1
James Field Stanfield,
Observations on a Guinea Voyage, in a Series of Letters Addressed to the Rev. Thomas Clarkson
(London: James Phillips, 1788). I would like to thank Pieter van der Merwe of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich for sharing his own excellent research on the Stanfield family and for his thoughtful advice on many subjects. I am much indebted in what follows to three of his works: “Stanfield, James Field (1749/50-1824),”
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); “The Life and Theatrical Career of Clarkson Stanfield,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Bristol, 1979; and “James Field Stanfield (1749/1750-1824): An Essay on Biography,” paper delivered to the conference on Provincial Culture, Sheffield City Polytechnic, 1981 (copy kindly provided by the author). This expands information also covered in van der Merwe and R. Took,
The Spectacular Career of Clarkson Stanfield, 1793
-
1867; Seaman, Scene-painter, Royal Academician
(Sunderland Art Gallery exhibition catalog; Tyne and Wear Museums, Newcastle on Tyne, 1979).
2
Clarkson and the London committee paid Stanfield £39.8.9 for the right to publish
Observations on a Guinea Voyage.
It was a considerable sum of money, indeed almost exactly the same amount he would have made in his voyage—twenty months at roughly 40 shillings per month. It is not clear how Stanfield made contact with the abolitionists, nor is it clear whether they encouraged him to write the account or coached him as he did so. The poem, also published by the committee, followed a year later. See Clarkson,
History,
vol. 1, 498.
3
Providence Gazette; and Country Journal,
September 13-November 8, 1788.
4
James Field Stanfield,
The Guinea Voyage, A Poem in Three Books
(London: James Phillips, 1789). Abolitionist groups in Rhode Island and perhaps elsewhere sold copies of the poem. See
Newport Mercury,
February 22, 1790, and
Providence Gazette; and Country Journal,
March 6, 1790.
5
J. F. Stanfield, “Written on the Coast of Africa in the year 1776,”
Freemason’s Magazine, or General Complete Library
4 (1795), 273-74. This was apparently the only commentary Stanfield wrote on the slave trade while he was actually involved in it.
Observations
and
The Guinea Voyage
were written about eleven and twelve years later, respectively, under different circumstances, after the abolitionist movement had emerged and made it possible to talk about the slave trade in new ways. It does not appear that Stanfield kept a diary or journal of his voyage and was hence writing entirely from memory, although, it must be noted, his was a memory that was considered “prodigious” by those who knew him in the theater, where he was known for his “astonishing abilities as to quickness of study”—that is, the speed at which he could memorize his parts. See
Observations,
36; Tate Wilkinson,
The Wandering Patentee; or, A History of the Yorkshire Theaters
(York, 1795), vol. III, 22.
6
Guinea Voyage,
iii. Historian J. R. Oldfield has written that Stanfield “clearly set out to shock his readers: some of the scenes he describes were extremely graphic even by the standards of the eighteenth century.” He adds that
Observations
is not merely sensationalist, however, but sheds important light on the nature of the slave trade. See his introduction to
Observations,
which is republished in John Oldfield, ed.,
The British Transatlantic Slave Trade
(London: Pickering & Chatto, 2003), vol. III:
The Abolitionist Struggle: Opponents of the Slave Trade,
97-136.
7
Gentleman’s Magazine,
vol. 59 (1789), 933. Years later, when Stanfield’s
An Essay on the Study and Composition of Biography
(London, 1813) was published, the subscribers’ list included antislavery luminaries such as Thomas Clarkson, James Currie, William Roscoe, and Granville Sharp. See 345-57.
8
Observations,
2, 3, 4;
Guinea Voyage,
2. Of the many who wrote poems about the slave trade, only Stanfield, Thomas Boulton, Thomas Branagan, and Captain John Marjoribanks had actually made a slaving voyage. I am grateful to James G. Basker for discussion of this issue. See his magnificent compilation,
Amazing Grace: An Anthology of Poems about Slavery, 1660
-
1810
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 402. Edward Rushton of Liverpool also made a slaving voyage (on which he caught contagious ophthalmia and lost his eyesight). He wrote antislavery poetry, but never specifically about the slave trade. See his
West-Indian Eclogues
(London, 1797).
