Very Rare. ESTC records only a single copy of this edition at the British Library. OCLC adds a copy at New York Public Library. Part of the poem was published along with some other material in Anderson’s Poems…with Observations of the Town of Liverpool… printed in Workington c.1800. There must have been a surprising number of provincial editions of The Sailor (a 12th edition was published in Hull in 1828, for example) but many are now unrecorded or survive in a single copy. Many are also undated making precedence difficult.
Bound after a copy of Memoirs of George Anne Bellamy, including all her intrigues; with genuine anecdotes of all her public and private connections (London: for J. Walker, 1785). First Edition. Small 8vo. [2 of 4, without the half-title], 204pp. A little grubby in places and with some marking, a few dog-eared pages. A reissue appeared in the same year.
A cheaply produced book printed for the author in Newcastle telling the real-life story of Anderson and his life at sea and at home including his observations on the “Guinea trade”, commenting, “Shall this black traffic still disgrace your land?
According to Jackson’s Bibliography of Romantic Poetry, Anderson was born in Yorkshire in 1764 to a farmer but was urged to join another trade by his father and went to sea with the Lisbon Trading Company. Anderson eventually ended up as captain of his own ship the Jemima. His simple poem tells in great detail the story of his life from his early days on the farm as a child and later when he went to sea and was shipwrecked and taken prisoner. The poem concludes with Anderson’s thoughts on the slave trade:
“O what a fatal thing this Guinea trade,
How many die, how few are sailors made…
…The cruelties which they commit on board,
Will come to light when all shall be restor’d;
Of these poor negroes they again may hear…
…who deal in slaves, they must have hearts like steel,
All tender hearts for suff’ring negroes fell.
Ye Britons who of liberty can boast,
Are you become slave-merchants on the coast?
You who for liberty so boldly stand,
Shall this black traffic still disgrace your land? (p.42-3)
