London: J. Nichols et.al., 1782

Ignatius Sancho was a former slave who described the horrors he had experienced in his Letters, published posthumously in 1782. In July 1766 Sancho wrote to Sterne, imploring him to apply his considerable ability for producing powerfully affecting prose to write against the slave trade. Sterne’s reply captures the pathos for which he was becoming increasingly famous, describing how upon receiving Sancho’s letter he ‘had been writing a tender tale of the sorrows of a friendless poor negro-girl, and my eyes had scarce done smarting with it’. Upon its publication in The letters of the late Rev. Laurence Sterne, to his most intimate friends (1776), the exchange with Sancho promoted Sterne’s image as a model of compassionate humanity. Ewan Clark bases his poetic version of the correspondence on this collection, bringing Sterne’s words to comment afresh upon a contemporary debate that was becoming even more pressing as the Abolitionist movement gained increasing momentum.
Oates 483, frontispiece