SHARP. 



the bar, but did not praftife at it. When he quitted the 

 legal profefhon, he obtained a place in the ordnance office, 

 which he refigr.ed at the commencement of the American 

 war ; the principles of which were abhorrent from his mind. 

 He now took chambers in the Temple, and devoted himfclf 

 to a hfe of lludy ; at the fame time, laying himfclf out for 

 public utility. He firft became known to tiie pnblic in the 

 cafe of a poor and friendlefs Negro, of the name of 60- 

 merfet. This perfon had been brought from the Welt 

 Indies to England by a mafter, whofe name we fliould 

 gladly hand down to the execration of pollerity, if it were 

 in our power ; and falling into bad health, was abandoned 

 by him as a ufelefs article of property, and turned into the 

 ftreets, either to die, or to gain a miforable fupport by 

 precarious charity. In this deftitute Itate, almolt, it is 

 faid, on the point of expiring on the pavement of one of 

 the public ftreets of London, Mr. Sharp chanced to fee 

 him. He inttantly had him removed to St. Bartholomew's 

 hofpital, attended pcrfonally to his wants, and in a fhort 

 time had the happinefs to fee him reftorcd to health. Mr. 

 Sharp now clothed him, and procured him comfortable em- 

 ployment in the fervice of a lady. Two years had elapfcd, 

 and the circumitance almolt, and the name of the poor 

 NepTo, had efcapcd the memory of his benefaftor, when 

 Mr. Sharp received a letter from a perfon, figning himfclf 

 Somerfet, confined in the Poultry Compter, Hating no 

 caufe for his commitment, but intreating his interference to 

 fave him from a greater calamity even than the death from 

 which he had before refcned him. Mr. Sharp inttantly went 

 to the prifon, and found the Negro, who in ficknefs and 

 mifery had been difcarded by his mailer, fent to prifon as a 

 runaway flave. The excellent patriot went immediately to 

 the lord mayor, William Nafli, efq., who caufed the parties 

 to be brought before him ; v.-hen, after a long hearing, the 

 upright magiltrate decided that the mailer had no property 

 in the perfon of the Negro, in this country, and gave the 

 Negro his liberty. The malter inllantly collared him, in 

 the prefencc of Mr. Sharp and tlie lord mayor, and infilled 

 on his right to keep him as his property. Mr. Sharp now 

 claimed the protedlion of the Enghth law, caufed the mailer 

 to be taken into cuftody, and exhibited articles of peace 

 againtt him for an alTault and battery. After various legal 

 proceedings, lupported by him with moil undaunted Ipirit, 

 the twelve judges unanimoiilly concurred in an opinion that 

 the mafter had afttd criminally. Thus did Mr. Sharp 

 emancipate for ever the race of blacks from a Hate of 

 flavery, while on Britifli ground, and in faft banilhed flavery 

 from Great Britain. Such an incident could not fail deeply 

 to imprefs a benevolent mind ; and flavery, in every fliape 

 and country, became the objeft of his unceafing hoftility. 

 In 1769 he publifhed a work, entitled "A Reprcfentation 

 of the InjulHce and dangerous Ter.dency of tolerating 

 Slavery, or of admitting the lead Claim of private Property 

 in the Perfons of Men in England." Having fuceeeded in 

 the cafe of an individual Negro, he interelted himfelf in the 

 condition of the many others, who were feen wandering 

 about the ilreets of London, and at his own expence col- 

 lei£tcd a number of them, whom lie fent back to Africa, 

 where they formed a colony on th.e river Sierra Leone. He 

 performed a Hill more efTential fcivice to humanity, by be- 

 coming the mllitutor of the " Society for the Abolilion of 

 the Slave Trade ;" which, after contending againlt a vaft 

 mafs of oppofition, at length glorioufly fucceeded, as far as 

 this country was concerned in the horrible traffic. 



Mr. Granville Sharp is mentioned in connexion with this 

 bufinefs, in terms of the higheft commendation, by Mr. 

