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The Atlantic World of Anthony Benezet (1713–1784)
 Early American History Series
The American Colonies, 1500–1830

Edited by

Jaap Jacobs (University of St. Andrews)

L.H. Roper (State University of New York—New Paltz)
Bertrand Van Ruymbeke (Université de Paris VIII—St. Denis and Institut
Universitaire de France)

VOLUME 5

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/eahs

 The Atlantic World of Anthony
Benezet (1713–1784)
From French Reformation to North American Quaker
Antislavery Activism

Edited by

Marie-Jeanne Rossignol and

Bertrand Van Ruymbeke

LEIDEN | BOSTON
Cover illustration: Parcours d’un réfugié huguenot, by Les Artisans Cartographes (2016, Le Havre)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Rossignol, Marie-Jeanne, editor. | Van Ruymbeke, Bertrand, 1962-editor.

Title: The Atlantic world of Anthony Benezet (1713–1784) : from French
reformation to North American Quaker antislavery activism / edited by
Marie-Jeanne Rossignol and Bertrand Van Ruymbeke.
Description: Leiden : Brill, 2016. | Series: Early American history series :
the American colonies, 1500-1830, ISSN 1877-0216 ; volume 5 | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016031162 (print) | LCCN 2016037655 (ebook) | ISBN
9789004315648 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9789004315662 (ebook) | ISBN
9789004315662 (E-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Benezet, Anthony, 1713-1784. | Antislavery movements—United
States—History—18th century. | Antislavery
movements—France—History—18th century. | Abolitionists—United
States—Biography. | Abolitionists—France—Biography. | Quakers—United
States—Biography. | Huguenots—United States—Biography. | Philadelphia
(Pa.)—Biography.
Classification: LCC E446 .A85 2016 (print) | LCC E446 (ebook) | DDC 326/.8092
[B] —dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016031162

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.

issn 1877-0216
isbn 978-9004-31564-8 (hardback)
isbn 978-9004-31566-2 (e-book)

Copyright 2017 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and
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This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents

Foreword
Anthony Benezet and the Dream of Freedom: Then and Now vii
Maurice Jackson
Acknowledgments xxiii
List of Contributors xxiv

Introduction
Anthony Benezet: A Transatlantic Life and Legacy 1
Marie-Jeanne Rossignol and Bertrand Van Ruymbeke

Part 1
Anthony Benezet’s French Heritage

1 The Vaunageole and Cévenole Roots of Anthony Benezet 7

Bernard Douzil

2 Being Huguenot in the Vermandois during the 17th and

18th Centuries 23
Didier Boisson

3 Anthony Benezet the Huguenot: A Family Odyssey across the

18th-Century Refuge 34
Bertrand Van Ruymbeke

Part 2
Benezet and the Quaker Community in the British Atlantic World

4 Anthony Benezet: The Emergence of a Weighty Friend 57

J. William Frost

5 On War and Slavery: Benezet’s Peace Testimony and Abolition 70

David L. Crosby

6 Anthony Benezet, John Woolman, and Praise 91

Geoffrey Plank
vi contents

7 Nantucket Quakers and Negotiating the Politics of the Atlantic

World 106
Richard C. Allen

Part 3
Benezet’s Writings from an Atlantic Perspective

8 Anthony Benezet as Intermediary between the Transatlantic and

Provincial: New Jersey’s Antislavery Campaign on the Eve of the
American Revolution 129
Jonathan D. Sassi

9 The Circulation of Early Quaker Antislavery Books: A Transatlantic

Passage? 147
Louisiane Ferlier

10 Anthony Benezet’s Antislavery Reputation in France:

An Investigation 164
Marie-Jeanne Rossignol

11 “This Precious Book”: Africa and Africans in Anthony Benezet’s

Account of Guinea 185
Randy J. Sparks

12 Benezet’s Ghost: Revisiting the Antislavery Culture of Benjamin

Rush’s Philadelphia 199
Nina Reid-Maroney

13 From Benezet to Black Founders: Toward a New History of

18th-Century Atlantic Emancipation 221
Richard S. Newman

Bibliography 243
Index of Names and Places 249
Foreword
Anthony Benezet and the Dream of Freedom: Then and Now

Maurice Jackson

What a joy it was to attend the international academic conference entitled

“The Atlantic World of Anthony Benezet,” which took place on May 30 and
May 31, 2013, in Paris, France, to commemorate the tercentenary of Benezet’s
birth. Just a few months after this event, in my home city of Washington, DC,
on August 27, hundreds of thousands attended the 50th anniversary of the
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where Dr Martin Luther King gave
his now immortal speech “I Have A Dream.” Dr. King was joined by more than
200,000 people of all races, nationalities, colors, and creeds, and his speech
was heard around the world. That 1963 march was held to commemorate the
100th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation
of January 1, 1863.1 It was to bring to the fore issues of racism, poverty, injus-
tice, and the lack of voting rights for African Africans, 100 years after Lincoln’s
decree. Nine months before the January 1863 proclamation, on April 16, 1862,
Lincoln, in a test run, had freed the slaves in Washington, DC, the United States
capital. At the time of “DC Emancipation,” Frederick Douglass spoke about
his dream: “I trust I am not dreaming, but the events taking place seem like
a dream,” and he proclaimed that Lincoln’s acts were a “staggering blow” to
slavery.2 One can imagine how Friend Benezet and Dr. King would have felt
had they witnessed President Barack Obama, the nation’s 44th and first African
American president, deliver his address to the world at a ceremony commem-
orating the 1963 march. It was held at the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial,

1 The Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863,

declared that “all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious (slave) states “are, and hence-
forth shall be free.” In succeeding years the three main “reconstruction amendments “were
ratified. The 13th amendment was ratified on December 18, 1865, and abolished slavery in all
of the former Confederate states. The 14th amendment ratified in 1868 allowed “due process,”
and equal rights and representation in court. It overrode the 1857 decision of Dred Scott vs.
Sanford, which stated that blacks were not citizens and had no rights that whites were bound
to accept. The 15th amendment ratified in 1870 allowed black men the right to vote and sent
in federal troops to prevent the disenfranchisement of blacks.
2 Frederick Douglass to Hon. Charles Sumner, Rochester, April 8, 1862, in Frederick Douglas:
Selected Speeches and Writings, ed. Philip S. Foner, abridged and adapted by Yuval Taylor
(Chicago, IL, 1999) pp. 493–94.
viii foreword

within view of the United States Capitol building that was, in large part, built
by enslaved Africans.3
The March on Washington in the summer of 2013 was to also celebrate the
150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and to keep on bringing
to the fore issues of racism, poverty, injustice, and the continued hindrance of
voting rights for African Africans. And for those of us who live in Washington,
DC, who lack voting representation in the US Congress and daily watch as the
black population is priced out of the city, the anniversary events carried spe-
cial significance.4 Between the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation
and the tercentenary of Benezet, the beloved antislavery activist, I can see a
clear connection, and it was thus fitting to celebrate him, in the United States
and in France, in 2013. Anthony Benezet was born to Huguenot parents, Judith
and Jean-Étienne Benezet, on January 31, 1713, in Saint-Quentin, Picardy,
France. The Huguenots had experienced a period of semi-religious freedom,
lasting from the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes, under Henry IV in 1598,
until its revocation by Louis XIV in 1685, leading to renewed persecution by the
monarchy.5 The Benezet family fled France for the Netherlands in 1715, went to
England, and settled in Philadelphia in 1731.6
In 1735, Anthony was naturalized as a British citizen, and on 13 May 1736
he married Joyce Marriot, whose grandfather was the prominent physician
Griffith Owen, a Quaker minister. The year of Benezet’s admittance into the
Society of Friends is not known but he was strongly recommended by mem-
bers of the Quakers. Rejecting his father’s desire to join the family business,
Benezet became a schoolteacher. In 1742 he took charge of the Friends’ English
School in Philadelphia (later renamed the William Penn Charter School); he
also became one of the first educators to found a school for Quaker girls. In
The Philadelphia Negro (1899), W.E.B. Du Bois, the first African American to

3 Jesse J. Holland, Black Men Built the Capitol: Discovering African-American History in and
Around Washington (Guilford, CT, 2007).
4 Residents in Washington, DC, unlike every other capital city in the world, have no voting
representation in the national congress. Maurice Jackson, “In a City with a Rich History, More
Must Be Done to Promote Equality,” Washington Post, August 22, 2013; “Pricing the Soul out of
Washington, D.C.,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 18, 2012; “Emancipation Day 2012:
Now More than Ever,” Washington Post, April 13, 2012.
5 Geoffrey Treasure, The Huguenots (New Haven, CT, 2013), p. 330. Jan McKee and Randolph
Vigne, eds., The Huguenots: France, Exile and Diaspora (Brighton, 2013). William Comfort,
“Anthony Benezet: Huguenot and Quaker,” The Huguenot Society, 24 (Philadelphia, PA,
1953): 36.
6 More generally, these dimensions of Benezet’s “Atlantic world” are covered in detail in the
contributions to this volume by Bernard Douzil, Didier Boisson, and Bertrand Van Ruymbeke.
Foreword ix

earn a PhD at Harvard, in 1895, and a primary organizer of the Pan African
Congress movement, which held its first meeting in Paris in 1919, wrote: “on
motion of one, probably Benezet, it was decided that the instruction ought
to be provided for Negro Children.”7 He was referring to the year 1750, when
Benezet began to teach young black children, primarily in his home. Benezet
later founded the School for Black People, also known as the African School
for Blacks and the Free African School. His students included Absalom Jones,
the first priest of African descent in the Protestant Episcopal Church, who
attended as an adult.8
James Forten, the sail maker and entrepreneur, also attended Benezet’s
school. Around 1774 it became financially too difficult for Forten to continue
his studies, and, according to Julie Winch, “apparently it was Anthony Benezet
who helped him find work.”9 Benezet also helped Forten’s sister Anne Elizabeth
Fortune, who was freeborn and had attained some wealth, by agreeing to serve
as the executor of her estate. Winch added: “The choice of Anthony Benezet as
executor was logical enough. His championing of the rights of the black com-
munity had earned him the affection of slave and free alike.”10
Carter G. Woodson, who in 1912 became the second African American to
earn his doctorate at Harvard and is universally known as “the Father of Negro
History” (now African American History), like Du Bois, had great admiration
for Benezet.11 He wrote in 1917 in the second issue of the magazine he founded,
The Journal of Negro History, that Benezet “obtained many of his facts about
the sufferings of slaves from the Negroes themselves, moving among them in
their homes, at their places where they worked or on the wharves where they

7 W.E.B. Du Bois, The Philadelphia Negro: a Social Study (New York, NY, 1899, 1st Schocken
edition, 1967), p. 83. David Levering Lewis, W.E.B. Du Bois, Biographer of a Race 1868–1919
(New York, NY, 1993), pp. 3–4.
8 Richard S. Newman, Freedom’s Prophet: Bishop Richard Allen, the AME Church, and the
Black Founding Fathers (New York, NY, 2008), pp. 32, 121.
9 Julie Winch, A Gentleman of Color: the Life of James Forten (New York, NY, 2002), p. 25.
10 Winch, A Gentleman of Color, p. 15.
11 Pero Gaglo Dagbovie, The Early Black History Movement: Carter G. Woodson and Lorenzo
Greene (Urbana, IL, 2007), chs 1, 2; Dagbovie, “ ‘Most Honorable Mention . . . Belongs to
Washington, D.C.’ The Carter G. Woodson Home and the Early Black History Movement
in the Nation’s Capital,” The Journal of African American History, 96:3 (Summer 2011): 295–
324. In 1926, Woodson also founded Negro History Month, now African American History
Month.
x foreword

stopped when traveling.”12 Woodson deeply respected what Benezet had writ-
ten in A Short Account of the People Called Quakers (1780):

having observed the many disadvantages these afflicted people labor

under in point of education and otherwise, a tender care has taken place
to promote their instruction in school learning, and also their religious
and temporal welfare, in order to qualify them for becoming reputable
members of society.13

In short, unlike many of his contemporaries, who opposed the slave trade but
went little further, Benezet actively fought to end slavery and proclaimed the
equality of blacks. His many publications, the many students he educated, and
his passionate descriptions of Africa before the onslaught of the slave-traders
are full testimony of that.14

Benezet and Africa

Benezet followed a tradition first set by Ralph Sandiford, who applied Quaker
principles to the enslaved Africans, including the belief that all people were
born equal in God’s sight, the policy of non-violence, and the disapproval
of excessive material acquisitions and consumption. Sandiford, a Quaker

12 Carter G. Woodson, “Anthony Benezet,” Journal of Negro History, 2 (1917): 47–48. The mag-
azine is now The Journal of African American History.
13 Anthony Benezet, A Short Account of the People Called Quakers (Philadelphia, PA, 1780).
14 Full titles of Benezet’s key antislavery writings include, in order of publication, and with
the date of publication of the first edition, Observations on the Inslaving, Importing and
Purchasing of Negroes, with Some Advice theron, Extracted form [sic] the Yearly Meeting
Epistle of London for the Pre‑sent Year (Germantown, PA, 1759); A Short Account of that
Part of Africa Inhabited by the Negroes . . .and the Manner by which the Slave‑Trade is
Carried on (Philadelphia, 1762); A Caution and Warning to Great Britain and Her Colonies
in a Short Representation of the Calamitous State of the Enslaved Negroes in the British
Dominions. Collected from Various Authors, and Submitted to the Serious Considerations
of All, and More Especially of Those in Power (Philadelphia, PA, 1766); Some Historical
Account of Guinea, its Situation, Produce, and General Disposition of its Inhabitants, with
an Inquiry into the Rise and Progress of the Slave Trade, it’s Nature and Lamentable Effects
(Philadelphia, PA, 1771); Serious Considerations on Several Important Subjects, viz, on
War and its Inconsistency with the Gospel; Observations on Slavery, and Remarks on the
Nature and Bad Effects of Spirituous Liquors (Philadelphia, PA, 1778); Short Observations
on Slavery, Introductory to Some Extracts from the Writing of the Abbe Raynal on that
Important Subject (Philadelphia, PA, 1783).
Foreword xi

i­mmigrant from England and a merchant whose shop overlooked the slave-
trading market, like Benezet witnessed slave-trading down the street from his
house. In 1729, Benjamin Franklin published Sandiford’s A Brief Examination of
the Practice of the Times.
Benezet’s observations led him to link Europeans, especially the British
and French, with “the love of wealth” that he believed was brought on by the
Atlantic slave trade. He argued that greed drove men and nations to war, and
he contrasted that constant desire for “gain”, in his own society, with an image
of African societies that he derived from travel narratives and discussion with
enslaved and free Africans. He believed that, prior to the slave trade, Africans
had lived in relative peace and freedom with an abundance of the necessities
of life. He asserted that the slave trade morally corrupted Europeans as well
as some Africans, who became accomplices in the buying and selling of their
fellows.
Benezet collaborated with the Quaker leader John Woolman, the author of
Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes (1754), and each man influenced
the other. That same year the Epistle of Caution and Advice, Concerning the
Buying and Keeping of Slaves, a key text in the fight against slavery, was issued.
Benezet “initiated the composition process and the essay was revised over a
period of eight months, incorporating input from a widening circle of Quakers,
first in Philadelphia and then in a broad part of southeastern Pennsylvania,
and finally at the yearly meeting. An untold number of Friends participated.”15
In 1758 the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting seemed poised to defeat a motion
requiring Quakers to disavow slavery and free their slaves. Benezet, who had
been silent throughout the meeting, solemnly rose. Weeping profusely, he
walked to the front of the meeting and recited a well-known passage from the
Book of Psalms: 68:31: “Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.”
His message was that the children of Africa were God-fearing, God-loving, and
worthy of God’s grace. His message, backed by his life of service, carried the
day. Still many Quakers continued to violate the rule against owning slaves.
The meeting reminded its members of the “desolating calamities of war and
bloodshed,” formed committees to visit the violators, and decided to send John
Woolman, John Churchman, John Scarborough, John Sykes, and Daniel Stanton
to visit all Quaker slave-holders under the province of the Philadelphia meet-
ing. The purpose of the visits was to weed out all Quakers who bought or sold
slaves from any participation in the business affairs of the Church. This showed

