History
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘History’
After James Somerset was loaded onto a British slave-ship bound for Jamaica, Granville Sharp and other committed Christians turned to the courts for justice.
In 1769, Boston merchant Charles Stewart brought James Somerset, whom he had bought as a slave in the Massachusetts Bay colony, to England. James escaped, was recaptured and imprisoned on a slave-ship bound for Jamaica. Anti-slavery campaigner Granville Sharp issued a writ of Habeas Corpus and in 1772 forced Stewart and the ship’s captain in front of the Chief Justice, Lord Mansfield.
(That’s cat-tails, obviously.) And who ever said cats were unpredictable?
Charles Fox was a Whig politician who served briefly as Foreign Secretary. A staunch opponent of King George III, he once dressed himself in the colours of the American revolutionary army. But he was also friends with Prince George, the King’s son.
Twenty-five-year-old Robert Clive’s extraordinary daring helped to prevent India falling into the hands of the French King.
In 1751, France, Holland and Britain were all vying for the friendship of India’s ruling princes. Chunda Sahib, Nawab of Arcot, backed by the French, had Britain’s ally Mohammed Ali pinned down in Trichinopoly; so Robert Clive persuaded his superiors to let him capture Arcot itself. Immediately, Chunda’s son Rajah brought ten thousand men to relieve it.
The proof of Thomas Ferres’s rags-to-riches tale is quite literally written in stone, but popular lore adds some tantalising and romantic detail.
The rags-to-riches story of Thomas Ferres (d. 1631) has blended fact with a good deal of romantic fiction. But Thomas was a real historical figure, and however he came by his wealth, the way he used it to help the poor and vulnerable is deeply moving.