his life opened a law-book except the Bible," he was inspired to depend on himself. An unconquerable will, and instincts often profounder in their teaching than any learning, were now his counsellors. For nearly two years, during which the suit was still pending, he gave himself to intense study of the British Constitution in all its bearings upon human liberty. During these researches he was confirmed in his original prepossessions, and aroused to undying hostility against Slavery, which he plainly saw to be without any sanction in the Constitution. "_The word_ SLAVES," he wrote, "_or anything that can justify the enslaving of others, is not to be found there, God be thanked!_"[147] And I, too, say, God be thanked!

[147] Memoirs, p. 38.

The result of these studies was embodied in a tract, entitled "A Representation of the Injustice and Dangerous Tendency of tolerating Slavery, or of admitting the least Claim of Private Property in the Persons of Men in England." This was submitted to his counsel, one of whom was the famous commentator, Sir William Blackstone, and, by means of copies in manuscript, circulated among gentlemen of the bar, until the lawyers on the other side were actually intimidated, and the Slave-Hunter, failing to bring forward his action, was mulcted in treble costs; and thus ended that persecution of our philanthropist. In 1769 this important tract was printed.

Thus far it was an individual case only which engaged his care. Another soon followed, where, through his chivalrous humanity, the intolerable wrongs of a woman kidnapped in London and transported as slave to Barbadoes, were redressed,--so far as earthly decree could go. Learning the infinite woe of Slavery, he was now aroused to broader effort. Shocked by an advertisement in a London newspaper,--such as often appeared in those days,--of "a black girl to be sold, of an excellent temper and willing disposition,"--he at once protested to the Chancellor, Lord Camden, against such things as a "notorious breach of the laws of Nature, humanity, and equity, and also of the established law, custom, and Constitution of England";[148] and in the same year, May 15, 1769, by letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, he solemnly appealed against the Slave-Trade, and thus by many years heralded the labors of Clarkson and Wilberforce. "I am myself convinced," he said, "that nothing can thrive which is in any way concerned in that unjust trade. I have known several instances which are strong proofs to me of the judgments of God, even in this world, against such a destructive and iniquitous traffic."[149] In these things he showed not only his love of justice, but his personal independence. "Although I am a _placeman_," he wrote on another occasion, "and indeed of a very inferior rank, yet I look on myself to be perfectly independent, because I have never yet been afraid to do and avow whatever I thought just and right, without the consideration of consequences to myself: for, indeed, I think it unworthy of a _man_ to be afraid of the world; and it is a point with me never to conceal my sentiments on any subject whatever, not even from my superiors in office, _when there is a probability of answering any good purpose by it_."[150]

[148] Memoirs, p. 49.

[149] Ibid., p. 45.

[150] Ibid., p. 67.

Still again was his protecting presence enlisted to save a fellow-man from bondage; and here it is necessary to note the new form of outrage. A poor African, Thomas Lewis, once a slave, was residing quietly at Chelsea, in the neighborhood of London, when he was suddenly seized by his former master, who, with the aid of two ruffians, bought for the fiendish purpose, dragged him on his back into the water, and thence into a boat lying in the Thames, when, with legs tied, and mouth gagged by a stick, he was rowed down to a ship bound for Jamaica, under a commander previously enlisted in the conspiracy, to be sold for a slave on arrival in that island. But this diabolical act, though warily contrived, did not escape notice. The cries of the victim, on his way to the boat, reached the servants of a neighboring mansion, who witnessed the deadly struggle, but did not venture a rescue. Their mistress, a retired widow, mother of the eminent naturalist and traveller, Sir Joseph Banks, on learning what had passed, instantly put forth her womanly exertion. Without the hesitation of her sex, she hurried to Granville Sharp, now known for knightly zeal to succor the distressed, laid before him the terrible story, and insisted upon vindicating the freedom of the stranger at her own expense. All honor to this woman! A simple warrant, first obtained by Sharp, was scouted by the captain, whose victim, bathed in tears, was already chained to the mast. The great writ of _Habeas Corpus_ was next invoked; and the ship, which had contumaciously proceeded on its way, was boarded in the Downs, happily within British jurisdiction, by a faithful officer, who, in the name of the King of England, unbound the African, and took him back to freedom.

A complaint was now presented against the kidnappers, who were at once indicted by the grand jury. The cause was removed to the King's Bench, and on the 20th of February, 1771, brought into court before Lord Mansfield. The defence set up, that the victim was their slave, and therefore property to be rightfully seized. Here the question was distinctly presented, whether any such property was recognized by the British Constitution? The transcendent magistrate who presided on the occasion saw the magnitude of the issue, and sought to avoid its formal determination by presenting the subordinate point, whether the claimant, supposing such property recognized, was able to prove the man to be his? The kidnappers were found guilty; but judgment against them was waived, on the recommendation of Lord Mansfield, who, be it observed, at every stage, shrank from any act by which Slavery in England should be annulled, and on this occasion avowed his "hope that the question never would be finally discussed." Sharp was justly indignant at this craven conduct, which, with all gentleness of manner, but with perfect firmness, he did not hesitate to arraign as open contempt of the true principles of the Constitution.[151]

[151] Memoirs, pp. 52-61.