15 Geoffrey Plank, John Woolman’s Path to the Peaceable Kingdom: a Quaker in the British
Empire (Philadelphia, PA, 2013), p. 109.
xii foreword

the Quakers’ determination not to include slave-holders as members of the

community and was a signal event.
Benezet published Observations on the Inslaving, Importing and Purchasing
of Negroes, with some Advice thereon, Extracted from the Epistle of the Yearly
Meeting of the People Called Quakers, Held at London in the Year 1758. Reprinted
in Germantown in 1759 and 1760, this was Benezet’s first published tract and it
established him as an antislavery propagandist and activist. His most impor-
tant works on Africa were A Short Account of that Part of Africa Inhabited by
the Negroes (1762) and Some Historical Account of Guinea (1771).16 Both were
reprinted in Philadelphia and London. The gentle Quaker’s work greatly influ-
enced the famed African-born abolitionists Quobna Ottabah Cugoano and
Olaudah Equiano. Both men were kidnapped, as children, from Africa and
relied on Benezet’s writings to enhance their knowledge of their homelands.17 In
Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of Slavery and Commerce
of the Human Species (1787), Cugoano referred his readers to “the worthy and
judicious” Benezet as giving “some very striking estimations of the exceeding
evil occasioned by that wicked diabolical traffic of the African slave trade.”18
Equiano, who wrote The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
(1789), depicted his Igbo culture and homeland, in what later became Nigeria,
closely following Benezet’s geographical and physical accounts. He relied on
Benezet’s descriptions of Africa throughout this narrative and wrote to “see
Anthony Benezet throughout” to bolster his own ­description of the Africa of

16 Benezet, A Short Account of that part of Africa; Some Historical Observations of Guinea, its
Situation, Produce, and General Disposition of its Inhabitants, with an Inquiry into the Rise
and Progress of the Slave Trade, Its Nature and Lamentable Effects (Philadelphia, PA, 1771).
17 For a discussion concerning Equiano’s age and birthplace, see Vincent Carretta, Equiano,
The African: Biography of a Self Made Man (Athens, GA, 2005), especially chs 1, 13, 14;
Vincent Carretta, “Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vasa”? New Light on an Eighteenth-
Century Question of Identity,” Slavery and Abolition, 20:3 (December 1999), 96–105;
Vincent Carretta, “Questioning the Identify of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the
African,” The Global Eighteenth Century, ed. Felicity Nussbaum (Baltimore, MA, 2003),
pp. 226–35. See also Paul E. Lovejoy, “Autobiography and Memory: Gustavus Vasa, alias
Olaudah Equiano, the African,” Slavery and Abolition, 27:3 (2006): 317–47. Paul E. Lovejoy,
“Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa: What’s in a Name?,” Atlantic Studies: Literary,
Cultural and Historical Perspectives, 9:2 (2012): 165–84. Paul E. Lovejoy, “Construction of
Identity: Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vasa?” Unpublished paper.
18 Quobna Ottabah Cugoano, Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of
Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, ed. Vincent Carretta, (New York, NY, 1999),
p. 75.
Foreword xiii

his youth, before the “arrival of the Europeans.”19 Charles Ignatius Sancho wrote
in 1788 about “the Christian, the learned author of that most valuable book
Some Historical Account of Guinea,” Benezet.20 In Benezet’s library was a copy
of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw’s A Narrative of the Most Remarkable
Particulars in the Life of James Albert Gronniosaw’s, An African Prince as Related
by Himself (1771).
In preparing An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species,
particularly the African (1786), the British abolitionist Thomas Clarkson wrote
of Benezet’s Some Historical Account that, “in this precious book, I found almost
all I wanted. I obtained by means of it knowledge of and gained access, to the
great authorities of Adanson, Moore, Barbot, Smith, Bosman and others.”21
Benezet analyzed the early travelers’ accounts of Africa (e.g. those of Richard
Jobson in 1623, André Brüe in 1685, Jacques Barbot in 1678, and Wilhelm
Bosman in 1709) to create his own description of Africa and to refute the pro-
slavery descriptions of Africa and Africans. Some Historical Account became, in
some early black schools, one of the first textbooks on Africa.

Enlightenment Philosophy

Like many writers of the time—particularly Dissenters in the English-speaking

world—Benezet relied heavily on biblical citations to buttress his arguments.
He also used Enlightenment philosophy and practical life. He believed, as did
Montesquieu, that “the state of slavery is in its own nature bad. It is neither
useful to the master or to the slave.” Slavery, Montesquieu argued, caused man
to become “fierce, hasty, severe, choleric, voluptuous and cruel.”22 In short,
slavery had a destructive effect on both the state and free men therein, and
destroyed the white soul as surely as it did the black body. Benezet was deeply
influenced by Scottish moral philosophers, agreeing with legal theorist George
Wallace, who wrote in System of the Principles of the Law of Scotland (1760)
that “Men in their liberty are not ‘in comercia,’ they are not either s­aleable

19 Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus
Vasa, the African, ed. Robert J. Allison (New York, NY, 1995), p. 39.
20 Ignatius Sancho, “Letter LVII to Mr. F[isher] Charles Street, January 27, 1788,” Letters of the
Late Ignatius Sancho an African, ed. Vincent Carretta (New York, NY, 1989), pp. 111–12.
21 Thomas Clarkson, The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishments of the Abolition of
the African-Slave Trade by the British Parliament, 2 vols, vol. 1 (London, 1808), pp. 208–09.
22 Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, baron de, The Spirit of the Laws (Cambridge, UK, 1989;
1st edn, Paris, 1748), bk. 15, ch. 1, p. 246.
xiv foreword

or purchasable.”23 In Short Account of that Part of Africa, and A Caution to

Great Britain and her Colonies, Benezet quoted Scottish philosopher Frances
Hutcheson, who in System of Moral Philosophy (1755) declared: “no endow-
ments natural or acquired, can give a perfect right to assume power over others,
without their consent.”24 Like Adam Smith, he argued that slavery diminished
the productive capacity and corrupted the morals of both races.25
Benezet had a tremendous influence on Benjamin Franklin, who credited
his pamphlets and antislavery petition efforts with the decision of the Virginia
House of Burgesses to petition the king for an end to the slave trade in 1772. He
also brought the Philadelphia physician Benjamin Rush into the struggle for
black freedom. Benezet wrote many hundreds of letters, corresponding with
religious leaders such as George Whitefield, John Wesley, and Moses Brown,
and secular leaders such as Franklin and Rush, about his views about slavery.26
On receiving one of his pamphlets, Patrick Henry wrote on January 18, 1773: “I
take this Opportunity to acknowledge ye receipt of Anthony Benezet’s book
against the slave trade. I thank ye for it.” Henry added ruefully: “would anyone
believe that I am a Master of Slaves of my own purchase? I am drawn along
by ye general Inconvenience of living without them; I will not, I cannot jus-
tify it.”27 John Wesley’s Thoughts Upon Slavery (1774) is based almost entirely
on Benezet’s Some Historical Account. He thanked the founder of Methodism
for using his work. In 1783, Benezet addressed a letter to Great Britain’s Queen
Charlotte, urging her to help end the British slave trade, and he wrote to
Queen Sophia of Spain with a similar request.

23 George Wallace, A System of the Principles of the Laws of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1760), p. 90.
Benezet first used this quote in Short Account of that Part of Africa.
24 Frances Hutcheson, A System of Moral Philosophy (Edinburgh, 1755), bk. II. ch. 5, sec. ii,
p. 301.
25 Adam Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence, vol. iii, eds. Ronald L. Meek, David D. Raphael,
and Peter G. Stein (Oxford, 1978), p. 103.
26 Benezet’s letters and pamphlets, and his personal library, are housed and archived at
the Haverford College Quaker Archives. These include letters, epistles, Quaker monthly,
quarterly and yearly meeting minutes, Benezet School Records, and pre-1800 documents
that were recently transferred from the Arch Street Meeting house in Philadelphia.
Pamphlets, books and maps that Benezet read for his research are at the Library Company
of Philadelphia.
27 Patrick Henry to Robert Pleasants, January 18, 1773, Haverford College Quaker Collection.
Foreword xv

The Beginning of the Transatlantic Campaign Against Slavery

and the Slave Trade

The correspondence between Benezet and the pioneer British abolitionist

Granville Sharp proved to be one of the first links to the transnational fight
against slavery and the slave trade. Sharp had copies of Benezet’s pamphlets
delivered to Lord Chief Justice Mansfield and his fellow jurists in 1771, before
their ruling in the famous Somerset case. Mansfield decided that James
Somerset, a black slave who had been brought to England, could not be forci-
bly removed from the country and declared him free. To influence the British
debates about slavery, on May 14, 1772, Benezet wrote to Sharp that “six hun-
dred Copies had been delivered” of his pamphlet A Caution and A Warning
to Great Britain and her Colonies (1767) “to so many Members of both Houses
of Parliament.”28 It was Benezet who, through his correspondence, introduced
Sharp to Franklin, writing on April 4, 1773: “I am glad to understand from my
friend Benjamin Franklin, that you have commenced an acquaintance, and
that he expects in future to act in concert with thee in the affair of slavery.”29
Benezet’s descriptions of Africa proved so central that William Wilberforce
quoted him at length in the great 1792 British parliamentary debates on end-
ing the slave trade. At that time a motion was forwarded in favor of abolishing
slavery—one of the first such actions taken in any parliamentary body in the
world. Although it did not win passage, it is credited with having been a mile-
stone in the fight to bring about the beginning of the end of the international
slave trade. By then, thousands of Benezet’s pamphlets had been distributed to
abolition societies and members of the British parliament.
Benezet was known to those men who would, after his death, found the
Société des Amis des Noirs (Friends of the Blacks) in Paris. At the meeting
of March 11, 1788, Jean-Pierre Brissot, one of the founders of Amis des Noirs,
gave a presentation to the group about one of Benezet’s publications, which he
referred to as Détails historiques de M. Bénézet, sur la Guinée, et sur le commerce
des esclaves.30 He wanted the work to be translated. From the description he
gave, this seems to have been Benezet’s popular 1771 Some Historical Account.
Among other members of Amis des Noirs at various stages were Nicolas Caritat,

28 Anthony Benezet to Granville Sharp, May 14, 1772, Haverford College Quaker Collection.
Charles Stuart, A Memoir of Granville Sharp to Which is Added Sharp’s “Laws of Passive
Obedience,” and an Extract from His “Law of Retribution” (New York, NY, 1836), p. 20.
29 Anthony Benezet to Granville Sharp, April 4, 1773, Haverford College Quaker Collection.
30 Marcel Dorigny and Bernard Gainot, La Société des Amis des Noirs (Paris, 1998), pp. 19, 26,
91, 129, 187.
xvi foreword

the marquis de Condorcet, a politician and defender of human rights—one

of the few who fought specifically for women and Blacks—Étienne Clavière,
a peer of Brissot’s in the Girondist movement, Honoré Gabriel Victor Riqueti,
the comte de Mirabeau, and Bishop Henri Grégoire, later the leading antislav-
ery figure during the French Revolution. Grégoire dedicated his An Enquiry
Concerning the Intellectual and Moral Facilities, and Literature of Negroes “to
all those men who have had the courage to lead the cause of the unhappy
blacks and mulattoes, whether by the publication of their works, or by dis-
cussion in the national assemblies, &c.”31 He did not list Benezet among the
dozen Americans—such as Franklin and Rush—but with the roughly fifty
Frenchmen, interestingly stressing his French roots. Here we read Benezet’s
name alongside those of the founders of Amis des Noirs, Brissot, Condorcet,
and Lafayette.
The relationship between Abbé Raynal and Benezet offers an excellent view
into the exchange of ideas across the Atlantic.32 Both found ways to incorpo-
rate the competing ideas of the day with empirical data collected from a large
array of sources.33 Raynal, like Benezet, relied on a variety of sources, including
his contemporaries, for his factual information, which underlined the philo-
sophical underpinning of L’Histoire des deux Indes, the anticolonial bestseller
of the 1770s.34 In this, Raynal praised the Quakers for setting an example that
he considered extraordinary in “the epoch of the history of the religions of
humanity.”35 Raynal most likely acquired this anecdote from a letter written by
Benjamin Rush (August 30, 1769), later published in Ephémérides du citoyen.36

31 Henri Grégoire, An Enquiry Concerning the Intellectual and Moral Facilities, and Literature
of Negroes. This new edition has an introduction by Graham Russell Hodges, trans. David
Bailie Warden (Armonk, NY, 1997, reprint of the original 1810 English edition), p. xxv.
Among the Englishmen, in addition to Sharp and Wesley, we find those we would associ-
ate with America, such as Benjamin Lay and John Woolman.
32 Edoardo Tortarolo, “La réception de l’Histoire des deux Indes aux Etats-Unis,” Lectures de
Raynal. Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, vol. 286 (Oxford, 1991), pp. 305, 316.
33 Guillaume-Thomas Raynal, A Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and
Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies, vol. 2 (London, 1783).
34 Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink and Anthony Strugnell, Introduction to L’Histoire des deux Indes:
réécriture et polygraphie, vol. 333: Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century (Oxford,
1995), p. 2.
35 Edward Seeber, Anti-Slavery Opinion in France during the Second Half of the Eighteenth
Century (Baltimore, MA, 1937), p. 87.
36 Seeber, Anti-Slavery Opinion in France, p. 87. The letter incorrectly stated that the Quakers
had voted in the assembly for general emancipation. This historical inaccuracy became
Foreword xvii

Raynal found a great American admirer in Benezet. Conversely, Benezet saw

in Raynal’s oppositional stance to slavery many ideas that reflected his own.
He found intellectual support in L’Histoire des deux Indes’ critique of the idea
that the supposed intellectual inferiority of blacks justified slavery; Raynal’s
philosophical ideas—were purely philosophical because, unlike Benezet,
­
Raynal had no real experience of blacks—thus buttressed Benezet’s own expe-
rience of teaching blacks and speaking with their parents.37 In 1781 and 1782,
Benezet translated an extract from L’Histoire des deux Indes and published it
with his introduction to Short Observations on Slavery, Introductory Remarks to
Some Extracts from the Writing of the Abbé Raynal on that Important Subject, his
last major work before his death in 1784.38
Finally, through Samuel Powell Griffiths, a letter that Benezet had written
on July 16, 1781, reached Raynal. Benezet wrote to “My Friend Abbé Raynal,”
and said:

Above all, my dear friend, let us represent to our compatriots the abom-
inable iniquity of the Guinea trade . . . Let us rise, and rise with energy
against the corruption introduced into the principles and manners of the
buyers and owners of slaves, by a conduct so contrary to humanity, rea-
son and religion.39

Benezet had tried many times to contact Raynal, first by sending letters
through Benjamin Franklin. Raynal acknowledged such and wrote to Benezet
from Brussels, six months later, but Benezet did not receive the letter until June
1782. Raynal thanked him for his letters and pamphlets:

all your letters have miscarried; happily, I received that of the six-
teenth of July, 1781, with the pamphlets filled with light and sensibility,
which accompany it. Never was any present more agreeable to me. My

the basis for many French writers’ notations of 1769 as a turning point for antislavery
activism in America.
37 Guillaume-Thomas Raynal, A Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and
Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies, vol. 2, pp. 314–15. Louis Sala-Molins,
Dark Side of the Light: Slavery and the French Enlightenment (Minneapolis, MN, 2006),
pp. 123–24.
38 Anthony Benezet, Short Observations on Slavery, Introductory Remarks to Some Extracts
from the Writing of the Abbé Raynal on that Important Subject (Philadelphia, PA, 1781),
p. 82.
39 Anthony Benezet to Abbé Raynal, July 16, 1781, Haverford College Quaker Collection.
xviii foreword

s­ atisfaction was equal to the respect I have always had for the society of
the Quakers.

