‘It’s how we record our history, Mr Ferguson.’
‘Is it now? Is it now? Well, how many are you thinking?’ he said.
‘Two hundred?’ Francis replied.
Ferguson shook his heavy head. ‘No, lad. Five hundred for something new like this, and if we don’t sell them all in two months, you can dock the paper costs from my wages.’
‘Perhaps I will.’
Ferguson held the page up. ‘The Life of Adisa Enitan, the African, also known as Francis Glass, by himself. Including the story of his kidnapping from his native land, his sufferings as a slave and trial as a child at the Old Bailey, with an account of the many cruelties and kindnesses he met with in Christian lands leading to his freedom, with his thoughts on slavery and an appeal to all good English men and women for its immediate abolition. Oh, those are good words. Five hundred, no doubt.’ He turned away from the page. ‘Joshua! Up here, my lad! There’s work to be done.’
‘Thank you, Mr Ferguson.’
‘My pleasure, Mr Glass.’
As he walked away, Francis could already hear the type rattling into place.
HISTORICAL NOTE
The history of British involvement in slavery and the slave trade is complex, contradictory, evolving and unsettling. Much of the prosperity this country has enjoyed over the last two hundred years was built on human misery and suffering on an almost unimaginable scale. Our institutions, our monuments and our culture are all stained and coloured by slavery, and it’s not talked about enough.
The transatlantic slave trade was outlawed in 1807 after massive public pressure, and slavery was finally abolished in 1833. At that point, £20 million in compensation was paid out by the British Government – not to the slaves but to the slave-owners. You can see where this money went and find a great deal more information at the Legacies of British Slave-ownership site at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/ which was launched during the writing of this book.
For a general history of the Abolition movement in Britain I’d recommend Bury the Chains: the British Struggle to Abolish Slavery by Adam Hochschild, and for an account of the British in the West Indies The Sugar Barons by Matthew Parker. For more about the lives of black people in Britain, as well as Peter Fryer’s book Staying Power, I’d recommend Florian Shyllon’s Black People in Britain 1555–1833. The book I would most like everyone to read though is The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, also known as Gustavus Vassa. It was published in 1789. The Penguin Classics edition has an excellent introduction and notes from Vincent Carretta.
Thomas Clarkson (1760–1846) did indeed write an essay against slavery for the Cambridge Latin Prize in 1785 and included in it testimony from unpublished manuscripts and extracts of the poetry of Phillis Wheatley. After winning the prize, he dedicated the rest of his life to fighting slavery, and records the moment of his revelation on the road in Hertfordshire in his memoirs. I’ve drawn very heavily on his account of that moment in my description of it. His essay was published in English in 1786 and was instrumental in turning the public mood against slavery. You can read it online. The story of a slave beaten to death on the quayside and thrown to the sharks comes from the English version of his essay, quoting from unpublished papers. In 1787 he formed the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade with the lawyer Granville Sharp, who is also mentioned in the novel, and a number of prominent Quakers. He met William Wilberforce in the same year.
Stephen Paxton and Dieudonné-Pascal Pieltain were both real composers and performers working in London in May 1785. Paxton has a cameo in Instruments of Darkness, the first novel in this series.
All of the other characters who appear in the book are fictional, but some are more fictional than others. Students of the period might notice some similarities between the careers of Dr Fischer and that of John Newton (1725–1807), who wrote ‘Amazing Grace’, among other famous hymns. Newton was a slave trader for some years then, after taking Holy Orders and preaching very successfully in Olney, he was invited to become Rector of St Mary Woolnoth in 1779. He was an evangelical, obviously a charismatic preacher, and attracted a large congregation. He did not speak out against slavery until 1788, but when he did, it was with considerable effect. I do not think he ever attacked small children to cover up his past, nor is there any evidence I have seen of active sadism on his part during his time as a trader.
The manuscript is also, like Trimnell himself, a fiction, but deeply influenced by the diary left by Thomas Thistlewood of his time in Jamaica. The names Eustache yells at Fischer come from this document, and the stories Eustache quotes are loosely adapted from the same source. I left out the worst of it. Professor James Walvin’s The Trader, The Owner, The Slave: Parallel Lives in the Age of Slavery is a gripping account of the lives of Newton, Thistlewood and Equiano.
Tobias Christopher owes much of his rhetoric to Quobna Ottobah Cugoano and his Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery published in 1787.
Francis Glass as he appears in this book is my own creation, though much of his story is deeply influenced by, and draws on, that of Olaudah Equiano and his Interesting Narrative. There is an historical Francis Glass behind the fictional one, however. Below is the complete text of a record I found on www.oldbaileyonline.org (Old Bailey Online: The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674–1913) during my research for this novel:
Francis Glass, Theft > burglary, 7th September 1768
573. (M.) Francis Glass was indicted for that he, on the 5th of September, about the hour of two in the night, the dwelling-house of James Smith did break and enter, and stealing a silk handkerchief, value 10 d. the property of the said James.*
James Smith. I live in Norfolk-street in the Strand; the boy at the bar was servant to a gentleman named Allear, who lodged at my house. (Note, the prisoner was a Black.) It is about 12 months since the prisoner was sent to Jamaica, and he has been returned about six weeks; my servant came up to me this day se’nnight in the morning, about eight o’clock, and told me my house was broke open; I came down and found the kitchen window broke open; there was a little place where I kept some brandy and wine, that had been pulled all about the parlour, and particularly an apple-pie which the young man at the bar was very fond of; I believe he had filled his belly, but the silver spoon in the pie was there safe; I immediately called my servants, and asked them if they had seen any thing of the prisoner he having served me so some time before; I said, I fancy it is my friend Glass come again; I being about going out of town, desired them to see if they could see him; accordingly one of them found him; he was brought to me; I said to him, how came you here again; he told me a gentleman had bought him in Jamaica, and that he lived with one Dr Fisher in Cecil-street; I could not find such a gentleman; at last he confessed he lived with Dr Fisher; I wrote the doctor a letter, he came to me; the prisoner told me the doctor had threatened to whip him for pissing his bed, and that was the occasion of his running away from him; he left the silver spoon and several things of value, he only took a handkerchief which our people found upon him; I cannot tell where it was taken from.
Acquitted.
Old Bailey Proceedings Online (version 7.0, 20 September 2013), September 1768, trial of Francis Glass (t17680907–69)
I’ve not been able to find any further record of the real Francis Glass and I wish very much there was a way to find out what happened to him. However, in fiction – possibly in crime fiction in particular – we are allowed to make occasional attempts to save some of the innocent, and punish at least some of the guilty.
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Theft of Life Page 35
