We cannot judge the social and economic realities and pressures he and his wife faced, and which no doubt contributed to their decision about what to sell. 1731 to 1749. In another letter, he suggested that hairdressers should work for the army rather than continue to spend hours creating extravagant hairstyles for ladies, who would reclaim their reason as they got their heads back. This made everyone responsible for the practice of slavery, ‘as it is at this day practiced.’ If everyone shared responsibility, that implies that they must actively be against the practice, or, at best, condone the plantation system that relied on slavery. I was looking for a British composer from the late 1700s or early 1800s to use in a short story recently and came across a man by the name of Ignatius Sancho. Abolitionist & Britain’s First Black Voter. In his biography of Sancho, Jekyll claimed that he was the product of an educational experiment. And how many shades must we descend lower still in the scale, ‘ere mercy is to Amish with them?—but ‘tis no uncommon thing, my good Sancho, for one half of the world to use the other half of it like brutes, & then endeavour to make ‘em so. Lucy was introduced to the world of Austen variations after stumbling across one at a used bookstore while on holiday in London. having gone from being an orphaned slave to butler to a duke, to a business owner in a rich neighbourhood. Ignatius Sancho was also an accomplished composer and went on to publish four collections of music compositions. Set for the Harpischord By Permission Humbly Dedicated to the Right Honourable Miss North, by her most obedient Servant Ignatius Sancho. Accessed 13 July 2020, The Jane Austen Centre (2015). You who are universally read, and as universally admired—you could not fail—Dear Sir, think in me you behold the uplifted hands of thousands of my brother Moors.—Grief (you pathetically observe) is eloquent;—figure to yourself their attitudes;—hear their supplications addresses!—alas!—you cannot refuse. Janeausten.co.uk/tag/sentimental-journey Accessed 13 July 2020. Here are just three of his pieces. The title of the volume was The Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, An African, emphasising or linking Sancho’s identify to the colour of his skin and his real or assumed place of birth. It was in this letter that Sancho provided the brief autobiography I mentioned earlier. Book 2d. He also wrote to a friend in 1780, “I am not sorry I was born in Afric [sic],” (Carey, 2003, p. 6) which seems to confirm that this was his understanding of his past, rather than having been born on a slave ship. ‘The extraordinary negro’: Ignatius Sancho, Joseph Jekyll, and the problem of biography. Ignatius Sancho: British composer, abolitionist and “man of … British Library (n.d.) Ignatius Sancho. Hammerschmidt contends that the book was informed by and perpetuated the belief that Black slaves would necessarily be liberated by White Britons—and that it was natural that they should rely on White people in this way. Because Sancho was an amateur, he had to pay to have his music published. British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 26(1): 1-14.