He added:

may it please Heaven to cause all nations to adopt their principles; men
would then be happy, and the globe not stained with blood. Let us join
in our supplications to the Supreme Being, that He may unite us in the
bonds of a tender and unalterable charity.40

Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve also held a high opinion of Benezet.41

Conclusion

Benezet fought until the end. When two free black men were charged with
being runaway slaves, and were arrested and held in a Philadelphia workhouse,
Benezet tried to help to obtain their freedom. When all else failed, in the spirit
of their ancestors, the men committed suicide. They had tasted freedom
and chose death over slavery. On August 10, 1783, he wrote to his friend John
Pemberton a long, personal letter pouring out his feelings about slave kidnap-
pings in the North and the extension of slavery in the South: “The case of the
oppressed black people becomes rather more & more weighty.” Blacks are “torn
children from parents & parents from children &c to be sold in the Southward
where they have reason to expect worse than here.” When all else failed, “the
Black people: . . . made away with themselves” by committing suicide.42
Benezet supported the initial founding of the Society for the Relief of Free
Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage on April 14, 1775. In 1784, a few months
before Benezet’s death, the organization was reformed as the Pennsylvania
Society for the Abolition of Slavery: The Relief of Negroes Unlawfully Held in

40 Abbé Raynal to Anthony Benezet, December 26, 1781, Haverford Library, Quaker
Collection.
41 Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve, a radical deputy to the Estates General, the second elected
Mayor of Paris, and, eventually, a leader of the Girondins before he fled Paris to escape
execution and committed suicide in 1794, wrote admiringly in 1790: “A single man, inspired
no doubt by the divinity, undertook to persuade, to convert cupidity, and he succeeded. At
the voice of Benezet, all his friends, all his brothers [meaning fellow Quakers] hastened to
let fall the irons of their slaves, and to demand of various legislatures the proscription of
this commerce.” Jérôme Pétion, Sur la Traite des Noirs (Paris, 1790).
42 Anthony Benezet to John Pemberton, August 10, 1783, Haverford College Quaker Collection.
Foreword xix

Bondage; and for Improving the Conditions of the African Race, and was led
by Benjamin Rush. In 1787, Benezet’s old friend Franklin took the helm of the
organization.
In early 1787, a number of free blacks, including Richard Allen, Absalom
Jones, and James Forten, met to discuss forming a religious society for blacks.
Feeling that their numbers were too small and their religious sensibilities too
many, they instead formed in April 1787 the Free African Society at the home of
Richard Allen. Gary Nash observed that at first “the society’s articles of incor-
poration” were “written when the aura of the influential Anthony Benezet
still prevailed.”43 In January 1789 the society began to hold its meetings at the
“Benezet’s African School House.” It began circulating petitions that were mod-
eled in part on Benezet’s earlier ones, and their opposition to colonialization
schemes was similar to his as an early advocate of giving land to free blacks.44
There were many facets to Benezet’s life. As a Quaker educator he devel-
oped new ways to teach students to read, publishing An Essay on Grammar
(1778) and The Pennsylvania Spelling Book (1778). Near the end of his life he
began a study of the plight of the Native Americans, and in 1784 he published
Observations on the Situation, Disposition and Character of the Indian Natives of
this Continent. He wrote several pamphlets on the Quaker religion and others
such as Thoughts on the Nature of War (1759). He wrote Remarks on the Nature
and Bad Effects of Spirituous Liquors (1788), as well as several other pamphlets
about what he considered the harm done to society by liquor consumption.
Summing up the general feeling about the passing of Benezet, Brissot, the
French revolutionary, wrote:

What author, what great man, will ever be followed to his grave by four
hundred Negroes, snatched by his own assiduity, his own generosity,
from ignorance, wretchedness, and slavery? Who then has a right to
speak haughtily of this benefactor of men . . . Where is the man of all of
Europe, of whatever rank or birth who is equal to Benezet. Who is not
obliged to respect him? How long will authors suffer themselves to be
shackled by the prejudice of society? Will they never perceive that nature

43 Gary B. Nash, Forging Freedom: the Formation of Philadelphia’s Black Community, 1720–
1840 (Boston, MA, 1988), pp. 100–01. Margaret Hope Bacon, But One Race: the Life of Robert
Purvis (Albany, NY, 2007), p. 19. Julie Winch, A Gentleman of Color: the Life of James Forten
(New York, NY, 2002), pp. 24–25, 123–24, 152–53.
44 Benezet, A Short Account of that Part of Africa Inhabited by the Negroes, 2nd edn
(Philadelphia, PA, 1762), pp. 69–70). Benezet, Some Historical Account of Guinea (1772),
pp. 139–40.
xx foreword

has created all men equal, that wisdom and virtue are the only criteria of
­superiority? Who was more virtuous than Benezet? Who was more useful
to mankind?45

In recent years, new information about Benezet, and about his Atlantic dimen-
sions and transnational connections, has been presented and published. This
is to be applauded.46 Even old written works, in France, about Benezet, are
being rediscovered.47
Just as Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream so eloquently expressed in his
immortal “I Have A Dream” speech fifty years ago, Benezet also had a dream. I
ended my own book, Let This Voice Be Heard: Anthony Benezet Father of Atlantic
Abolitionism, with an epilog entitled “Anthony Benezet’s Dream.”48 Sometimes
the greatest tributes come from an adversary, and, on December 24, 1787, the
pro-slavery State Gazette of South-Carolina reprinted Benjamin Rush’s ‘Paradise
of Negro Slaves—A Dream.’ In his dream, Rush repeated the oft-told story of
Benezet, “a little white man”: “in one hand he carried a subscription paper and
a petition; in the other he carried a small pamphlet on the unlawfulness of
African slave-trade.”49 Rush dreamed of a paradise where Africans would real-
ize their freedom in death if not in life, something akin to the African concept

45 Jacques-Pierre Brissot, Extracts From a Critical Examination of the Marquis De Chasellux’s

Travels in North America in a Letter Addressed to the Marquis (Trinity College, Atkinson
Library, Hartford, CT, July 1, 1786).
46 Maurice Jackson and Susan Kozel, Quakers and their Allies in the Abolitionist Cause,
1754–1808 (New York, NY, 2015); Brycchan Carey and Geoffrey Plank, Quakers and Abolition
(Urbana, IL, 2014); David Crosby, ed., The Complete Antislavery Writings of Anthony
Benezet, 1754–1783 (Baton Rouge, LA, 2013); Plank, John Woolman’s Path; Brycchan Carey,
From Peace to Freedom: Quaker Rhetoric and the Birth of American Antislavery, 1657–1761
(New Haven, CT, 2012); Maurice Jackson, Let this Voice Be Heard: Anthony Benezet, Father
of Atlantic Abolitionism (Philadelphia, PA, 2009).
47 Gustave Demoulin, “Antoine Bénézet, Promoteur de la suppression de la Traite des
Nègres et de l’abolition de l’esclavage en Amérique,” Mémoires de la Société académique
des sciences, arts, belles-lettres, agriculture et industrie de Saint-Quentin, 3rd series, vol. 11
(Saint-Quentin, 1874), pp. 219–58. Demoulin was a member of the Saint-Quentin learned
society. As a result of his writing, a street was named after Benezet. I am grateful to my
colleague James B. Collins for bringing this to my attention.
48 See Jackson, Let This Voice Be Heard, “Epilogue: Anthony Benezet’s Dream,” pp. 211–30.
49 Rush’s work was first published in the Columbian Magazine; or Monthly Miscellany
(Sedden, Spotswood, Cist and Trenchard, Philadelphia, PA, 1787), pp. 235–38. “To the
EDITOR of the COLUMBIAN MAGAZINE,’ State Gazette of South-Carolina XLVI: 3573
(December 12, 1787): 1.
Foreword xxi

of the Transmigration of the Soul.50 Benezet’s dream was to create a transatlan-

tic antislavery movement to free the enslaved Africans from their misery, and
to establish a network to support and educate blacks once freed. His dream
was to educate whites both about their complicity with slavery and also about
their obligations to blacks and their duty to humankind.
Rush wrote to Sharp: “Great events have been brought about by small begin-
nings. Anthony Benezet stood alone a few years ago in opposing Negro slav-
ery and now 3/4ths of the province as well as the city cry out against it.”51 In
many ways, Dr. King and the youth of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee first stood alone, but soon the nation and the world heard their
voices.
On June 1, 2013, the Deputy Mayor of Saint-Quentin, France, Jean-Claude
Natteau, a native of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, now a French
citizen, received this author, an African American, in his adopted home. And
on November 1, 2013, in Benezet’s adopted home, Philadelphia, “the City of
Brotherly Love,” a symposium entitled “Anthony Benezet, Equally Entitled to
Freedom: Benezet Then, Benezet Now” was held. Philadelphia mayor Michael
A. Nutter, an African American, signed a proclamation, which was presented.
In part it read:

Benezet’s ideas and devoted work undoubtedly made our City a better
place for all who lived during his time and came after. His research, writ-
ings, and actions helped shape a better world. It is fitting and appropri-
ate that the City of Philadelphia officially recognize with this tribute,
ANTHONY BENEZET.

On June 4, 2016, the Pennsylvania Historical Museum Commission will place a

historical marker to honor Benezet at 325 Chestnut Street, his home from 1753
until his death in 1784.52

50 Rush’s dream ended in a remarkable fashion: “The air resounded with the slapping of
hands, and I was awakened from my dream by the noise of a loud and general acclama-
tion of—ANTHONY BENEZET!” Paradise of Negro Slaves—A Dream,” Benjamin Rush,
Essays, Literary, Moral and Philosophical (Philadelphia, PA, 1806), reprint editions, edited
and with introduction by Michael Meranze (Schenectady, NY, 1988), pp. 188–89.
51 In L.H. Butterfield, ed., Letters of Benjamin Rush, vol. 1 (Princeton, NJ, 1951): 80–81. See also
Christopher Leslie Brown, Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism (Chapel Hill,
NC, 2006).
52 325 Chestnut Street was formerly known as 115 Chestnut Street and was the site of
Benezet’s home from 1753 until his death in 1784. John F. Watson, Watson’s Annals
xxii foreword

On his deathbed, after providing for his widow, Benezet left much of his
estate to the African Free School. He uttered the words: “I am dying and feel
shamed to meet the face of my maker, I have done so little in his cause.” The
blacks who followed his funeral procession felt differently. Those who gathered
in Paris, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC in 2013 to commemorate his tercen-
tenary felt differently. His cause lives on and his dream of justice and equality
endure as African Americans, in the United States, fight to retain and extend
the rights they have won thanks in great part to the work that he helped to start
so many years ago.

of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in the Olden Time (Philadelphia, PA, 1857), pp. 371–74,
including an illustration of Benezet’s house.
Acknowledgments

This book could not have been published without the support of University
Paris Diderot (UMR LARCA Laboratoire de Recherches sur les Cultures
Anglophones 8225) and of University Paris 8 Vincennes Saint-Denis (Transferts
Critiques et Dynamiques des Savoirs EA 1569).
List of Contributors

Richard C. Allen
is Reader in Early Modern Cultural History at the University of South Wales.
He works on the religious and cultural history of early modern Wales and the
north of England, and transatlantic emigration. His major publications include
Quaker Communities in Early Modern Wales: from Resistance to Respectability
(2007), and three co-edited volumes: The Religious History of Wales: Religious
Life and Practice from the Seventeenth Century to the Present Day (2013), Faith
of Our Fathers: Popular Culture and Belief in Post-Reformation England, Ireland
and Wales (2009), and Irelands of the Mind: Memory and Identity in Modern Irish
Culture (2008). He is currently writing Welsh Quaker Emigrants and Colonial
Pennsylvania, 1650–1776: Transatlantic Connections and co-editing The Quakers,
1656–1722: the Evolution of an Alternative Community.

Didier Boisson
is Professor of Early Modern History at the Université d’Angers and member of
the Centre de Recherches Historiques de l’Ouest. His work bears on the French
Protestant minority in the 17th century (Les protestants de l’ancien colloque du
Berry de la Révocation de l’édit de Nantes à la fin de l’Ancien Régime (1679–1789),
ou l’inégale résistance de minorités religieuses, 2000), on the issue of conversion
(Consciences en liberté? Itinéraires d’ecclésiastiques convertis au protestantisme,
1631–1760, 2009), and on the institutions of the French Reformed Church (Les
actes des synodes provinciaux des Eglises réformées d’Anjou-Touraine-Maine,
1594–1683, 2012).