9
“Written on the Coast of Africa,” 273; van der Merwe, “James Field Stanfield (1749/1750-1824): An Essay on Biography,” 2. Stanfield’s grandson, Field Stanfield (1844-1905), wrote in an unpublished family memoir, “A change at that stage came over his views and he brought his Educational career to an abrupt close. The reaction was indeed so great as to induce him for a time to throw aside all studies notwithstanding the fact that he had progressed to a high degree of attainment both in Classical and Mathematical pursuits. He left these and betook himself to sea and became engaged as a mariner in the slave trade on the Coast of Guinea.” See Field Stanfield’s unfinished MS memoir of his father Clarkson Stanfield, f.1. I am grateful to Pieter van der Merwe for sharing this document with me and to Liam Chambers for his thoughts on Irishmen who studied in France in this period.
10
“Written on the Coast of Africa,” 273; Wilkinson,
The Wandering Patentee,
vol. III, 22. For additional biographical information, not all of it accurate, from contemporaries, see “Notes, James Field Stanfield,”
Notes and Queries
, 8th series 60 (1897), 301-2; Transcript of notes by John William Bell (1783-1864) on the facing title of the Sunderland Library copy of
The Guinea Voyage, A Poem in Three Books . . . to which are added Observations on a Voyage to the Coast of Africa, in a series of letters to Thomas Clarkson A.M. by James Field Stanfield, formerly a mariner in the African trade
(Edinburgh: J. Robertson, 1807). It was claimed by two who knew Stanfield that he testified before the House of Commons about the slave trade, but neither Pieter van der Merwe nor I have been able to substantiate this. Sunderland historian Neil Sinclair has recently discovered evidence of Stanfield’s involvement in the hearings, not as one who testified but as one who helped to publicize evidence given against the slave trade. See the handbill entitled “Slave Trade” and signed “J.E.S.” See DV1/60/8/29, Durham County Record Office, Durham, England.
11
David Roberts, Manuscript Record Book, 1796-1864, f. 197, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, copy in the Guildhall Library, as cited in van der Merwe, “James Field Stanfield (1749/1750-1824): An Essay on Biography,” 1. For a song by Stanfield, see “Patrick O’Neal, An Irish Song,”
Weekly Visitant; Moral, Poetical, Humourous, &c
(1806), 383-84.
12
Observations,
21, 35, 11. The crew mortality Stanfield witnessed was exceptional, although not unprecedented.
14
The
Eagle
was built in Galway, Ireland, almost thirty years earlier, in 1745, and was therefore more than suitable for retirement as a “floating factory.”
15
Captain John Adams described “Gatto” as a main trading town of fifteen thousand inhabitants, located about forty miles inland. See his
Sketches taken during Ten Voyages to Africa, Between the Years 1786 and 1800; including Observations on the Country between Cape Palmas and the River Congo; and Cursory Remarks on the Physical and Moral Character of the Inhabitants
(London, 1823; rpt. New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1970), 29.
16
Captain Wilson filed the muster list with the customs house on May 11, 1776. See Board of Trade (BT) 98/36, Liverpool muster rolls, 1776, NA. Stanfield mistakenly recalled that only three members of the original crew made it back to Liverpool. I am grateful to Christopher Magra for research assistance on this matter. See
Observations,
5, 19, 26. For more information on the voyage of the
True Blue,
see
TSTD
, #91985.
17
The quotations in this section appear in
Observations,
7, 6, 8, 9, 7;
Guinea Voyage,
3-4, 5, 8, 6, 4, 5, 6, 7.
18
“Written on the Coast of Africa,” 273.
19
The quotations in this section appear in
Observations,
10, 13, 14, 11, 12, 15;
Guinea Voyage,
10.