Alas! it is the natural influence of Slavery to make men hard. Gorgon-like, it turns to stone. Among the judicial magistrates of the time, Lord Mansfield was not alone. His companion in contemporary fame, Blackstone, shared the petrifaction. The first edition of his incomparable Commentaries openly declared, that a slave, on coming to England, became at once a freeman; but, in a subsequent edition, after the question had been practically presented by Granville Sharp, the text was pusillanimously altered to an abandonment of this great constitutional principle; and our intrepid philanthropist hung his head with shame and anxiety, while the counsel for the Slave-Hunters triumphantly invoked this tergiversation as new authority against Freedom.[152]

[152] Memoirs, pp. 91, 92, note. The text of the first edition (1765), as quoted by Sharp's biographer, Hoare, was as follows: "And this spirit of liberty is so deeply implanted in our Constitution, and rooted even in our very soil, that a Slave, or a Negro, the moment he lands in England, falls under the protection of the laws, and, with regard to all national rights, becomes _eo instanti_ a freeman." As altered, the latter part was found to read thus: " ... a negro, the moment he lands in England, falls under the protection of the laws, and so far becomes a freeman; though the master's right to his service may _possibly_ still continue." Hoare remarks, that he finds this reading in the fifth edition, 1773. It appears also in an edition printed at Philadelphia so early as 1771. And thus the text was finally left by the author, and so remains. In the third edition, printed at Oxford in 1768, for "_possibly_" in the last clause we have the word "probably." Of this prior reading Hoare makes no mention.

The day was at hand when the great philanthropist was to be vindicated, even by the lips of the great magistrate. The Slavery question could not be suppressed: the Chief Justice of England could not suppress it. Drive out Nature with a pitchfork, and still she will return. Only a few months elapsed, when a memorable case arose, which presented the question distinctly for judgment. A negro, James Somerset, whose name, in the establishment of an immortal principle, will help to keep alive the appellation of the ducal house to which it originally belonged,--was detained in irons on board a ship lying in the Thames, and bound for Jamaica. On application to Lord Mansfield in his behalf, supported by affidavits, December 3, 1771, a writ of _Habeas Corpus_ was directed to the captain of the ship, commanding him to return the body of Somerset into court, with the cause of his detention. In course of time, though somewhat tardily, the body was produced, and for cause of detention it was assigned, that he was the property of Charles Stewart, Esq., _of Virginia_, who had held him in Virginia as a slave,--that, when brought as such to London, he ran away from the service of his master, but was recovered, and finally delivered on board the ship to be carried to Jamaica, there to be sold as the slave and property of the _Virginia gentleman_.[153] As no facts were in issue here, the whole cause hinged on the Constitutionality of Slavery in England; and the great question which the Chief Justice had sought to avoid, and on which the Commentator had changed sides, was once again to be heard.

[153] Since this Address, private papers have seen the light, by which it appears, that the claimant was cashier and paymaster of customs in North America, and for some years previous to this important case _resided in Boston_, where Somerset was known. Through all the arguments he is spoken of as from Virginia, and reference is constantly made to the laws of Virginia; nor is this mistake astonishing, when it is understood that an orator in Parliament once spoke of the "Island of Virginia," and nobody corrected him.--Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings for 1863-64, p. 324: _Villenage_, by Emory Washburn.

That the proceedings might have a solemnity in some degree corresponding to their importance, the cause was brought by Lord Mansfield before the King's Bench, where it was continued from time to time, according to the convenience of counsel and the court, running through months, and occupying different days in January, February, and May, down to the 22d June, 1772, when judgment was finally delivered. During all this period, Somerset, having recognized with sureties for his appearance in court, was left at large. To Granville Sharp he had repaired at once, and by him was kindly welcomed and effectually aided. Under the advice of this humble clerk, counsel learned in the law were retained, who were instructed by him in the grounds of defence. At his expense, too, out of his small means, the proceedings were maintained. "Money," he nobly said, "has no value but when it is well spent; and I am thoroughly convinced that no part of my little pittance of ready money can ever be better bestowed than in an honest endeavor to crush a growing oppression, which is not only shocking to humanity, but in time must prove even dangerous to the community."[154] On the other side the costs were defrayed by a subscription among the merchants. Hear this, merchants of Boston, justly jealous of the good name of your calling, and hang your heads with shame!

[154] Memoirs, p. 57.

To the glory of the English bar, the eminent counsel for the slave declined all fee for their valuable and protracted services; and here let me pause for one moment to pay them an unaffected tribute. They were five in number: Mr. Serjeant Davy, who opened the cause with the proposition, "that no man at this day _is_ or _can be_ a slave in England,"--Mr. Serjeant Glynn,--Mr. Mansfield, afterward Chief Justice of the Common Pleas,--Mr. Hargrave, and Mr. Alleyne,--each of whom was patiently heard by the Court at length. The argument of Mr. Hargrave, who early volunteered his great learning in the case, is one of the masterpieces of the bar. This was his first appearance in court; but it is well that Liberty on that day had such support. For all these gallant lawyers, champions of the Right, there is honor ever increasing, which the soul spontaneously offers, while it turns in sorrow from the counsel, only two in number, who allowed themselves to be enlisted on the side of Slavery. I know well that in Westminster Hall there are professional usages--which happily do not prevail in our country, where every such service depends purely on _contract_--by which a barrister thinks himself constrained to assume any cause properly presented to him. If this service depended on contract there, as with us, the sarcasm of Ben Jonson would be strictly applicable:--

"This fellow, For six sols more, would plead against his Maker."[155]

[155] The Fox, Act IV. sc. 2.