David L. Crosby
Professor Emeritus, Alcorn State University, is an independent scholar resid-
ing in Jackson, MS. He is the author of “Anthony Benezet’s Transformation of
Anti-Slavery Rhetoric,” Slavery and Abolition, 23:3 (December 2002). He has
recently edited The Complete Antislavery Writings of Anthony Benezet, 1754–
1783: an Annotated Critical Edition (2014), and is currently editing The Complete
Writings on Peace and War of Anthony Benezet: an Annotated Critical Edition.
He recently presented “Anthony Benezet’s Challenge to Eighteenth Century
Depictions of Africa and Africans” at the conference entitled “The Meaning of
Blackness/Significance of Being Black,” University of Costa Rica Institute for
African and Caribbean Studies, San Jose, February 2014.
List Of Contributors xxv

Bernard Douzil
is an independent scholar. He holds a doctoral degree in history from the
Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1). He has been working for several
years on the history of Vaunage, a Huguenot micro-area near Nîmes, and par-
ticularly on its main town, Calvisson. He has collaborated on several edited
volumes. His articles about the Huguenot acquisition of literacy or emigra-
tion during the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes are based on
family reconstitution. This led him to publish a first article establishing the
Vaunageole roots of Anthony Benezet in 2005.

Louisiane Ferlier
is Research Associate at CELL, University College London. Her research investi-
gates the material and intellectual circulation of ideas in the 17th and 18th cen-
turies. She has written an intellectual biography of schismatic Quaker author
George Keith (1639–1716) (forthcoming), and she studies the dissemination of
Quaker and anti-Quaker ideas.

J. William Frost
is the Emeritus Jenkins Professor of Quaker History and Research at
Swarthmore College. He is the author of A Perfect Freedom: Religious Liberty
in Pennsylvania (2009), The Quaker Family in Colonial America: a Portrait of the
Society of Friends (1975), A History of Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, and
Muslim Perspectives on War and Peace (2004), and co-author of The Quakers
(1988) and Christianity: a Cultural History (1997).

Maurice Jackson
teaches at Georgetown University. He is author of Let This Voice Be Heard:
Anthony Benezet, Father of Atlantic Abolitionism (2009). He co-edited African-
Americans and the Haitian Revolution (2010) and Quakers and Their Allies in
the Abolitionist Cause, 1754–1808 (2015). He co-edited a special issue “Jazz
in Washington” in Washington History (2014) and is at work on Halfway to
Freedom: African Americans and the Struggle for Progress in Washington, D.C.

Richard S. Newman
is the Edwin Wolf 2nd Director of the Library Company of Philadelphia.
He is the author and editor of several books, including The Transformation
of American Abolitionism: Fighting Slavery in the Early Republic (2002) and
Freedom’s Prophet (2009), a biography of African Methodist Episcopal Church
founder Richard Allen. His next book American Emancipations is forthcoming.
xxvi list of contributors

Geoffrey Plank
is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia. He is
the author of John Woolman’s Path to the Peaceable Kingdom: a Quaker in the
British Empire (University of Pennsylvania Press, PA, 2012), and co-editor, with
Brycchan Carey, of Quakers and Abolition (University of Illinois Press, IL, 2014).

Nina Reid-Maroney
is Associate Professor in the Department of History at Huron University
College (London, Canada). She is the author of The Reverend Jennie Johnson
and African Canadian History, 1867–1968 (2013), Philadelphia’s Enlightenment,
1740–1800: Kingdom of Christ, Empire of Reason (2000), and co-editor of The
Promised Land: History and Historiography of Black Experience in Chatham-
Kent’s Settlements and Beyond (2014).

Marie-Jeanne Rossignol
is Professor of American Studies at University Paris Diderot. She is author of
The Nationalist Ferment: the Origins of United States Foreign Policy 1789–1812
(2003). She has been working on North American antislavery from an Atlantic
perspective since 2006, publishing articles on Brissot’s interest in North
American antislavery in War, Empire and Slavery, 1770–1830 (2010, ed. Richard
Bessel) and more specifically on his connection with Crèvecoeur in Quakers
and Abolition (2014, eds. Geoffrey Plank and Brycchan Carey). She is currently
translating and editing Benezet’s Some Historical Account (1771) with Bertrand
Van Ruymbeke and other French scholars. She edits a collection on “slave nar-
ratives” with Claire Parfait at the Publications des Universités de Rouen et du
Havre. With Claire Parfait she edited and translated William Wells Brown’s nar-
rative in 2012. Recent volumes in the collection have focused on masters’ trials
in Martinique, and Sojourner Truth’s narrative.

Jonathan D. Sassi
is Professor of History at the College of Staten Island, City University of New
York (CUNY), and a faculty member of the PhD Program in History at the
CUNY Graduate Center. His publications include A Republic of Righteousness:
the Public Christianity of the Post-Revolutionary New England Clergy (2001), and
two articles about Anthony Benezet published in the Pennsylvania Magazine
of History and Biography and Journal of Early Modern History. The research
for his chapter was supported by a PSC-CUNY award, jointly funded by the
Professional Staff Congress and the City University of New York, and by a Gest
fellowship from the Haverford College Quaker Collection.
List Of Contributors xxvii

Randy J. Sparks
is Professor of History at Tulane University, where he is a scholar of the US
South and the Atlantic World. His publications include The Two Princes of
Calabar: an Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Odyssey (2004), Where the Negroes Are
Masters: an African Port in the Era of the Slave Trade (2015), and Africans in the
Old South: Mapping Extraordinary Lives Across the Atlantic World (2016).

Bertrand Van Ruymbeke

is Professor of American Civilization and History at the Université de Paris 8
(Vincennes-Saint-Denis) and senior member of the Institut Universitaire de
France. He is author of From New Babylon to Eden: the Huguenots and Their
Migration to Colonial South Carolina (2006) and L’Amérique avant les Etats-
Unis. Une histoire de l’Amérique anglaise 1497–1776 (2013, new edition 2016). He
also co-edited Memory and Identity: the Huguenots in France and the Atlantic
Diaspora (2003), Protestantisme et autorité (2005), Constructing Early Modern
Empires (2007), Les Huguenots et l’Atlantique, 2 vols (2009–12), Réforme et
Révolutions (2012), and A Companion to the Huguenots (2016). He is co-founder
and co-editor of Journal of Early American History (Brill).
Introduction
Anthony Benezet: A Transatlantic Life and Legacy

Marie-Jeanne Rossignol and Bertrand Van Ruymbeke

Anthony Benezet was born in Saint-Quentin, Picardy, France, on January 31,

1713. As Huguenots, the Benezets clandestinely fled the country in 1715. First
moving to Rotterdam and then London, the Benezet family finally settled in
Pennsylvania in 1731. Anthony Benezet then made his mark in Philadelphia as
a devout Quaker and a community leader, a prolific writer of pamphlets, and a
progressive educator, opening schools for girls and for African-American chil-
dren. Most specifically he spearheaded the efforts of North American Quakers
to stop the Atlantic slave trade and slavery in the British American colonies.
Because he was so deft at spreading his ideas and pamphlets, his antislavery
convictions and writings made him famous in the Atlantic world in his own
time—he was widely read in Great Britain and his name was a by-word in
French antislavery circles—and they still do today. He died in Philadelphia
in 1784.
Benezet’s geo-biographical itinerary from Saint-Quentin to Rotterdam,
London and finally to Philadelphia, as well as the circulation of his ideas,
from Philadelphia to London and Paris, appear as perfect illustrations of the
Atlantic history paradigm. The international conference that Marie-Jeanne
Rossignol and Bertrand Van Ruymbeke organized in 2013 at University Paris
Diderot, with the support of research teams from Paris Diderot (LARCA)
and Paris 8 (Transferts Critiques et Dynamiques des Savoirs), was meant to
celebrate Benezet’s tercentenary and investigate his “Atlantic world” beyond
traditional historiography by bringing together French, English, and North
American scholars, thus broadening the usual understanding of the “Atlantic
world” as usually applied to Benezet. This volume gathers a selection of papers
from the conference, mainly those which dealt with the Atlantic dimension of
Benezet’s life. It has been a pleasure to edit the contributions of those Benezet
specialists, most of whom had recently published key articles and books on
Benezet, the Huguenots in France and in the diaspora, antislavery, and 18th-
century France and America, and to work with them in general. We thank
them for their expertise, erudition, patience, and willingness to accept sug-
gested changes.
As a result of this multi-national endeavor, this volume presents Benezet’s
French origins in detail and provides a much more complex view of the reli-
gious itinerary that gradually turned a Huguenot child into a pious Quaker.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004315662_002

2 Rossignol and Van Ruymbeke

Although Benezet is well known as an 18th-century Quaker antislavery activist

and has recently been the focus of a new biography, his French familial and
religious background is little known and, generally speaking, the literature
about him and his work is mostly focused on his stature as a Quaker figure.
In the same way, Benezet’s real influence on the French antislavery movement
is assessed because until now it has been more assumed than proved.
The volume also focuses on Benezet as a truly Atlantic figure whose life and
work spanned two empires and who had an impact at the local, provincial,
and international levels through war and peace. It covers Benezet’s Atlantic
itinerary from the South of France to Philadelphia, while incorporating the
most recent research on his writings and influence in the British Atlantic world
and in France. Key concepts of Atlantic history, such as migration, circulation,
trade, and wars, are central to the chapters presented here. However, the vol-
ume also explores Benezet’s fascination with, and depiction of, Africa, which
gives an even broader “Atlantic” dimension to his writings and action beyond
the French and English empires and toward a more global approach to the
slave trade.
Another major contribution of the volume is the connection which is drawn
between Benezet, 18th-century antislavery thinker and activist, and other oppo-
nents of slavery, both at the time and later. His writings and actions must indeed
be framed within the global rise of resistance against slavery, which included
black rebels in the second half of the 18th century. In the same way that the
memory of Benezet served as an inspiration for blacks as they fled slavery in
the first half of the 19th century, it must be invoked today as Afro-descendents
in the United States and elsewhere still have to face discrimination.
Since Benezet was a man of faith, a number of contributions also highlight
the spiritual inspiration that drove his commitment to antislavery. Although
insisting on his Quakerism was not central to our agenda, we are glad that this
dimension is incorporated into the volume, reflecting Benezet’s undeniable
religious and moral stature.
The volume is made up of fourteen contributions. After the Foreword by
Maurice Jackson, the most recent Benezet biographer, highlighting the inspi-
rational role of the antislavery activist, Part I is devoted to Benezet’s French
heritage and includes contributions by Bernard Douzil, Didier Boisson, and
Bertrand Van Ruymbeke. Douzil explores the Benezets’ origins near Nîmes,
Languedoc, and investigates why and how this Huguenot family moved to
Northern France in the 17th century. Boisson dissects the Saint-Quentin
Huguenot community based around the production and commerce of textile.
Finally, Van Ruymbeke follows Jean-Étienne and Judith Benezet, Anthony’s par-
ents, in their flight from France all the way to Philadelphia, and he ­investigates
Introduction 3

the conditions and motivations of their escape and Atlantic migration, as well
as their choice to become Quakers.
Part II focuses on Benezet and the Quaker community in the British Atlantic
world, with chapters by J. William Frost, David L. Crosby, Geoffrey Plank, and
Richard C. Allen. Frost explains how Benezet became such a respected figure
in the Quaker community that he could be heard when he pushed for the
condemnation of slavery in 1754. Crosby reminds readers that Benezet’s anti-
slavery commitment derived from the peace testimony of his Quaker faith,
while Plank compares Benezet with his fellow abolitionist John Woolman: the
two men were united in their faith and action but may have differed in their
understanding of antislavery politics. Allen frames Benezet’s community in
the changing Atlantic world of the 18th century as the wars and revolutions
forced many Quakers to review their economic networks and their place in
that world.
Part III bears on Benezet’s writings from an Atlantic perspective and
includes chapters by Jonathan D. Sassi, Louisiane Ferlier, Marie-Jeanne
Rossignol, Randy J. Sparks, Nina Reid-Maroney, and Richard S. Newman. Sassi
shows how Benezet’s inspiration and ideas were central to the New Jersey
campaign to ban slave imports and ease private manumissions on the eve of
the American Revolution. From New Jersey we move to the London Friends,
with the contribution by Ferlier, who reconstructs the transatlantic material
circulation of the first Quaker antislavery pamphlets to consider in a new light
the contested movement toward abolitionism within the Society of Friends.
Across the Channel in France, Benezet’s name was well known but were his
pamphlets translated into French as bibliographers and historians have con-
tended? After conducting a thorough investigation, Rossignol doubts this was
ever the case until 1789. Sparks discusses the originality and impact of Benezet’s
views about Africa and Africans, expressed in his A Short Account of that Part
of Africa (1762) and Some Historical Account (1771). Reid-Maroney takes us back
to Philadelphia, but also to Upper Canada, where African American migrants
moved before the American Civil War in order to fulfill a “dream” of liberation
which Benezet fueled as early as the late 18th century. Finally, Newman goes
one step further, encouraging historians not to dismiss the Quaker contribu-
tion to the antislavery struggle but to reconcile it with the specific contribution
of black rebels and Black Founders, and to focus on their shared principles,
freedom, and equal human rights, irrespective of skin color.
It is hoped that this volume will encourage and shape future research on
Anthony Benezet and on antislavery in the Atlantic world in the second half
of the 18th century.
 Part 1
Anthony Benezet’s French Heritage

⸪
 Chapter 1

The Vaunageole and Cévenole Roots of

Anthony Benezet

Bernard Douzil

Ten Years Later

On February 8 and 9, 2003, under the chairmanship of Emmanuel Leroy-

Ladurie, the Maurice Aliger Association organized a symposium in Nîmes
entitled “Vaunage in the Eighteenth Century.”1 Archeologist, historian, and
President of the Academy of Nîmes in 1984, Maurice Aliger devoted his lifelong
research to the Vaunage, a rich valley of nine villages located west of Nîmes,
whose “deep secret [. . .] is its indomitable reformed identity.”2 On the initiative
of Jean-Marc Roger, who had assembled the documentation on Maurice Aliger,
an association of the same name was created on August 25, 1994, with the
aim of deepening our understanding of “the economic, social and political his-
tory of the micro-region over the long term.”3
It was indeed Jean-Marc Roger who, while preparing the 2003 conference,
asked me to answer a question that had long been of concern: was the famous
American Quaker Anthony Benezet of Vaunageole origin or not?4 And if so, to
which Benezet family was he connected? Aware that I had worked for a long

1 The first volume of these conference proceedings was published in 2003, with a preface by
Emmanuel Leroy-Ladurie; the second in 2005, with a preface by Philippe Joutard.
2 Maurice Aliger (1913–93) wrote eight books on the Vaunage from prehistory through the
French Revolution. Quotation from Emmanuel Leroy-Ladurie, preface to La Vaunage au
XIX ème siècle (Nîmes, 1996).
3 Jean-Marc Roger, “Pour l’histoire économique, sociale et politique d’une micro-région sur la
longue durée,” La Vaunage au XIX ème siècle. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the tire-
less work of the man who was President, then the Honorary President of the Association, and
also the President of the Academy of Nîmes, until September 2011, when illness prematurely
wrested him from us.
4 This question was reinforced by his reading of the doctoral thesis written by Edmond
Jaulmes, his fellow historian from Congénies. In this 1898 dissertation on French Quakers
there is mention “of a Quaker, Jean Bénézet, from Calvisson, whose property was confiscated
in 1715 and who had to take refuge in Holland. He was the son of one of those pious men of
Vaunage.” E. Jaulmes, Les Quakers Français, étude historique (Nîmes, 1898), p. 24.

