have endeavoured to restore to their fellow creatures the rights of
nature, of which they had been unjustly deprived, I would feel myself
unjust, were I to omit two zealous opposers of the _colonial_ tyranny,
conspicuous at the present day.

The first is Mr. _Granville Sharp_. This Gentleman has particularly
distinguished himself in the cause of freedom. It is a notorious fact,
that, but a few years since, many of the unfortunate black people, who
had been brought from the colonies into this country, were sold in the
metropolis to merchants and others, when their masters had no farther
occasion for their services; though it was always understood that every
person was free, as soon as he landed on the British shore. In
consequence of this notion, these unfortunate black people, refused to
go to the new masters, to whom they were consigned. They were however
seized, and forcibly conveyed, under cover of the night, to ships then
lying in the _Thames_, to be retransported to the colonies, and to be
delivered again to the planters as merchantable goods. The humane Mr.
_Sharpe_, was the means of putting a stop to this iniquitous traffick.
Whenever he gained information of people in such a situation, he caused
them to be brought on shore. At a considerable expence he undertook
their cause, and was instrumental in obtaining the famous decree in the
case of _Somersett_, that as soon as any person whatever set his foot in
this country, he came under the protection of the _British_ laws, and was
consequently free. Nor did he interfere less honourably in that cruel
and disgraceful case, in the summer of the year 1781, when _an hundred
and thirty two_ negroes, in their passage to the colonies, were thrown
into the sea alive, to defraud the underwriters; but his pious
endeavours were by no means attended with the same success. To enumerate
his many laudable endeavours in the extirpation of tyranny and
oppression, would be to swell the preface into a volume: suffice it to