 Clarkfon, in his " Hillory of the Abolition of the Slave 



Trade." (See vol. i. p. 63 — 70.) The following fhort 

 account of him is cxtrafted from the Edinburgh Review, 

 vol. xii. 



" We think it a duty to mention the name of Mr. Gran- 

 ville Sharp. Regardlefs of the dangers to which he ex- 

 pofcd himfclf, botii in liis perfon and his fortune, Mr. Sharp 

 ilood forward in every cafe as the courageous friend of the 

 poor Africans in England, in diredl oppofition to an opinion 

 of York and Talbot, the attorney and folicitor-general for 

 the time being. This opinion had been aCted upon ; and 

 fo high was its authority, that, after it had been made 

 public, it was held as the fettled law of the land, that a flave, 

 neither by baptifm, or arrival in Great Britain or Ireland, 

 acquires freedom, but may be legally forced back to the 

 plantations. Difcouraged by judge Blackitone, and feveral 

 other eminent lawyers, Mr. Sharp devoted three years of 

 his life to the Englifh law, that he might render himfelf the 

 more effectual advocate of thefe friendlefs ilrangers. In 

 his work, entitled " A Reprefertation of the Injullice and 

 dangerous Tendency of tolerating Slavery in England," 

 publifhed in the year 1769, and afterwards in his learned 

 and laborious " Inquiry into the Principles of Villenages," 

 he refuted the opinion of York and Talbot by unanswerable 

 arguments, and neutralized their authority by the counter 

 opinion of the great lord chief jullice Holt, who many 

 years before had decided, that as force could be ufed againlt 

 no man in England without legal procefs, every flave com- 

 ing into England became free, inafmuch as the laws of 

 England recognized the diflinftion between perfon and pro- 

 perty as perpetual ar.d facred. Einally, in the great cafe 

 ef Somerfet, which was argued at three different fittings, 

 in January, in February, and in May, of the year 1772, 

 (the opinion ot the judges havinjj been taken up on the 

 pleadings,) it is at laft afcertained and declared to be the 

 law of the land, that as foon as ever any flave fet his foot 

 upon Englifh territory, he became free. Among the heroes 

 and fages of Britifh flory, we can think of few whom we 

 fiiould feel a greater glow of honefl pride in claiming as an 

 anceflor, than the man to wham we owe our power of re- 

 peating with truth, 



" Slaves cannot breathe in England ; if their lungs 

 Receive our air, that mom.ent they are free : 

 They touch our country, and their fhackles fall." 



Similar principles led Mr. Sharp to ufe his endeavours to 

 rellrain the arbitrary practice of marine impreffment ; and a 

 citizen of London having been carried off by a prefs-warrant, 

 Mr. Shaip obtained a habeas corpus from the court of king's 

 bench, to bring him back from a veliel at the Nore ; and 

 by his arguments obliged the court to hberate him. In his 

 political principles he was always the ardent and zealous 

 friend to liberty, a!id he negledled no opportunity to defend 

 its principles, and affert the rights of the people. He was 

 the warm advocate of " parliamentary reform," and pub- 

 lifhed, in 177!:!, the fccor.d edition of an excellent little 

 work, full of conllitutional knowledge ar.d found reafonin^, 

 entitled " A Declaration of the People's natural Right to 

 a Share in the Lcgiflature, which is the fundamental Prin- 

 ciple of the Britifh Conflitution of State." He was, in 

 1794, as zealoufly attached to the caufe as he had been 

 twenty years before ; though, perhaps, he did not feel him- 

 felf fufficiently adlive to engage in it as a partizan, when it 

 was a fubjefl of obloquy. He was not, however, an un- 

 concerned fpeftator of the dreadful tyranny, which, but 

 for the intervention of an honeft Englifh jury, would have 

 overwhelmed the land. He fent, to one of the perfons at 

 that time confined in the Tower of London, a copy of the 



work 