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8 Douzil

time on Calvisson and especially on family reconstitution, he handed me a

folder, a rather thin one in fact, with pages related to Anthony Benezet’s fam-
ily, written by Roberts Vaux and George S. Brookes. Thus, with the decisive
help of curators at the Archives de l’Aisne5 and the Archives du Nord,6 I was
able to ascertain Anthony Benezet’s genealogy, linking him to Calvisson and
Congénies.7
Ten years later, we must recognize that this new information on Anthony
Benezet has had limited accessibility except for English readers of Maurice
Jackson in his biography of Anthony Benezet.8 Jackson used documenta-
tion from an online source (http://roelly.org) related to Huguenot families of
Picardy, a valuable website, which itself is based on my article. On Google, one
must go to the sixth page of entries to find the article published in the journal
Revue Nord’ by Jeanne-Henriette Louis, “Antoine Bénézet, bâtisseur de ponts
transatlantiques,”9 in which she refers to this information. It is therefore useful
to return to the discussion. I should also like to take this reflection on geneal-
ogy a step further, to complete our knowledge of Anthony Benezet’s origins by
tracing his ancestry to the Cévennes through the family of his mother, Judith
Méjanelle. I also make a number of assumptions to try to understand how Jean
Benezet from Calvisson could settle in Picardy, so far from his native Vaunage.

From Saint-Quentin to Congénies: In Search of

Anthony Benezet’s Genealogy

Roberts Vaux and, after him, George S. Brookes,10 give as a source of biographi-
cal information an “ancient family record” (R. Vaux)—whereas Brookes refers
to a “family memorial” or “family chronicle”—started by Anthony Benezet’s
grandfather and continued over several generations. Vaux is very laconic.

5 Frédérique Pilleboue (curator) and Marie-Noëlle Lenglet.

6 Rosine Cleyet Michaud (curator) and Laurence Delsaut.
7 Bernard Douzil, “Anthony Bénézet, un Quaker d’origine vaunageole en Amérique,” La
Vaunage au XVIII ème siècle, vol. 2 (Nages-et-Solorgues, France, 2005).
8 Maurice Jackson, Let This Voice Be Heard: Anthony Benezet, Father of Atlantic Abolitionism
(Philadelphia, PA, 2010).
9 Revue Nord’, 56 (December 2010). For the online source, see http://www.revue-nord.com/
telechargements/56/P65.pdf.
10 Roberts Vaux, Memoirs of the Life of Anthony Benezet (New York, NY, 1817), and George S.
Brookes, Friend Anthony Benezet (Philadelphia, PA, 1937).
The Vaunageole And Cévenole Roots Of Anthony Benezet 9

In his opinion, “a descendant of Armand Crommelin”11—a Huguenot born in

Courtrai (Kortrijk), in the Spanish Netherlands, who took refuge in France in the
16th century to escape the persecutions of his religious persuasion—­married
in Saint-Quentin a certain Jean Benezet of “Clavison [sic] in Languedoc”,
died in 1690 (actually on August 14, 1710 in Abbeville), leaving “seven children”
(more accurately, five boys—Jean-Estienne, Jacques, Jean-Jacques, Cyprien,
Pierre—and one daughter, Madeleine-Marie). The eldest, Jean-Estienne, was
Anthony’s father. Besides the latter’s date of birth, Vaux added that his family
left Saint-Quentin in 1715 to freely practice the reformed religion, fleeing first
to Rotterdam and then to London.
George S. Brookes is more comprehensive. He also uses French sources,
such as Alfred Daullé12 and Jacques Pannier.13 The Picardy part of Anthony
Benezet’s genealogy is reliably recounted. I have been able to check Saint-
Quentin’s parish registers to verify the biographical contributions made by
Brookes, with the exception of the marriage of Anthony Benezet’s parents and
the birth of Jean Benezet’s children in Abbeville. Until the Revocation of the
Edict of Nantes in 1685, baptisms, marriages, and burials of Huguenots in and
around Saint-Quentin were registered in Lehaucourt.
Anthony Benezet was born on January 31, 1713, to Jean-Estienne Benezet
and Judith de Méjanelle, according to family tradition maid of honor at the
court of Louis XIV, and daughter of Léon, linen merchant of Saint-Quentin,
and Judith Lieurard. He was baptized the following day in the parish church of
Sainte-Catherine’s in Saint-Quentin. His godfather was “Mr Antoine Bénézet
of Artillon, Sub-delegate of the Governor of the city of Dunkerque,” and his
godmother was “Charlotte Lieurard, wife of Pierre Vermalette,” both of whom
were absent and represented by two strangers.14 His parents were assumed

11 This descendant was Anthony Benezet’s grandmother, Marie-Madeleine Testart, daugh-

ter of Rachel Crommelin, who was the great-granddaughter of Armand Crommelin.
The presence of Crommelins in Saint-Quentin is documented as of Armand’s son, Jean
Crommelin, who married Marie de Sémery in December 1595.
12 Alfred Daullé, La Réforme à Saint-Quentin et aux environs (Le Cateau, 1901). This is a
well-documented and significant work.
13 Jacques Pannier, Antoine Bénézet, un Quaker français en Amérique (Toulouse, 1925). On
our subject, Pannier adds nothing to Daullé’s work, if not an error regarding the first name
of Anthony Benezet’s grandfather, inexplicably transformed into “Jean Antoine.”
14 Brookes gives this baptismal act as cited from the work by A. Daullé and not from the
Benezet family chronicle. The exact text as copied from the parish registers is as follows:
“Le trente un de Janvier mil sept cent treize est né et le premier du mois de febvrier a été
baptisé par le soussigné pretre curé Antoine fils de monsieur Jean Etienne de Bénézet et
de damoiselle Judith de la megenelle son espouse le parein a été monsieur pierre ­gretel
10 Douzil

to have been married on October 29, 1709, in the parish of Saint-Eustache in

Paris by the famous Pastor Jacques Saurin,15 in the presence of Judith’s par-
ents, who were staying in Paris. Brookes doubts that this celebration actually
took place because it was a Catholic Church (while the family book speaks
only of a “parish”). It also assumes that Pastor Saurin, in exile in The Hague at
the time, was able to secretly return to Paris. The assumption is, however, not
impossible, and one can also ask why and how these details could be invented
as per the clarifications provided by the family book. Finally, the records of
neither the parish of Sainte-Catherine in Saint-Quentin (the married couple’s
local parish) nor the other town parishes mention the wedding. Jean-Estienne
Benezet was born twenty-six years before, on June 22, 1683, in Abbeville, to
Jean Benezet, receiver of traites (bills of exchange), and Marie-Madeleine
Testart. This information comes from the family book Jean Benezet claimed to
have started on the day of his marriage on August 16, 1682, in Saint-Quentin,
to the daughter of Pierre Testart and of the late Rachel Crommelin.
This leaves us with Jean Benezet’s ancestry to uncover and understand
in terms of this very Mediterranean-sounding name. It is probable that the
name of his home town is difficult to read. We have seen that Vaux had read
“Clavison.” Brookes makes a serious error of interpretation (and geography),
since, according to him, Jean Benezet came from “Carcassonne, near the
Cévennes mountains.”
Despite these inaccuracies, the idea of situating Jean Benezet’s origin in
Calvisson is strengthened in the light of my own information. What about
Pastor Jacques Saurin? He was a son of an academician from Nîmes, Jean
Saurin, himself the only son of Jean Saurin of Calvisson, captain of the guards
of the Duke of Rohan. And what about Artillon, the title Anthony Benezet’s
godfather used? This is an area of land within Calvisson. I found that this
Anthony Benezet was buried in Dunkerque on December 11, 1713, “in front of
the chapel of St. George’s, with the bell of Jesus.” He was about 50 years old and

la mareine damoiselle Anne Letuvé au lieu et places de damoiselle charlotte lieurard

Epouse de monsieur pierre vermalette et ledit pierre gretel est au lieu et places de mon-
sieur Antoine Bénézet dartillon subdeleguet de l intendant de la ville de dunquerque les-
quels avec le pere ont signé JEstienne Bénézet, pierre cretel, la marque de anne letuvé,
frassen curé” (Archives Départementales (A.D.) de l’Aisne, 5MI1246, Baptême, Mariages,
Sépultures registers (B.M.S.), Sainte-Catherine, 1700–30).
15 “The most brilliant speaker of the Refuge” (“L’orateur le plus brillant du Refuge”), accord-
ing to Charles Weiss in Histoire des réfugiés protestants de France depuis la révocation de
l’édit de Nantes vol. 2 (Paris, 1853), p. 63.
The Vaunageole And Cévenole Roots Of Anthony Benezet 11

lived on a street called rue du Molin.16 In addition, on January 18, 1719, “with
the help of Jesus”, Jean-Baptiste Benezet, aged 71, also a resident of the rue du
Molin, was buried in front of that same chapel and described as “a native of
Cobisson in Languedoc.”17
Even if spelled differently, it is “Calvisson” I finally find written on Jean
Benezet’s marriage record, as read directly from the Protestant register of
Saint-Quentin in Lehaucourt,

Today, the sixteenth of August, one thousand six hundred and eighty
two, was blessed the marriage between Sieur Jean Bénézet the elder,
merchant residing in Abbeville, daughter [sic] of Sieur Estienne Bénézet
& Damoiselle Marie Arnault, his father and mother residing in Cauillon
[Calvisson], in Languedoc, on the one hand, and Marie Madeleine Testart,
daughter of Pierre Testart, merchant of Saint-Quentin and of the late
Rachel Crommelin, father and mother, on the other, & the aforesaid hus-
band states being thirty-five years old and the aforesaid wife states being
twenty-three years old, and in attendance at their wedding celebration
were Sieur Jean Bénézet, younger brother of the groom and his friend
Sieur Emmanuel Fabre & on the bride’s side, her father Pierre Testart, her
brother Ciprian Testart, and her uncle by marriage to her aunt Damoiselle
Madellaine Testart, Sieur Samuel Crommelin. The following attendees
signed this marriage record: the Husband and Wife, Piere Testart, Ciprian
Testart, Bénézet the elder, Marie Madelaine Testart, E Fabre, Bénézet.18

16 
A .D. Nord, Dunkerque/S (1708–17).
17 
A .D. Nord, Dunkerque/S (1718–29).
18 
A .D. Aisne, 1E1070/3. The original French is as follows: “Ce jourdhuy seizieme daoust
mil six [cent] quatre vingt deux a eté beny le mariage d’entre le sieur jean benezét l’ainé
marchand demeurant a Abeville fille [sic] du sr Estiene benezét & de damoiselle marie
arnault sé pere et mere demeurant a Cauillon en languedoc d’une part et marie made-
laine Testart fille de piere Testart marchand a st quentin et de feu rachel crommelin sé
pere & mere d’autre part & ledit expoux dit estre agé de trente-cinq ans et ladite expouse
dit etre agé de vingt troix ans a la benecdiction duquel mariage ont assisté le sr jean
benezét le jeune frère dudit Epoux et le sr Emanuel fabre son amy & de la part de ladite
Epouse piere Testart son pere Ciprian testart son frere et le sr samuel Crommelin son
oncle a cause de damoiselle madellaine Testart sa femme tante de ladite espouse & ont
ledit Epoux expouse & par eux signé Piere Testart Ciprian Testart Benezét l’ainé marie
madelaine testart E Fabre Benezet.”
12 Douzil

A Notable of Calvisson Native from Congénies: Estienne Benezet,

Great-Grandfather of Anthony

Estienne Benezet led his life mainly concerned with upward mobility for him-
self and his children. Master craftsman, he was a wheelwright (or a rodier
in Occitan). However, from 1665 on, he was more often called a ménager
(as he worked his own land) or even a bourgeois at times. He was known to
have loaned money to individuals and especially to the community, and peo-
ple came to him to estimate land values. In 1661 he was elected consul19 after
an active career: he was chosen several times as a “nominator” of the consuls,
demonstrating his skill in community management, sometimes as a public
works contractor, taking care of repairing the public fountain, sometimes as an
expert, evaluating the repair needed for the town’s oil mill. He was also active
in 1640 during a “plague” as a member of the public health committee organ­
izing the fight against the epidemic. In these difficult times, he showed his con-
cern for the fate of the poor, lending them une demi-saumée de blé (a sack of
wheat) without losing sight of his own interests, since he asked for repayment
at a later date, at a reasonable price. We note that in 1643 he had become a
member of the political council, and rose to become its recteur: he managed
the assets of the “poor hospital”—in other words, he managed the charity. In
1647 he became a carreirier with the responsibility of ensuring the good condi-
tion of roads and paths. By 1651, two nominators proposed him as consul and
later in 1666 as auditeur, an important function, as it was his role to examine
the consuls’ accounts at the end of the fiscal year.
In this Vaunage area where political, economic, and religious activities went
hand in hand, he was quite naturally a member of the religious elite. He was
no doubt a permanent member of the consistoire20 as, in December 1653, he
was elected to the colloque21 of Nîmes with Pastor Abraham Delarc. In 1665
he was the first ancien22 to sign a deliberation, and in 1685, on the eve of the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, when he was about 83 years old, he appeared
several times as a witness at baptisms or burials. He died at age 86 on July 30,
1688, without being able to escape the presence of the Catholic priest, if one is
to believe the burial certificate, which states that he died “after receiving the
sacraments of confession and extreme unction.”23

19 Municipal councilor in Southern France.

20 Local Huguenot church council.
21 Assembly of the representatives of several consistoires.
22 Member of the consistoire.
23 Archives Communales (A.C.), Calvisson, GG10.
The Vaunageole And Cévenole Roots Of Anthony Benezet 13

