Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African by Ignatius Sancho

At the bottom of the page we see him nattering his compliments and expressing his hope only to be distracted by an ink blot (which the publisher duly reproduces) “confound the ink blot! what a blot! Now don’t you dare suppose I was in fault–no, Sir, the pen was diabled–the paper worse, there was concatenation” and on he goes. Sancho’s writing is full of digressions–rather like the writing of Lawrence Sterne, the novelist he so admired. The page below captures the playfulness of Sancho’s writing, with his signature splattering of dashes all through the page. Writing as he prepared to open shop in 1773, he enthused: “I verily think the happiest part of my life is to come–soap, starch, and blue, with raisins, figs, &c.–we shall cut a respectable figure–in our printed cards.” Here’s one of those printed cards: Instead, he and his wife, Anne Osborne, opened a grocery store in London. Sancho loved the theater! Had he not suffered from a speech impediment, he would have pursued an acting career. (Remember the figurine of David Garrick as Richard III in Bundle 1, “Gallery of Readers”?)įigurine of David Garrick in his famous role as Richard III. His biographer claims he spent his last shilling so that he could watch a performance of Shakespeare’s Richard III, starring David Garrick. Sancho had a wild spell during his youth. When the Duchess of Montagu died, she bequeathed him a year’s salary and an annuity of about thirty pounds. He ran away from the sisters and joined the Montagu household, where he was a trusted valet. Sancho was purchased by three sisters living in Greenwich, who, as he wrote in a 1766 letter, “judged ignorance the best and only security for obedience” however, their neighbor, the Duke of Montagu, took a fancy to the boy and saw that he learned reading, writing, and music. His mother died of disease, and his father committed suicide so that he would not have to endure slavery. Ignatius Sancho, 1768 by Thomas GainsboroughĪccording to his contemporary biographer, Joseph Jekyll, Sancho was born circa 1729 aboard a slave ship crossing the Middle Passage. 9 Ignatius Sancho (1729-1780) Introducing Ignatius Sancho

Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African by Ignatius Sancho