20
These same insults and indignities during the passage to Africa were reiterated in verse. See
Guinea Voyage,
23-24.
21
The quotations in this section appear in
Observations,
15-16, 17-18, 23;
Guinea Voyage,
19. For another description of seamen working up to their armpits in water, see the Testimony of James Arnold, 1789, in
HCSP,
69:128.
22
The quotations in this section appear in
Observations,
21, 19, 20, 25;
Guinea Voyage,
15, 13, 33, 14, 17, 30, 31, 17, 18, 26, iv, 3, 23, 19. One can see the likely influence of the Quaker Anthony Benezet here. For an excellent account of Benezet’s life and thought, see Maurice Jackson, “ ‘Ethiopia shall soon stretch her hands unto God’: Anthony Benezet and the Atlantic Antislavery Revolution,” Ph.D. dissertation, Georgetown University, 2001.
23
The story of Abyeda appears in
Guinea Voyage,
29-31. Stanfield associates Abyeda with a specific place, the Formosa River, when he writes, “Ne’er did such nymph before her brightness lave / Within Formosa’s deep, translucent wave” (29). It should also be noted that Quam’no is a variant of the Akan/Gold Coast name Quamino. Thomas Clarkson included an account of an African woman he called “Abeyda” in a letter to Comte de Mirabeau, November 13, 1789, Papers of Thomas Clarkson, Huntington Library, San Marino, California, f. 11. He makes reference in the same letter to the slave ship as a “floating dungeon,” a phrase used by Stanfield.
24
van der Merwe, “James Field Stanfield (1749/1750-1824): An Essay on Biography,” 3.
25
The quotations in this section appear in
Observations,
26, 27, 28-29, 30, 31, 32-33, 29 ;
Guinea Voyage,
iv, 19, 26, 21, 27, 28, 34, 16, 24, 32, 22.
26
The quotations in this section appear in
Guinea Voyage,
34, 35, vi.
27
Monthly Review; or, Literary Journal,
vol. 81 (1789), 277-79.
28
Observations,
30. Stanfield refers here to parliamentary debates about the slave trade and, it would appear, to Reverend William Robertson, a Scottish Presbyterian theologian and historian who opposed the trade.
1
John Newton,
Letters to a Wife, Written during Three Voyages to Africa, from 1750 to 1754
(orig. publ. London, 1793; rpt. New York, 1794), 61-62.
2
“Amazing Grace,” in
The Works of the Reverend John Newton, Late Rector of the United Parishes of St. Mary Woolnoth and St. Mary Woolchurch-Haw, Lombard Street, London
(Edinburgh: Peter Brown and Thomas Nelson, 1828), 538-39 ; John Newton,
Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade
(London, 1788); Testimony of John Newton, 1789, in
HCSP,
69: 12, 36, 60, 118; 73: 139-51. For an account of Newton’s life as a minister, see D. Bruce Hindmarsh,
John Newton and the English Evangelical Tradition: Between the Conversions of Wesley and Wilberforce
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996). For a history of his most famous hymn, see Steve Turner,
Amazing Grace: The Story of America’s Most Beloved Song
(New York: Ecco Press, 2002).
3
John Newton,
Journal of Slave Trader, 1750
-
1754,
ed. Bernard Martin and Mark Spurrell (London: Epworth Press, 1962); Newton,
Letters to a Wife;
John Newton Letter-book (“A Series of Letters from Mr.——to Dr. J——[Dr. David Jennings],” 1750-1760, 920 MD 409, Liverpool Record Office; John Newton, Diaries, December 22, 1751-June 5, 1756, General Manuscripts C0199, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University; Thomas Haweis,
An Authentic Narrative of Some Remarkable and Interesting Particulars in the Life of Mr. Newton, Communicated, in a Series of Letters to the Rev. Mr. Haweis, Rector of Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire
(orig. publ. London, 1764; rpt. Philadelphia, 1783).