Husband by his first marriage to Anne Vally, who died childless after having
made her last will and testament before a number of Calvisson’s elite in April
1632,24 Estienne Benezet received a significant inheritance from his wife “for
his good and friendly service during her illness.” He remarried in about 1634 to
Marie Arnaud, daughter of Sieur Abraham, carder and merchant, and Suzanne
Bedos. This marriage brought Estienne into the limited circle of Calvisson’s
most eminent families. On her mother’s side, Marie was a niece of Jacques
Bedos, a weaver who had become practitioner, consul in 1627, and an ancien
(elder). An uncle of Marie, Antoine Arnaud, was a merchant, who was made
recteur, then consul in 1616. As for Marie’s brother, we shall return to him a bit
further on.
Estienne Benezet and Marie Arnaud’s union bore ten children, six of whom
survived. The elder Jean was Jean-Étienne’s father and Anthony Benezet’s
grandfather. The second, named Jean le Jeune, or “John the Younger”, a witness
to his elder brother’s marriage, died named as Jean-Baptiste, unmarried, in
Dunkerque. The youngest Antoine was Sieur Antoine d’Artillon, sub-delegate
of the intendant of Dunkerque, and husband of Marie-Catherine Jacobs, with
whom he had no children.25 Anne and Marie both married in 1682. The for-
mer married Sieur Pierre Mazel, a merchant and bourgeois of Calvisson who
was a member of the consistoire, and the latter married Sieur Daniel Langlès
of Congénies. The only son who remained in Calvisson, Estienne, a member of
the consistoire and consul in 1682, married Madeleine Margarot, whose father
and two brothers had left the kingdom after the revocation. Estienne died
in Calvisson on September 23, 1702, after having made a will with the usual
Huguenot provisions, naming his mother as universal heir before his children,
and noting that his son Daniel was “absent, his whereabouts unknown, if out of
the kingdom, without any news.” His death was an opportunity for his mother
to revisit the conflict caused in settling the estate of her husband. Before a
notary, on November 16 of that year, she stated that in his will, dated July 16,
1668, her husband, Estienne Benezet, had named her as sole heir, instructing
her to then give an inheritance to his children, and first to his eldest son John,
but that for many years “she had been solicited by the late Estienne Benezet,
his son, to give him the aforementioned inheritance.” Out of convenience, she

24 A .D. Gard, 2E22/38, n° Jacques Melon, Calvisson.

25 Anthony Benezet was above all a merchant. He inherited the role of sub-delegate when
his brother-in-law who held the post died childless. Since he had no children either, he
sold the title to the town after the death of his wife (Union Faulconnier, Société historique
et archéologique de Dunkerque et de la Flandre maritime, Bulletin XVII (1914), pp. 157–58).
14 Douzil

was persuaded to give Estienne 2,000 l,26 thus frustrating “her eldest son resid-
ing at Abbeville in Picardy.” However, with Estienne’s death, the inheritance
should be returned and, furthermore, “Jean did not lodge any complaint to the
contrary.”
Marie Arnaud therefore rescinded the donation and returned the inheri-
tance to the absent John, to take possession of it after her death.27 A few years
later, an act by a Calvisson notary named Pétras and dated June 11, 1715, stated
that two of his son Estienne’s children, “Sieur Jean, a merchant of Calvisson,
resident of Nîmes,” and his sister Elisabeth received from their uncle (their
great-uncle, in fact), “Sieur Jean-Baptiste Bénézet, merchant of Dunkirk,” a
sum of 6,700 l as an installment of their inheritance rights to the estate of their
other (great-)uncle, “the late Sieur Anthony Bénézet, former Sub-delegate of
the Intendant of Dunkirk.”28 With Jean Benezet’s departure to Nîmes and the
death of his brother Daniel, the Benezets’ Calvissonian history comes to an
end, at least with regard to Estienne’s male descendants.
I have now to return to the genealogy of Anthony Benezet’s great-grandfa-
ther. The Benezets are a long-established Calvisson family. I have been able
to go back as far as a certain Jacques Benezet, born about 1450, father of an
Antoine and great-grandfather of a Claude.29 One Estienne Benezet, son of
another Antoine, wrote his will on February 16, 1541, before going on pilgrim-
age to Santiago de Compostela (St. James’ Way).30 Nonetheless, I was not able
to connect Anthony Benezet’s great-grandfather to any of these families. The
first certainty in that regard is that he was a native of Congénies. Indeed, on
February 15, 1632, the community of Calvisson agreed to receive as a resident
one “Estienne Bénézet, of Congénies” in exchange for a payment of 20 l.31
His connections to Congénies are to be found in the names of his chil­
dren’s godparents. Almost all have a godfather or godmother from this vil-
lage: on November 18, 1635, Jeanne Benezet was Abraham’s godmother; on
Novem­ber 21, 1638, Claude Benezet was Catherine’s godfather; on August 9,
1643, Jacquette Huc, Claude Benezet’s wife, was Jacquette’s godmother; at
the end of September 1645, Jean Benezet was godfather to Jean, the future
grandfather of Anthony; in May 1648, Jeanne Coudougnan was the other
Jean’s godmother; on January 14, 1651, Claude Benezet—the same Claude

26 The abbreviation of “l” for livres or “pounds” refers to the currency of the Ancien Régime.
27 A .D. Gard, 2E13/71, n° François Maurel, Aigues-Vives.
28  A .D. Gard, 2E22/55, n° Antoine Pétras, Calvisson.
29  A .D. Gard, 2E36/319, n° Jean Ménard, Nîmes, 02/10/1557.
30  A .D. Gard, 2E22/1, n° Jean Bertrandi, Calvisson.
31  A .C. Calvisson, BB10.
The Vaunageole And Cévenole Roots Of Anthony Benezet 15

again—was Marie’s g­ odfather; on February 2, 1656, Anne Roux became Anne’s

godmother; and finally, on December 12, 1663, Estienne Benezet became god-
father to Antoine, who in turn was Anthony’s future godfather. There are
only two apparent exceptions to this: on September 9, 1640, Suzanne had
as her recorded godfather Master Gédéon Puget, from Blauzac, married to a
Calvisson woman, by virtue of their marriage contract dated March 7, 1632, as
per the notary, Jacques Melon of Calvisson, on the advice and consent “of Jean
Rabinel of Congénies, his uncle, and Claude and Pierre Benezet, his cousins”
(also from Congénies). Similarly, several documents suggest that Sieur Jean
Roux, supposedly “of Montpellier”, given the information on Estienne’s bap-
tismal dated October 5, 1653, was actually from Congénies. Finally, let us recall
that Mary, one of Estienne Benezet’s two surviving daughters, in 1682 married
Sieur Daniel Langlès, the son of a Congénies bourgeois and related, through his
sister, to the Jaulmes family.32
Although Estienne Benezet’s geographical origins appear to be clear, there
are nevertheless no records indicating unequivocally his lineage. I have not
found his two marriage contracts, the baptismal records of his children never
mention his relationship to the godparents, and the records of Congénies
notaries and registries, as well as any deliberations, have disappeared. For a
long time, therefore, I have only been able to speculate. His relationship with
Claude Benezet of Congénies seemed very close, especially since it was with his
wife Jacquette Huc that he had a daughter, Louise, baptized in Calvisson
on March 5, 1634, with the godfather recorded as Master Estienne Benezet.33
But who exactly was Claude Benezet? Was he perhaps Estienne’s brother?
Huguenot registers in Congénies retain only a few baptismal and marriage
records from the 1590s. I did, however, find a baptismal record dated August
10, 1597, recording the baptism of a Claude Benezet, son of another Claude
and Suzanne Vermeil.34 Turning to a useful source, a book by Samuel Small, Jr.,
published in 1905, I also found a compilation of biographies, among which is
what is presented as the transcription of the Benezets’ family book.35 After
fanciful considerations of the Benezet family’s distant origins (from south-
western to eastern France, given the vast number of families named Benezet

32 Françoise Langlès was the wife of François Jaulmes, whose forebears in Congénies
included members of the Roux and Benezet families.
33 A .C. Calvisson, GG 1. I have found no trace either of the marriage record of Claude Benezet
and Jacquette Huc.
34 Archives Nationales, TT 242–2.
35 Genealogical Records of George Small [. . .] Daniel Benezet, Jean Crommelin [. . .] MCMV,
compiled by Samuel Small Jr. (Philadelphia, PA, 1905), pp. 190–212.
16 Douzil

in the south), here I found an accurate description of the family coat of arms,
as chosen by Anthony’s great-uncle Jean-Baptiste Benezet, a Dunkerque
merchant.36 Incidentally, this crest, whose main feature is an olive tree, seems
to be directly inspired by that of the Marquis of Calvisson in that it bore a wal-
nut tree. Whether irony or homesickness, it would appear that the Benezets
had not forgotten their origins. Small then proceeded to a synthesis of what
is contained in Vaux’s work, and, before the fact, of Brookes’ work as well:
Jean Benezet of Abbeville, he says, was, on the one hand, “the son of Stephen
Bénézet of Cauvisson or Carcassonne, in Languedoc”, stating that “the copies
of the Benezet Memorial give this as Cauvisson, but no such name appears in
the Gazetteers”, and, on the other, the “grandson of Claude Bénézet.”37 The rest
of the document appears to be extremely reliable.38
As a result of these conjectures, I therefore conclude, albeit with a note of
caution, that it was quite likely that Estienne Benezet was the son of Claude
Benezet and Suzanne Vermeil of Congénies. This hypothesis has been con-
firmed by a recently discovered Vaunageol notarial deed. The document in
question is the marriage contract of the young Demoiselle Marguerite Roux,
daughter of the late Sieur Estienne, lieutenant de viguier39 of Congénies, and
Jeanne Benezet. On January 17, 1655, she became engaged, with the consent of
her mother, of her brother Monsieur Jean Roux, king’s advisor, and of “Masters
Claude and Estienne Bénézet, her maternal uncles.” The signatures are without
doubt those of the great-grandfather of Anthony Benezet and Claude Benezet,
sons of Claude and Suzanne Vermeil.40

36 The legend reads “coat of arms on old Benezet silver” and is reproduced, facing p. 194. The
exact description from d’Hozier (published by Borel d’Hauterive in Armorial de Flandre,
du Hainaut et du Cambrésis (Paris, 1856), t. 1 p. 60) is as follows: “silver with a fruit-bearing
olive tree, sky blue crest, doted with three golden-legged crosses.”
37 Small, Genealogical Records, p. 191.
38 For example, Charlotte Lieurard’s husband, Anthony Benezet’s godfather, called
“Vermalette” on the baptismal record, is here correctly denominated as “Valmalette.”
Small calls him a “merchant, of Paris,” which I was able to verify. In addition, Small refers
to Jean-Étienne Benezet’s godfather as having been “his uncle, Antoine Bénézet, in place
of the grandfather, Estienne Bénézet.” Small, Genealogical Records, pp. 192–93, 201.
39 The viguier was a local magistrate.
40 A .D. Gard, 2E 13/26, n° François Huc, Aigues-Vives, 17/01/1655. Marguerite Roux contrac-
ted with Sieur Jean Gilly, of Aigues-Vives, a village located close to Congénies and
Calvisson. Estienne Benezet attended to the marriage contract with two other notables
of Calvisson: Sieur André Jaumeton, notary, and Claude Gilly, bourgeois. This docu-
ment helps us determine the precise identity of some of the godfathers and godmoth-
ers of Estienne Benezet’s children. Regarding Jean Benezet of Congénies, godfather of
The Vaunageole And Cévenole Roots Of Anthony Benezet 17

The Cévenole Origins of Anthony Benezet: Saint-Étienne-Vallée

Française

Unknowingly, George Brookes was not completely wrong when talking about
the Cévennes in connection with Anthony Benezet. However, this concerns his
maternal ancestry, for which I have gleaned some clear indications. If biogra-
phers, such as Vaux and Brookes, suggest approximate locations for his pater-
nal origins, they are unconcerned about his lineage on his mother’s side. Yet
the surname of his mother, Judith of Méjanelle, is no more Picard in origin
than that his father’s. It is a common name in the Cévennes, around Gard and
Lozère—for example, in Valleraugue, a town near Mont Aigoual, and espe-
cially in the Vallée Française, formerly called Valfrancesque. This is a Huguenot
region, the very area from which the revolt by the Camisards developed.
My attention was drawn to two Huguenot wills found by chance in the
notarial (probate) registers from Sommières, a town near Calvisson. The first
is dated July 16, 1630,41 whereas the second is dated July 21, 1645.42 In both
cases I found the last will and testament of Demoiselle Judith of Méjanelle,
wife of Master Jean Vene, salt cellar comptroller of Sommières. I learned that
she was born in Saint Estienne de Valfrancesque (today Saint-Étienne-Vallée-
Française), daughter of the late Claude, Sieur of Doudon. Another act recorded
by the aforementioned Judith de la Méjanelle, shortly before her second will,
was notarized in the presence of “Monsieur Pierre Valmalette, resident of
Sommières.”43 The verification of the Huguenot registers of Saint-Étienne-
Vallée-Française thus allows me to reconstruct Anthony Benezet’s maternal
ancestry. On February 14, 1652, was baptized “Léon Méjanelle, son of Jean
Méjanelle Sieur du Lac and Dame Jeanne of Valmalette, born on November 13,
1651, presented by Sieur Léon Valmalete and Demoiselle Madon Calvin.”44 The
maternal uncle, Leon Valmalette, was the son of Henri and Suzanne Donadieu,

