A New Letter by Gustavus Vassa/Olaudah Equiano?

In March 2003, Michael D. Benjamin, a scholar-collector of early writings by people of African descent, brought to my attention a very intriguing piece of Equiana. Mr. Benjamin had found a letter signed Gustavus Vassa (Olaudah Equiano, 1745?–1797) addressed to Thomas Digges written in a copy of the rare 1794 ninth edition of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Gustavus Vassa, or Olaudah Equiano, the African. Written by Himself, first published in London in 1789. The letter is reproduced here courtesy of the Library Division of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center,Howard University. Having noticed that the letter mentions a Mrs. Vassa after the February 1796 date of Susanna Vassa's death given in the Penguin edition of Vassa/Equiano's writings, Mr. Benjamin asked mewhat I made of the letter. What follows is my attempt at an answer.

Thomas Attwood Digges (1742–1821) was born a Roman Catholic gentleman in Warburton, Maryland. Disowned by his family for reasons unknown, in 1767 he left America for continental Europe. He probably lived in Lisbon, Portugal, until the mid-1770s,when he moved to London. There, in 1775, he published anonymously his novel Adventures of Alonso, which is set in Portugal and is considered by some the first novel by an American. During the American Revolution Digges, under a number of aliases, acted as an agent for the Americans, supplying London political gossip, reports on proceedings in Parliament, and the names of American prisoners of war to William Lee (1739–1795) of Virginia, John Adams (1735–1826) of Boston, and Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) of Philadelphia. Digges also used his European contacts to smuggle supplies to America via Spain, and to help prisoners of war held in Forton and Old Mill prisons in England. In 1778, through Digges, Franklin and David Hartley (1731–1813), a member of the House of Commons, conducted ultimately unsuccessful negotiations over Hartley's secret peace proposal. Widespread and apparently well-founded accusations in the early 1780s that Digges, constantly in debt, was embezzling funds intended for the prisoners sullied his reputation and cost him Franklin's regard. But Digges continued to serve the American cause, helping John Adams and Lord North's ministry negotiate another secret peace plan in 1782. The fall of the British ministry during the negotiations, however, led to rumors that Digges had been a spy in Lord North's employ.

Digges's money troubles as well as his penchant for questionable activities in England and Ireland continued after the American Revolution. He was imprisoned for debt in the Four Courts Marshalsea, Dublin, in 1785. During the next 15 years he encouraged emigration to America, and engaged in the illegal smuggling of British artisans and machinery to the United States. By late 1789 or early 1790, he had moved to Belfast, Ireland. In Ireland during the early 1790s, Digges befriended Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763–1798) and Thomas Russell (1767–1803), co-organizers of the United Irishmen in 1791. Although Digges encouraged Tone to seek Irish independence, the nature of his connection, if any, to the United Irishmen remains mysterious. Digges's motives and character continued to be questioned. Writing on 16 April 1792, John Carroll (1735–1815), Roman Catholic bishop of Baltimore, felt obliged to warn James Thomas Troy (1739–1823), Roman Catholic archbishop of Dublin, about Digges:

I understand . . . that a principal mover in the business of the North, and in coaliting Catholics with Presbyterians, is a person from this country of the name of Digges. With him I am not acquainted, but pretty well with his character, and I am induced, by a solicitous regard for the Catholics of Ireland, and for your Lordship in particular, to mention some circumstances relating to Mr. Digges, which need not be mentioned farther than you will find it necessary. He is of respectable family and connections in this country, no more so; in his early youth he was guilty of misdemeanours here, indicating rooted depravity, but amazing address, but even this could not screen him, and his friends, to rescue him from the hands of justice, and themselves...