4
The quotations in this section appear in
An Authentic Narrative,
14, 22, 29, 33, 36- 37, 41, 44, 43, 47, 56, 57, 58, 74, 76, and other sources as indicated by paragraph.
5
John Newton to David Jennings, October 29, 1755; Newton Letter-book, f. 70.
6
Newton,
Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade,
98.
7
Newton,
Letters to a Wife,
21-22.
8
Newton,
Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade,
101. In the insurrection one crew member and three or four Africans were killed. See Testimony of Newton,
HCSP,
73:144. For more information on this voyage, see
TSTD,
#90350.
9
Newton to Jennings, August 29, 1752, Newton Letter-book, ff. 28-30. The quotations in this section appear in Newton,
Journal of Slave Trader,
2, 9-10, 12-15, 17-22, 24-25, 28-34, 37-38, 40, 42-43, 48-50, 52, 54-56, 59, and other sources as indicated by paragraph.
11
For another instance of readying the swivel guns at mealtime, see “Voyage to Guinea, Antego, Bay of Campeachy, Cuba, Barbadoes, &c.” (1714-23), Add. Ms. 39946, f. 10, BL.
12
Newton,
Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade,
106, 107.
13
Newton,
Letters to a Wife,
29.
14
Newton,
Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade,
110-11; Testimony of John Newton,
HCSP,
69:118, 73:144, 145.
15
On provisioning on the West African coast, see Stephen D. Behrendt, “Markets, Transaction Cycles, and Profits: Merchant Decision Making in the British Slave Trade,”
William and Mary Quarterly
3rd ser. 58 (2001), 171-204.
16
Newton,
Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade,
110.
17
Newton,
Letters to a Wife,
86; Entry for December 22, 1751, Newton Diaries, ff. 2, 5. The quotations in this section appear in Newton,
Journal of Slave Trader,
65, 69-72, 75-77, 80-81, and in other sources as indicated by paragraph.
18
TSTD,
#90418. The labors of the crew on this voyage were essentially the same as on the previous one: the carpenter worked on the bulkheads and apartments, the platforms, and the barricado; the gunner on the small arms and the swivel guns; the boatswain on the nettings; everyone else doing the fundamental work of sailing the ship.
19
Newton,
Letters to a Wife,
77, 71-72 ; Entry for August 13, 1752, Newton Diaries, f. 37;
An Authentic Narrative,
85-86.
20
Entry for July 23, 1752, Newton Diaries, f. 23. Around this time Newton wrote to the Anglican divine David Jennings to propose that someone (himself, actually) write a manual of religious instruction especially for sailors, one that would feature a short, simple combination of biblical verse, prayer, and sermon, all geared to the “particular temptations and infirmities incident to foreign voyages.” See Newton to Jennings, August 29, 1752, Newton Letter-book, f. 37.
21
On the round-robin, see Marcus Rediker,
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700
-
1750
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 234-35.
22
Entry for November 19, 1752, Newton Diaries, ff. 49-50.
23
Ibid. For more on the
Earl of Halifax,
see
TSTD
, #77617.
25
Entry for December 11, 1752, Newton Diaries, ff. 61, 64.
26
TSTD,
#90419. The quotations in this section appear in Newton,
Letters to a Wife,
118-20, 126, 129-30, 143, 149, 188, and in other sources as indicated by paragraph.
27
Newton,
Journal of Slave Trader,
88, 92-93.
30
Entry for August 29, 1753, Newton Diaries, f. 88.
31
Newton,
Letters to a Wife,
83-84;
An Authentic Narrative,
95; Newton to Jennings, August 29, 1852, Newton Letter-book, f. 26; “Amazing Grace,” in
The Works of the Reverend John Newton,
538-39 ; Testimony of Newton,
HCSP,
73:151
32
Entry for December 8, 1752, Newton Diaries, f. 53.
33
Newton,
Letters to a Wife,
137. See also Testimony of Newton,
HCSP,
73:151.