Anthony’s grandfather, his marriage contract presents him also as “son of Claude and
Suzanne Vermeil.”
41 
A .D. Gard, 2E 66/143, n° Estienne Valette, Sommières. This woman left an inheritance in
her will to “Sieur Jean Giberne, ordinary secretary of the king’s chamber, her nephew, son
of her sister, Jeanne de la Méjanelle.”
42 
A .D. Gard, 2E 11/626, n° Jean Durand, Sommières.
43 
A .D. Gard, 2E 11/626, n° Jean Durand, Sommières, April 21, 1645. Judith de la Méjanelle
was in litigation with her nephew, Sieur François de la Méjanelle, regarding her father’s
inheritance.
44 
A .D. Lozère, A.C. de Saint-Étienne Vallée Française, GG3, B.M.S.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Celle-ci, qui d’ordinaire pleurait pour un rien, loin de laisser
échapper la moindre plainte, s’écria avec le juste orgueil d’un devoir
rempli :
— Je recommencerai chaque fois que Betsy insultera papa !
— Fi donc ! miss, dit le vieux Shum. Affliger ainsi votre mère !
Lever la main sur votre aînée !
— Mais, papa, elle vous a appelé…
— Eh bien, mademoiselle, c’était à moi de la corriger, interrompit
le père en cherchant à se donner un air digne.
— Me corriger ! Je voudrais bien voir cela !
Et le nez naturellement camus de Betsy se retroussa encore
davantage.
Mme Shum, retombant sur le canapé comme un hippopotame
essoufflé, termina la discussion en ordonnant à Mary de quitter le
salon, avec défense d’y reparaître de la journée.
— Miss Mary, lui dis-je en la voyant sangloter de façon à
compromettre son corsage, mon maître est sorti, entrez donc chez
nous. Il y a du veau froid et des concombres.
— Merci, John ; mais je suis trop malheureuse pour avoir faim,
répondit-elle en secouant tristement ses jolies boucles.
Elle entra néanmoins, et se jeta sur un fauteuil.
Au moment où je songeais le moins à lui, Altamont parut. Je
tenais en ce moment la main de Mary. Je crois même que j’allais y
déposer un baiser de consolation, lorsque mon maître arriva à
l’improviste.
— Sortez ! me dit-il d’un ton peu rassurant.
Je m’empressai d’obéir, car l’extrémité d’une botte étrangère
venait de communiquer à ma personne une impulsion irrésistible.
La conduite d’Altamont ne me laissa plus aucun doute. Il aimait
Mary. C’est pour cela que tant de fois il avait souri avec indulgence
en contemplant le morceau de roast-beef ou de veau de la veille,
dont la dent vorace des Shum avait singulièrement diminué le
volume. Il s’apercevait bien de ce communisme forcé dont il faisait
tous les frais, — mais un amour désintéressé s’inquiète-t-il de
quelques livres de bœuf ?
A dater de l’entrevue en question, il se montra fort attentionné
pour la famille de son propriétaire. Miss Betsy encouragea ses
avances et fut souvent invitée à prendre le thé chez nous. Comme
les convenances lui défendaient d’y venir seule, elle se faisait
accompagner par Mary, qu’elle affectait de regarder comme une
enfant.
Un jour, mon maître rentra un peu plus tôt que de coutume,
rapportant des billets pour le théâtre de Drury-Lane, où il offrit de
conduire Betsy et Mary. Son dîner terminé, il m’adressa la question
suivante :
— John, tu n’es pas dénué d’intelligence ?
Je répondis de façon à ne pas blesser la vérité ni offenser la
modestie.
— Eh bien, poursuivit Altamont, il y a deux guinées pour toi, si tu
exécutes adroitement mes ordres. Nous allons au spectacle. J’ai
choisi exprès un jour où il pleut à verse. Tu nous attendras à la sortie
avec les parapluies ; tu m’en remettras un, et de l’autre tu abriteras
miss Betsy. Tu la feras tourner à gauche, au lieu de la mener à
droite, c’est-à-dire à la voiture… As-tu bien compris ?
— Monsieur peut compter sur moi ; j’aurai soin de me tromper de
chemin.
Le spectacle terminé, je me trouvai à mon poste. Il pleuvait
toujours. Altamont parut donnant le bras à Mary, et suivi de Betsy,
qui semblait fort contrariée de cette préférence. Je remis un
parapluie à mon maître ; puis je jetai un grand châle sur les épaules
de Betsy, sans toutefois l’étouffer complétement. Tandis que j’étais
ainsi occupé, l’autre couple avait disparu dans la foule.
— Soyez tranquille, dis-je à miss Betsy, la voiture est à deux pas.
Elle nous attend à gauche.
 Après avoir pataugé quelque temps dans la boue, je commençai
à craindre de ne plus retrouver notre véhicule, et je demandai
naïvement aux gens rassemblés à l’entrée du théâtre :
— Quelqu’un a-t-il vu la voiture de M. Frédéric Altamont ?
On me répondit naturellement par des plaisanteries de fort
mauvais goût, par des lazzi à faire rougir un policeman.
— Que faire ? m’écriai-je d’un ton désespéré. Mon maître ne me
pardonnera jamais !… Et dire que je n’ai pas un penny sur moi pour
payer un fiacre !
Nous fûmes obligés de rentrer à pied, par une pluie battante, et
nous n’arrivâmes chez nous qu’à deux heures du matin. Mary, qui
n’avait pas trempé dans la conspiration, se jeta dans les bras de sa
sœur, tandis qu’Altamont jurait et menaçait de me chasser, pour
avoir tourné à gauche au lieu de prendre à droite. Ils nous avaient
attendus près d’une heure avant de se décider à revenir seuls,
disait-il.
J’ignore si cette aventure eut pour effet d’éclairer miss Betsy sur
les véritables sentiments de mon maître. Dans tous les cas, comme
notre thé était excellent et que nous avions toujours une ample
provision de gâteaux ou de sandwiches, ses visites furent aussi
fréquentes que par le passé.
 II
QUEL EST DONC CE MYSTÈRE ?

— Quels sont les moyens d’existence de mon maître ? Quelle est

sa profession ? S’il vit de ses rentes, pourquoi ces absences
quotidiennes et régulières ? me demandais-je sur tous les tons.
J’avais beau m’interroger, j’avais beau l’espionner : M. Frédéric
Altamont restait l’homme le plus impénétrable du monde.
Un matin, craignant qu’il ne s’enrhumât, je lui dis, avec ma
politesse habituelle :
— Il va pleuvoir aujourd’hui ; monsieur veut-il que le tilbury aille le
prendre à son bureau ?
Au lieu de me remercier de l’intérêt que je prenais à sa santé, il
me pria de me mêler de mes affaires.
Une autre fois, — le jour même où miss Betsy avait reçu le
soufflet en question, — j’entendis Mary qui demandait à mon maître :
— Cher Frédéric (ils en étaient déjà là), pourquoi ce mystère ?
Pourquoi me cacher quelque chose ?
— Qu’il vous suffise de savoir que je suis un honnête homme et
que je vous aime. Un secret, dont la connaissance ne servirait qu’à
vous attrister, doit envelopper mon existence depuis neuf heures du
matin jusqu’à six heures du soir.
Impossible d’obtenir de lui une réponse plus explicite. Au
moment où j’allais me retirer, croyant la conversation terminée,
l’arrivée de la vieille Shum me coupa la retraite. Avertie par une de
ses filles de la rentrée d’Altamont, elle venait interrompre le tête-à-
tête. Je crus de mon devoir de parler très-haut et de renverser un
fauteuil sur son passage ; mais elle écarta l’obstacle et entra chez
mon maître en s’écriant :
— Êtes-vous venu chez moi en qualité de serpent ou en qualité
de simple locataire ? Répondez, monsieur !
— Je suis venu chez vous parce que j’aime votre fille Mary, et la
preuve, c’est que je l’épouse si elle veut bien accepter ma main.
Qu’elle choisisse entre vous et moi. Maintenant que je vous ai
répondu, vous aurez peut-être l’obligeance de nous laisser
tranquilles.
— Frédéric, je vous suivrai jusqu’au bout du monde ! dit la jeune
fille en se jetant dans ses bras.
— Fort bien, mademoiselle ! reprit la marâtre furieuse (car elle
espérait qu’Altamont aurait épousé Betsy) ; fort bien ! Unissez-vous à
l’homme qui me foule aux pieds sous mon propre toit… où il n’y a
personne pour me défendre !
Ce dernier membre de phrase fut la préface d’une attaque de
nerfs. Le tapage ne tarda pas à rassembler Shum et ses onze
rejetons, dont l’arrivée calma un peu les coups de pied de la belle-
mère.
— Venez, monsieur Shum, s’écria-t-elle. Venez admirer la
conduite de votre fille, qui a l’impudeur de s’enfermer avec un
homme !… avec un homme amoureux d’elle, encore !
— Lui, amoureux de Mary ! Le monstre ! le trompeur ! et Betsy se
mit à crier plus fort que sa mère.
— Silence ! commanda mon maître d’une voix qui domina les
clameurs féminines… Monsieur Shum, j’aime votre fille, je suis aimé
d’elle, et, comme mes moyens me permettent de la prendre sans
dot, je vous demande sa main.
— Monsieur, répliqua Shum en se rengorgeant, nous allons
causer de cette affaire… Mes filles, retirez-vous, et donnez des
soins à votre mère.
Pour la première fois de leur vie, les enfants obéirent. Il est vrai
que mon maître vint en aide à l’autorité paternelle, si souvent
méconnue, en les prenant par les épaules, afin de les pousser
dehors.
La timide Mary s’était enfuie dès le commencement de l’émeute.
Shum n’hésita pas à donner son consentement. Il était ravi de
trouver un mari pour sa fille, qu’il aimait tendrement, bien qu’il n’eût
jamais eu le courage de la défendre. Mais, chose étrange, mon
maître se refusa à toute espèce d’explication quant à ses moyens
d’existence.
— Je gagne environ trois cents livres sterling par an, dit-il pour
toute réponse ; Mary disposera de la moitié de cette somme. Quant
au reste, je me dispense de satisfaire votre curiosité.
Deux semaines plus tard, Frédéric Altamont épousait miss Mary
Shum. Nous allâmes habiter une jolie petite maison que mon maître
avait achetée dans le faubourg d’Islington. Le mystérieux époux
continuait à visiter chaque matin le quartier commerçant de Londres,
où il restait jusqu’à six heures du soir.
Que diable pouvait-il y faire ?
 III
LA LUNE ROUSSE

Une félicité parfaite semblait devoir planer sur notre jeune

ménage ; cependant, deux mois à peine s’étaient écoulés que déjà
nous subissions l’odieuse influence de la lune rousse. De rose et
rieuse, Mme Altamont devint tout à coup pâle et morose. Miss Betsy,
qui n’avait rien oublié, détestait cordialement les nouveaux mariés,
et cherchait à troubler leur bonheur en inspirant à ma maîtresse une
foule de mauvaises pensées. La vieille Shum l’aidait de son mieux.
Il va sans dire qu’il nous arriva bientôt un amour de petit enfant ;
Mary n’en fut pas plus gaie. Au contraire, elle se livrait à des accès
de tristesse que rien ne pouvait dissiper. Elle passait des journées
entières devant le berceau du chérubin endormi, lui adressant des
discours auxquels il ne comprenait rien.
— Mon enfant, mon pauvre enfant ! disait-elle, ton père me
trompe. Il a des secrets pour moi… Que deviendras-tu, lorsque ta
mère aura succombé sous le poids du malheur ?
Tout cela était du cru de la vieille Shum et de miss Betsy.
Altamont avait fini par leur défendre de mettre les pieds chez lui ;
mais elles venaient en cachette, tandis qu’il vaquait à ses
mystérieuses affaires. Depuis notre accouchement, leurs visites
étaient même devenues plus fréquentes que jamais.
Un matin que Mme Altamont pleurait selon son habitude et que
ses aimables parentes la consolaient à leur façon, c’est-à-dire en la
faisant pleurer davantage, j’entendis…
Mais pourquoi ne reproduirais-je pas cette scène telle que je
l’écrivis à l’époque où j’avais l’intention de faire un drame
domestique de l’histoire que je raconte ?
 PERSONNAGES

MADAME SHUM, berçant un enfant en bas âge.

MARY, assise à la croisée.
BETSY, au fond, mangeant n’importe quoi.
MOI, derrière la porte.

La scène se passe à Islington, près de Londres. — Le théâtre représente une

chambre à coucher bourgeoise.

MADAME SHUM. — Do, do, l’enfant do… Bon, le voilà parti… (Elle
pousse un profond soupir.) Oui, dors, pauvre enfant, fils d’une mère
infortunée et d’un père anonyme quant à la profession…
MOI, à part. — Vieille folle !
MARY. — Maman, ne dites plus de mal de Frédéric, il m’adore.
MADAME SHUM, avec ironie. — Ah, c’est juste !… Il vous a donné un
beau châle hier ; mais avec quel argent l’a-t-il acheté, ce châle ?
voilà la question… Qui est-il ? Que fait-il ?… Plaise à Dieu que vous
n’ayez pas épousé un assassin !… Mary, j’en ai l’intime conviction,
votre mari est un affreux bandit.

(Tout le monde pleure, excepté l’enfant et moi.)

MARY. — Frédéric tient peut-être un magasin ; peut-être exerce-t-

il une profession que sa fierté l’empêche d’avouer.
BETSY, la bouche pleine. — Lui, un magasin ? Non, non ! crois-moi,
Mary, c’est un scélérat qui égorge les gens toute la journée, et qui te
rapporte chaque soir le fruit de ses rapines.

(Ici l’enfant fait entendre des vagissements plaintifs, au

milieu desquels il est impossible de saisir sa
pensée. Mary lui ferme la bouche d’une façon qui
paraît le satisfaire.)

MARY. — Comment Frédéric serait-il un assassin ?… Il est trop

doux pour cela… D’ailleurs, les assassins exercent leur profession la
nuit, et mon mari ne s’absente que pendant le jour.
BETSY. — Alors, c’est un faussaire !… Pourquoi passe-t-il ses
journées loin de toi ? Pour fabriquer ses faux billets… Pourquoi ne
se fait-il jamais conduire ailleurs que dans le quartier commerçant de
Londres ? Parce qu’ailleurs il ne serait pas à même de changer
lesdits billets. Pour moi, la chose est claire comme le jour.
MARY. — Allons donc ! Il me rapporte tous les soirs de vingt à
trente shillings, rarement davantage. Un faux monnayeur ferait plus
d’argent que cela !
L’ENFANT. — Glou… glou… glou…
MADAME SHUM, sans faire attention à cette interruption.
— J’y suis ! Le
monstre a deux femmes ; toi la nuit, l’autre le jour. Voilà la véritable
cause de tout ce mystère.

(Sensation. — Mary se trouve mal. Au même instant,

un triple coup de marteau retentit à la porte de la
rue.)

