The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavas Vassa, The African

by Olaudah Equiano

Chapter V - Footnotes

[O] Thus was I sacrificed to the envy and resentment of this woman for knowing that the lady whom she had succeeded in my master's good graces designed to take me into her service; which, had I once got on shore, she would not have been able to prevent. She felt her pride alarmed at the superiority of her rival in being attended by a black servant: it was not less to prevent this than to be revenged on me, that she caused the captain to treat me thus cruelly.

[P] "The Dying Negro," a poem originally published in 1773. Perhaps it may not be deemed impertinent here to add, that this elegant and pathetic little poem was occasioned, as appears by the advertisement prefixed to it, by the following incident. "A black, who, a few days before had ran away from his master, and got himself christened, with intent to marry a white woman his fellow-servant, being taken and sent on board a ship in the Thames, took an opportunity of shooting himself through the head."

[Q] These pisterines are of the value of a shilling.

[R] Mr. Dubury, and many others, Montserrat.

[S] Sir Philip Gibbes, Baronet, Barbadoes.

[T] Benezet's Account of Guinea, p. 16.