Page:A memoir of Granville Sharp.djvu/11

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GRANVILLE SHARP.
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his master, does not become free—and that his master's right and property in him is not thereby determined or varied," &c.

Then exulted the slavemaster. Then sunk the soul of the slave. The last citadel on earth of liberty, seemed demolished—and man was let loose to prey upon man, without restraint. England became a slave market, and advertisements such as the following, disgraced the metropolis of freedom!

"PUBLIC ADVERTISER. Tuesday 28th Nov. 1769. "To be sold, a black girl, the property of J. B.; eleven years of age, who is extremely handy, works at her needle tolerably, and speaks English perfectly well—is of an excellent temper and willing disposition. Enquire of Mr. Owen, at the Angel Inn, behind St. Clement's Church, in the Strand."

Mischief framed by law, yet against law, thus took deep root in Britain. And the crown and the nobles—and the monied interests—and the church and the bench and the bar, watered together the deadly plant. The whole nation seemed gone away with one consent, from God, and from law, and from its poor brother.

But God had more than seven thousand men in England, who had not bowed the knee to Baal. Rejoice, ye poor! the same God reigns forever, and the time is hastening when for you, He shall cry, as He cried for them "For the oppression of the poor—for the sighing of the needy—now will I arise, saith the Lord—I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him." Ps. xii. 5.

In 1765, David Lisle, a lawyer and a slave master of Barbadoes, then living in London, nearly killed one of his slaves, named Jonathan Strong, by most brutally beating him; and then turned him adrift in the streets. William Sharp, an eminent surgeon, Granville's brother, residing in the neighborhood, became acquainted with the facts and got Strong admitted to Bartholomew's Hospital. There he was partially cured—but his sight remained so dim in consequence of the wounds received on his head, that he continued to need aid from the brothers, and was by them put into the service of a benevolent apothecary, named Brown, in Fenchurch street. He served Brown about two