J’avais reconnu le coup de marteau d’Altamont ; je m’empressai

de descendre et de lui ouvrir.
— Que se passe-t-il donc ? demanda-t-il en entendant le
tintamarre qui se faisait au premier étage.
— Miss Betsy et sa mère sont là-haut, et madame vient de se
trouver mal.
Altamont monta l’escalier quatre à quatre, et se précipita comme
une bombe dans la chambre à coucher. Sa femme était étendue sur
un canapé, où Betsy l’étouffait à moitié, sous prétexte de la ranimer.
L’enfant criait et se démenait sur le tapis. La vieille Shum hurlait
comme un chien qui aboie à la lune.
— Me dira-t-on la cause de tout ce tapage ? demanda Altamont.
— Vous la connaissez mieux que nous, répliqua la belle-mère.
C’est votre conduite qui met la pauvre enfant dans cet état.
— Comment ça, s’il vous plaît ?
 — Osez-vous le demander ?… Elle sait tout, monsieur ! Elle sait
que vous êtes un affreux bigame !
Altamont parut hésiter un moment ; mais bientôt, ouvrant la porte
toute grande, il prit Betsy par les épaules et la poussa hors de la
chambre ; puis il s’avança vers Mme Shum, afin de lui faire prendre le
même chemin.
— Mon enfant ! répétait la marâtre, tandis que mon maître
l’envoyait, bon gré mal gré, rejoindre miss Betsy.
— John ! me cria-t-il… (je venais, par discrétion, de me retirer au
bas de l’escalier)… reconduisez ces dames, et désormais ne leur
ouvrez plus la porte.
J’obéis avec empressement, et je me hâtai de remonter, devinant
qu’il allait y avoir une explication orageuse.
— Mary, disait Altamont, lorsque je revins à mon poste
d’observation, tu n’es plus du tout l’enfant confiante que j’ai connue
à Pentonville. Ta mère et tes belles-sœurs auraient fini par te gâter.
C’est pourquoi je les ai mises à la porte.
— Tu sais bien que c’est le mystère dont tu t’entoures qui me
rend si malheureuse… Pourquoi me quittes-tu tous les jours pendant
huit heures ?
— Pourquoi ?… Parce que je ne trouve pas sous mon oreiller
l’argent dont nous avons besoin pour vivre.
La conversation continua sur ce ton pendant près d’une heure.
Elle se termina pour la première fois par une belle et bonne querelle.
Je m’y attendais depuis quelque temps, car il n’est pas naturel que
deux époux restent onze grands mois sans se disputer. Altamont,
fatigué de l’obstination de sa femme, finit par abandonner la place. Il
sortit en disant que, puisqu’on faisait un enfer de sa maison, il allait
s’amuser ailleurs. En effet, il s’amusa si bien qu’il ne rentra qu’à trois
heures du matin, sans chapeau, gris comme un Polonais.
A dater de ce jour, tout alla de travers dans notre ménage. On
s’adressait à peine la parole pendant les repas. Monsieur sortait plus
tôt et rentrait plus tard. — Madame, dévorée par la jalousie et la
curiosité, ne faisait rien pour le ramener.
La belle-mère, malgré la scène dont j’ai parlé, n’en continua pas
moins à venir en cachette à Islington le plus souvent possible, afin
d’empêcher une réconciliation. Le père Shum avait conservé ses
grandes et ses petites entrées chez son gendre ; il venait nous voir
trois ou quatre fois par semaine. Ces jours-là il déjeunait, goûtait,
dînait et soupait avec nous. L’ex-marin avait un grand faible pour les
liqueurs fortes, ce qui m’obligeait fréquemment à le reconduire chez
lui. Plus d’une fois je le laissai à moitié chemin, allongé dans le
ruisseau, la tête mollement appuyée sur le trottoir. Par malheur, ces
leçons ne lui profitaient guère et il recommençait à la première
occasion.
Or, le 10 janvier 18.. (je me rappelle la date parce que Shum me
donna un écu ce jour-là), tandis que le vieux bonhomme et son
gendre buvaient leur grog après dîner, mon maître dit en frappant
sur l’épaule de son hôte :
— Beau-père, je vous ai vu deux fois près de la Banque ce matin.
— Tiens, voilà qui est drôle ! remarqua Shum. Comment avez-
vous fait pour me voir deux fois ? Je m’y suis rendu en voiture ; je
n’ai fait que descendre pour aller toucher mon argent et je suis
remonté dans le fiacre une demi-heure après… Vous étiez donc près
de la Banque ?
Altamont toussa ; puis, au lieu de répondre, il parla de la situation
politique et d’une girouette qu’il voulait faire placer sur le toit de sa
maison.
— Mais, mon ami, interrompit Mary, comment donc as-tu fait pour
voir papa deux fois ? Est-ce que tu l’as attendu devant la Banque ?
Altamont chercha encore à détourner la conversation ; mais sa
femme revint à la charge.
— Tu étais donc près de la Banque, mon cher Frédéric ? Que
faisais-tu là ? répéta-t-elle.
 Mon maître, poussé à bout, s’en fut se coucher. Shum, qui venait
de vider son neuvième verre de grog, eut besoin de mon appui pour
retourner à Pentonville.
— Comment diable a-t-il donc pu me voir deux fois ? se
demandait-il tout le long de la route.
 IV
LE POT AUX ROSES

Le lendemain, Altamont ne fut pas plus tôt dehors, que madame,

au lieu de s’enfermer selon son habitude, sortit de son côté pour se
rendre à Pentonville. Après une longue conférence, elle monta en
voiture avec sa belle-mère et se fit descendre non loin de la Banque.
Les deux femmes passèrent une partie de la journée à rôder dans
les environs de cet édifice enfumé. Elles rentrèrent enfin,
désespérées de n’avoir rien appris.
Ces expéditions se renouvelèrent chaque jour. Jamais Mme
Shum n’avait tant fait voyager sa poussive personne, qui semblait
être devenue inaccessible à la fatigue. Betsy la remplaçait
quelquefois ; mais c’était toujours la Banque qui avait le privilége de
les attirer ; elles s’y dirigeaient aussi naturellement que les omnibus.
Enfin la vieille Shum arriva un matin chez nous, le visage
rayonnant. J’avais remarqué sa mine triomphante, et je résolus de
découvrir le motif de cet air.
— Mary, où est l’argent que ton mari t’a donné hier soir ?
demanda la vieille d’un ton mystérieux.
La porte était fermée, mais je regardais par le trou de la serrure.
— L’argent, maman ? répondit Mary d’un air surpris.
— Oui, la monnaie qu’il t’a remise hier.
On se rappelle qu’Altamont remettait chaque soir à sa femme
une grosse poignée de pièces blanches. Mary tira sa bourse, dont
elle fit tomber sur les genoux de sa belle-mère une quantité de
menue monnaie d’argent.
 — La voici ! la voici ! s’écria madame Shum. Victoire ! victoire !…
Une pièce de douze sous du temps de la reine Anne… La marque y
est.
— Quelle marque ?
— Silence pour aujourd’hui !… Viens me prendre demain matin ;
tu sauras TOUT ! D’ici là, sois discrète !
Mary fut d’une discrétion exemplaire ; il est vrai qu’elle avait de
fort bonnes raisons pour cela, attendu qu’elle ne savait rien. Elle se
garda bien de manquer au rendez-vous. Dès que son mari eut le dos
tourné, elle monta dans un fiacre et alla trouver sa belle-mère. Elles
sortirent bientôt pour se diriger vers le but habituel de leurs
promenades, et je les suivis à une distance respectueuse. A peine
fûmes-nous arrivés en face de la Banque, que madame Altamont
perdit connaissance et tomba sur le pavé boueux.
Bousculant un vieux balayeur qui s’éloignait à la hâte, je
m’élançai pour relever ma maîtresse, et j’appelai un fiacre où je
déposai mon précieux fardeau. La vieille Shum, ayant fait tout le mal
qu’elle pouvait, entra chez un pâtissier pour se reposer en buvant
quelques verres de liqueur ; quant à moi, je grimpai sur le siége et je
rentrai à la maison avec ma maîtresse.
Cette nuit-là, Altamont, au lieu de rentrer tard, jugea à propos de
ne pas rentrer du tout. Le lendemain, il envoya à Pentonville un
commissaire-priseur, qui fit l’inventaire du mobilier, et colla sur la
porte une affiche annonçant que la maison était à vendre. Je ne
comprenais rien à tout cela. Ce qui m’étonnait le plus, c’est que ma
maîtresse, loin de continuer à pleurer, se montrait aussi gaie qu’un
pinson.
Altamont lui avait écrit ; mais la lettre ayant été remise par le
commissaire-priseur en personne, il m’avait été impossible d’en
prendre connaissance.
Au bout de trois jours, mon maître reparut, pâle et défait, les yeux
caves, les joues creuses. La gaieté de madame sembla lui causer
autant de joie que de surprise. On eût dit qu’il s’attendait à la trouver
plus morose et plus larmoyante que jamais.
 — Mary, dit-il tendrement, j’ai vendu ma place ; la somme qu’elle
m’a rapportée, jointe à mes économies et au prix de notre maison,
nous permettra de vivre confortablement à l’étranger… Mais
maintenant que tu sais tout, me pardonneras-tu de t’avoir caché ma
profession ?
— Bah ! puisque tu n’aimes que moi, puisqu’il n’est pas vrai que
tu aies une autre femme, cela m’est bien égal que tu sois un…
Au lieu d’achever sa phrase, elle lui sauta au cou et l’embrassa à
plusieurs reprises… Il n’y a que les femmes pour trouver des
réticences aussi agaçantes !
Ah çà ! dira le lecteur intrigué, quel est donc ce mystère ?
Apprends-nous-le, ce secret plein d’horreur !
Je frémis de l’avouer !… Je rougis d’avoir servi un pareil
maître !… M. Altamont balayait un passage dans le macadam pour
les piétons allant de la Banque à Cornhill et de Cornhill à la
Banque !… Il se déguisait si bien que madame Shum, pour être sûre
de son fait, avait eu besoin de la pièce marquée retrouvée dans la
bourse de Mary.
Ai-je besoin d’ajouter que je demandai immédiatement mon
compte ?
Je ne cachai pas à Altamont le motif qui m’obligeait à le quitter.
Je lui dis sans détour qu’un homme qui se respecte ne saurait rester
au service d’un balayeur. Eh bien, croiriez-vous qu’au lieu d’admirer
ma franchise et mon noble orgueil, il se mit à rire et me congédia
avec un coup de pied ? Je ne devais certes pas m’attendre à
beaucoup de savoir-vivre de la part d’un individu tombé aussi bas, et
pourtant son procédé me blessa plus que je ne saurais dire.
Quelques années plus tard, je rencontrai à Baden-Baden
monsieur et madame Frédéric Altamont, qui passaient pour des
gens comme il faut. Cela me donna à penser. Je reconnus que
j’avais eu tort de les mépriser ; car le public, toujours prêt à vous
aider à manger vos écus, ne s’inquiétera pas de savoir si vous les
avez ramassés dans une fabrique d’eau de rose ou dans un égout.
 Cependant, honteux d’un contact même involontaire avec ce
grossier personnage, et, voulant me relever dans ma propre estime,
je jurai de ne servir désormais que des membres de l’aristocratie.

FIN DE LA PREMIÈRE PARTIE

 DEUXIÈME PARTIE
UN PARFAIT GENTILHOMME

I
JE COUPE, ATOUT ET ATOUT

Je ne tardai pas à trouver un nouveau maître, et un maître que je

ne rougirai jamais d’avoir servi. Ce ne fut pas sans un certain
sentiment d’orgueil que je devins le valet de chambre de
l’Honorable [3] Hector-Percy Cinqpoints, septième fils du comte de
Crabs, pair d’Angleterre.
[3] Titre auquel ont droit les fils d’un pair d’Angleterre.

Cinqpoints était avocat, bien qu’il n’eût jamais plaidé une cause
ni parcouru le plus mince dossier. Il attendait avec patience que les
whigs, alors au pouvoir, voulussent bien créer à son intention
quelque bonne petite sinécure. Son père avait débuté sur la scène
politique dans un rôle de libéral enragé ; mais, depuis lors, il avait
toujours suffi d’une crise ministérielle pour lui faire changer
d’opinion. N’étant pas riche, lord Crabs se voyait forcé de voter
tantôt blanc, tantôt noir, afin de pouvoir soutenir la dignité de son
rang et obtenir des places lucratives pour messieurs ses fils.
— Il n’est pas facile, remarquait plaisamment cet aimable
vieillard, d’être bon pair, lorsqu’on a beaucoup d’enfants et
beaucoup de dettes.
Le bruit courait que le comte de Crabs nous servait une pension
de dix mille francs par an. C’était fort généreux de la part d’un
homme qui, tant de fois déjà, avait fait à sa famille le sacrifice de ses
opinions politiques ; seulement, j’ai tout lieu de croire que mon
maître, bien qu’il fût trop bon fils pour démentir cette rumeur, ne
touchait que bien rarement la rente paternelle. Cependant il ne
manquait jamais d’argent ; car les gens comme il faut ont mille
manières de subvenir à leurs dépenses dont la vile multitude ne se
doute pas.
On voyait dans son salon une longue pancarte où les noms de
ses ancêtres se lisaient en lettres rouges sur les branches d’un
chêne planté dans le ventre d’un homme d’armes. Il appelait cela
son arbre généalogique. Je ne sais pas au juste ce que c’est que cet
arbre, n’en ayant jamais vu qu’en peinture ; mais je soupçonne fort
que c’est là ce qui lui permettait de vivre comme il faisait. S’il ne se
fût pas appelé l’Honorable Hector-Percy Cinqpoints, peut-être
l’aurait-on pris pour un simple escroc, car il jouait beaucoup et ne
perdait que lorsqu’il voulait bien s’en donner la peine. Pour un
homme de basse extraction une pareille profession est fort
dangereuse ; mais, lorsqu’un véritable gentilhomme consent à
l’embrasser, il ne saurait manquer d’y gagner beaucoup d’argent. Il
est vrai que le plus habile ne tarde pas à y laisser sa réputation, et
alors l’état ne rapporte plus que de maigres profits, assaisonnés de
soufflets et de condamnations infamantes.
Mon maître n’en était pas là. Jusqu’à ce jour, il avait eu le talent
de plumer ses victimes sans les faire crier. Sachant combien les
oiseaux de Thémis sont coriaces, il cultivait aussi peu la
connaissance des hommes de loi que celle du code ; mais, afin
d’ajouter à sa respectability en ayant l’air de s’occuper de sa
profession, il habitait le quartier des avocats, et daignait parfois
mettre la main sur quelque pigeon roturier qui s’aventurait dans son
dangereux voisinage.
De ce nombre fut le pauvre Thomas Dakins, Esq. [4] , étudiant en
droit, récemment installé dans la maison que nous habitions, et dont
Cinqpoints ne tarda pas à convoiter le plumage argenté. Ce jeune
imprudent eût mieux fait de ne jamais venir au monde que de planer
sous les serres d’un oiseleur aussi impitoyable ; car il fut bientôt
complétement ruiné, grâce aux efforts combinés de mon maître et
du sieur Richard Blewitt, dont le nom, gravé sur une plaque de
cuivre, se lisait sur la porte d’un appartement voisin du nôtre.
[4] Le titre d’esquire, écuyer, affecté dans l’origine aux
aspirants chevaliers et plus tard à certains propriétaires
fonciers, se donne aujourd’hui à tout Anglais vivant de
ses rentes ou exerçant une profession libérale ; en un
mot, à celui que les paysans nomment un monsieur.
Cette désignation s’écrit en abrégé à la suite du nom.

(Note du traducteur.)

Dakins quittait à peine l’université d’Oxford, où il avait obtenu

quelques succès académiques. La mort de ses parents venait de le
rendre maître d’une fortune assez ronde, lorsque sa mauvaise étoile
lui inspira l’idée de s’abriter sous le même toit que son ex-camarade
Blewitt.
Malgré l’espèce d’intimité qui s’était établie entre le groom de ce
dernier et moi, nos maîtres ne se voyaient pas. Je n’entends pas par
là qu’ils devenaient aveugles dès qu’ils se rencontraient ; je veux
seulement dire qu’ils feignaient de ne pas se connaître. Cette
explication s’adresse à ceux de mes lecteurs qui, moins heureux que
moi, n’ont pas eu l’occasion de se familiariser avec le langage du
grand monde.
Du reste, ils se ressemblaient trop peu pour se rapprocher sans
un motif intéressé. Cinqpoints, aristocrate jusqu’au bout des ongles
et assez joli garçon, s’habillait avec une élégante simplicité, tout en
changeant de toilette trois fois par jour ; il avait des mains de femme,
une voix doucereuse, une figure un peu jaune et un regard qui vous
arrivait de côté. Il marchait toujours du même pas, disait rarement un
mot plus haut que l’autre, et savait mêler à son affabilité une certaine
dose de roideur. Blewitt, au contraire, avait le sans-gêne d’un
campagnard. Il portait des vestes de chasse, mettait son chapeau de
travers, hantait les tavernes, donnait des poignées de main aux
jockeys, jurait comme un païen et vous frappait sur l’épaule en
manière de bonjour. Bref, il avait l’air d’un gros mauvais sujet, d’un