The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [447]
‘Dr. Blair’s Sermons are now universally commended; but let him think that I had the honour of first finding and first praising his excellencies. I did not stay to add my voice to that of the publick.
‘My dear friend, let me thank you once more for your visit; you did me great honour, and I hope met with nothing that displeased you. I staid long at Ashbourne, not much pleased, yet aukward at departing. I then went to Lichfield, where I found my friend at Stow-hillb very dangerously diseased. Such is life. Let us try to pass it well, whatever it be, for there is surely something beyond it.
‘Well, now I hope all is well, write as soon as you can to, dear Sir, your affectionate servant,
‘London, Nov. 25, 1777.’ ’sAM. JOHNSON.’
‘To DR. SAMUEL Johnson
‘MY DEAR SIR, ‘Edinburgh, Nov. 29, 1777.
‘This day’s post has at length relieved me from much uneasiness, by bringing me a letter from you. I was, indeed, doubly uneasy; – on my own account and yours. I was very anxious to be secured against any bad consequences from my imprudence in mentioning the gentleman’s name who had told me a story to your disadvantage; and as I could hardly suppose it possible, that you would delay so long to make me easy, unless you were ill, I was not a little apprehensive about you. You must not be offended when I venture to tell you that you appear to me to have been too rigid upon this occasion. ”The cowardly caution which gave you no pleasure,” was suggested to me by a friend740 here, to whom I mentioned the strange story and the detection of its falsity, as an instance how one may be deceived by what is apparently very good authority. But, as I am still persuaded, that as I might have obtained the truth, without mentioning the gentleman’s name, it was wrong in me to do it, I cannot see that you are just in blaming my caution. But if you were ever so just in your disapprobation, might you not have dealt more tenderly with me?
‘I went to Auchinleck about the middle of October, and passed some time with my father very comfortably….
‘I am engaged in a criminal prosecution against a country schoolmaster, for indecent behaviourtohis female scholars. Thereisnostatute against such abominable conduct; but it is punishable at common law. I shall be obliged to you for your assistance in this extraordinary trial. I ever am, my dear Sir, your faithful humble servant,
‘JAMES BOSWELL.’
About this time I wrote to Johnson, giving him an account of the decision of the Negro cause, by the court of Session, which by those who hold even the mildest and best regulated slavery in abomination, (of which number I do not hesitate to declare that I am none,) should be remembered with high respect, and to the credit of Scotland; for it went upon a much broader ground than the case of Somerset, which was decided in England;a being truly the general question, whether a perpetual obligation of service to one master in any mode should be sanctified by the law of a free country. A negro, then called Joseph Knight, a native of Africa, who having been brought to Jamaica in the usual course of the slave trade, and purchased by a Scotch gentleman in that island, had attended his master to Scotland, where it was officiously suggested to him that he would be found entitled to his liberty without any limitation. He accordingly brought his action, in the course of which the advocates on both sides did themselves great honour. Mr. Maclaurin has had the praise of Johnson, for his argumentb in favour of the negro, and Mr. Macconochie distinguished himself on the same side, by his ingenuity and extraordinary research. Mr. Cullen, on the part of the master, discovered good information and sound reasoning; in which he was well supported by Mr. James Fergusson, remarkable for a manly understanding, and a knowledge both of books and of the world. But I cannot too highly praise the speech which Mr. Henry Dundas generously contributed to the cause of the sooty stranger. Mr. Dundas’s Scottish accent, which has been so often in vain obtruded as an objection