Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho an African

Born a slave Ignatius Sancho (c.172980) became one of the most influential free Africans of his century. Largely self-taught he was the first black Briton known to have voted in parliamentary elections and to be given an obituary in the British press. He corresponded with many notable figures including the author Laurence Sterne whom he urged to write against slavery in the West Indies. The politician Joseph Jekyll (17541837) commended Sancho''s ''epistolary talent'' in a brief biography praising his ''wild patriotism'' and ''universal philanthropy''. This two-volume collection of Sancho''s letters was published in 1782 by the hostess Frances Crewe (17481818) who upheld Sancho as proof in an age of dehumanising slavery that Africans possessed as much natural intelligence as Europeans. Volume 1 contains Jekyll''s biography a list of more than 1200 subscribers and letters for the period 176878. It includes the famous 1766 letter to Sterne incorrectly dated 1776.