^{page 2 note 1} An attack upon slavery.

^{page 2 note 2} No London edition of Rush's pamphlet was produced.

^{page 3 note 1} Sharp's letter to Benezet does not appear to have survived.

^{page 3 note 2} Rush had written A Vindication of the Address in answer to a pamphlet by Richard Nesbit or Nisbet, Slavery not Forbidden by Scripture.

^{page 3 note 3} There was no London edition of these pamphlets.

^{page 3 note 4} Edward (1732–1779) and Charles Dilly (1739–1807), printers and booksellers.

^{page 4 note 1} This publication of the Rev. William Marshall (c. 1740–1802) has not been seen.

^{page 4 note 2} Of 10 January 1774.

^{page 4 note 3} Of 7 January 1774.

^{page 5 note 1} Sharp, had sent his pamphlet Remarks on the Opinions of Some of the Most Celebrated Writers on Crown Law, Respecting the Due Distinction between Manslaughter and Murder (London, 1773)Google Scholar.

^{page 5 note 2} An Oration, Delivered February 4, 1774, before the American Philosophical Society, Held at Philadelphia. Containing, an Enquiry into the Natural History of Medecine among the Indians in North-America, and a Comparative View of Their Diseases and Remedies, with Those of Civilized Nations.

^{page 5 note 3} Rush confused Granville's brother William with the famous surgeon Samuel Sharp (c. 1700–1778); see below, p. 17.

^{page 6 note 1} The two letters of 21 February and the pamphlets sent with them.

^{page 6 note 2} Eight Discourses (London, 1773)Google Scholar by Spencer Cowper (1713–1774), Dean of Durham.

^{page 7 note 1} Maximilien de Béthune, Duc de Sully (1560–1641), discusses the character of young Servin, the son of Louis Servin (c. 1555–1626), in his Memoirs, ed. Bohn, , vol. 11 (London, 1856), p. 340Google Scholar.

^{page 7 note 2} Henry Home, Lord Kames (1696–1782).

^{page 7 note 3} A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (London, 1757)Google Scholar by Edmund Burke (1729–1797).

^{page 8 note 1} Anton, Freiherr von Störck (1731–1803), had published in 1762 an account of the effects of stramonium, a narcotic drug prepared from the Thorn Apple. Rush had written on the same subject in 1771.

^{page 8 note 2} The Intolerable Acts.

^{page 8 note 3} General Thomas Gage (1721–1787), Governor of Massachusetts.

^{page 9 note 1} A proclamation was issued on 29 June against the ‘Solemn League and Covenant’ whose subscribers undertook not to trade with Great Britain.

^{page 9 note 2} The Continental Congress in fact met on 5 September.

^{page 9 note 3} John Rush (c. 1620–1699), Benjamin's great-great-grandfather, had not been killed in the English Civil War, but had settled in Pennsylvania in 1683.

^{page 9 note 4} The sword survives (Rush, , Letters, vol. 1, p. 103)Google Scholar.

^{page 9 note 5} Montague Rush (b. c. 1732), of Streatley, Berkshire, was Rector of Elvetham, Hampshire.

^{page 10 note 1} Sharp sent the first form of the Declaration, containing only thirty-two pages. The second part which he mentions below was never printed. It was replaced by a second part which dealt at length with the constitutional position of Ireland.

^{page 10 note 2} The note argues that the toleration of slavery in the colonies weakens the American claim to liberty.

^{page 10 note 3} The war was an attempt to deprive the Caribs of their lands and transport them to Africa. It had been terminated by treaty in 1773.

^{page 11 note 1} Not identified.

^{page 11 note 2} It was printed in Philadelphia, Boston and New York as a pamphlet, and in newspapers in New York and Virginia.

^{page 11 note 3} See below, p. 13.

^{page 12 note 1} This was untrue. Hugh Percy, styled Earl Percy (1742–1817), later (1786) 2nd Duke of Northumberland, was opposed to the American War, but did his duty as a soldier.

^{page 12 note 2} Again, a false rumour.

^{page 12 note 3} The source of this quotation has not been found.

^{page 13 note 1} This resolution was adopted on 20 October as part of the Continental Association: ‘We will neither import nor purchase, any slave imported after the first day of December next; after which time, we will wholly discontinue the slave trade, and will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or manufactures to those who are concerned in it.’

^{page 15 note 1} These regulations are printed in Prince Hoare, Memoirs of Granville Sharp, appendix vii.

^{page 16 note 1} James Hall (d. 1801), Rush's partner from 1784 to 1787.

^{page 17 note 1} Probably Nathaniel Falconer, a packet-boat captain.

^{page 17 note 2} Tracts Concerning the Ancient and Only True Legal Means of National Defence, by a Free Militia (London, 1782)Google Scholar.

^{page 18 note 1} First printed in London in 1777.

^{page 18 note 2} Short Sketch of Temporary Regulations for the Intended Settlement on the Grain Coast of Africa. Only the second edition of 1786 has been located. The ‘intended settlement’ became the colony of Sierra Leone.

^{page 19 note 1} A letter, dated 26 September 1781, addressed to Frederick Cornwallis (1713–1783), Archbishop of Canterbury.

