the efforts of the slaves to escape service. The negroes, seeing the relative freedom and comfort of the white servants of England, ran away. Fora time the masters had merely to find the negroes to recover them, but eventually it was noised among the negroes that, under the laws of England, every human being who had been baptized in the Established Church was free. Thereat every negro made haste to get baptized.
The law was plain in letter and spirit, but the Crown Attorney and the Solicitor-General, at the request of certain slave-owners, wrote an opinion saying that baptism of a slave could not divest the slave-owner of any property right. That opinion served as law for nearly forty years.
But in 1765 a Barbadoes planter named David Lisle came to London bringing a negro slave named Jonathan Strong with him, and took lodgings in Wapping. Lisle abused Strong in shocking fashion and then turned him into the street, as he would have turned a worthless dog, to die.
At that time a Dr. William Sharp lived in Wapping, and he gave much time to charity. In some way the negro Strong found his way to Sharp's oflice. Sharp heard his story and sent him to a hospital, where he was cured. Now, Dr. Sharp had a brother, one Granville Sharp, "born at Durham, England, November 10, 1735. His early education was limited. In 1750 he was apprenticed to a Friend — alterward to an Independent — and subsequently to a Romanist." The story of the negro Strong appealed to Granville, who after he left the hospital obtained a situation for him where all went well with him until one day in 1767 his old master saw him, and at once decided to take