^{page 19 note 2} Apparently Samuel Vaughan (b. 1730), the head of an important Anglo-American family.

^{page 19 note 3} A relative of Mrs Rush.

^{page 21 note 1} John Dickinson (1732–1808), of Delaware, and Pennsylvania, , author of Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies (Philadelphia, 1768)Google Scholar.

^{page 21 note 2} William Bingham (1752–1804), a wealthy banker and land speculator.

^{page 21 note 3} See below, p. 26.

^{page 21 note 4} Samuel Vaughan had three surviving daughters, the eldest of whom was Ann (1752–1847).

^{page 22 note 1} George Taylor. Sharp had written an introductory letter to Rush on his behalf on 23 August 1783.

^{page 22 note 2} The finance plan of 1783 was never to be ratified by all the states.

^{page 23 note 1} Charles Nisbet (1736–1804), Principal of Dickinson College until his death.

^{page 23 note 2} This letter to Frederick the Great does not appear to have survived.

^{page 24 note 1} The Rev. Dr Thomas Wilson (1703–1784), the famous radical.

^{page 24 note 2} Not identified.

^{page 24 note 3} John Witherspoon (1723–1794), President of the College of New Jersey (Princeton), and Joseph Reed (1741–1785) were on a mission to England to gain support for that institution.

^{page 25 note 1} Clement Cruttwell (1743–1808). Sharp's letter of 11 June 1783 suggested printing the Bible with the number of the verses in the margin to save space.

^{page 25 note 2} An Enquiry into the Effects of Spiritous Liquors upon the Human Body and Considerations upon the Present Test-Law of Pennsylvania. The latter was an attack upon laws originally aimed at the loyalists, but continued in force for political reasons (Rush, , Letters, vol. 1, pp. 340–1Google Scholar).

^{page 26 note 1} Not identified.

^{page 26 note 2} Sharp had written on 29 September that he had sent two boxes of books for Dickinson College. A list of these books survives in the Sharp MSS. Sharp also mentioned in this letter that he had received letters of 5 April (missing) and 5 June from Rush.

^{page 26 note 3} Richard Price (1723–1791), the famous dissenter.

^{page 26 note 4} No English edition seems to have been printed at this time.

^{page 26 note 5} Sharp was extremely active at this time in supporting the establishment of episcopacy in America, but he was angry that Samuel Seabury (1729–1796) had accepted consecration from the Scottish Bishops. The first general Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church of America met in Philadelphia in the autumn of 1785. The letter which Sharp expected to be laid before this Convention had been written to the Rev. James Manning (1738–1791), President of Rhode Island College, on 22 February 1785.

^{page 28 note 1} Henry Laurens (1724–1792).

^{page 28 note 2} Not identified.

^{page 29 note 1} Joseph Pilmore (1739–1825).

^{page 29 note 2} Samuel Magaw (1735–1812).

^{page 29 note 3} An Oration, Delivered before the American Philosophical Society, Held in Philadelphia on the 27th of February, 1786; containing an Enquiry into the Influence of Physical Causes upon the Moral Faculty.

^{page 30 note 1} Not identified.

^{page 30 note 2} A Plan for the Establishment of Public Schools and the Diffusion of Knowledge in Pennsylvania; To Which Are Added Thoughts upon the Mode of Education, Proper in a Republic.

^{page 30 note 3} Rush's letter to Price of 15 October 1785 had been printed by Price with the note of which Rush complained (Rush, , Letters, vol. 1, 371–3, 385–8Google Scholar). The ‘sect of episcopalians in Boston’ refers to a Unitarian movement which had begun in 1785.

^{page 30 note 4} Joseph E. Harrison.

^{page 31 note 1} Charles Swift.

^{page 31 note 2} Harrison's letter of 7 March 1797 is in the Sharp MSS. He charged Rush chiefly of accusing him of fraud.

^{page 31 note 3} Swift's letter of 14 June 1797 is in the Sharp MSS.

^{page 32 note 1} Of 11 September 1798. Sharp acknowledged a missing letter from Rush of 7 February 1798.

^{page 33 note 1} MS. ‘it’.

^{page 33 note 2} William Hall, one of the sons of John Hall (d. 1781) and Alice, née Bedford, cousins of the Sharps. Sharp had written a letter of introduction for him on 4 October 1800.

^{page 35 note 1} Richard Rush (1780–1859), later to have a distinguished public career.

^{page 36 note 1} Remarks on the Uses of the Definitive Article in the Greek Text of the New Testament (Durham, 1798)Google Scholar.

^{page 36 note 2} Of 26 October 1808, acknowledging a missing letter of 3 July.

^{page 36 note 3} The Rev. Absalom Jones (1746–1818), first Negro minister of the African Church in Philadelphia, had preached a thanksgiving sermon on 1 January 1808 for the abolition by Congress of the slave-trade.

^{page 36 note 4} The Case of Saul, Shewing that His Disorder was a Real Spiritual Possession (London, 1807)Google Scholar.

^{page 37 note 1} James Rush (1786–1869), who had just taken his M.D. at the University of Pennsylvania.