Miss Spencer, may the Almighty bless her kind soul, agreed to provide us with temporary lodgings. When we had explained fully to her the nature of our predicament, Miss Spencer declared that the time had arrived for David Henderson to begin his task in life. 'And what task might this be?' I asked of her. She informed me that I must open the ears and eyes of the ruder of her countrymen to the hope of Christian redemption that is buried at the heart of mission work. I alone among my intemperate heathen brethren, who injure their constitutions by too frequent a repetition of the charms of the bottle, might present a spectacle of salvation and collect money for exploratory travels in the country of my birth. That the negro was no longer goods, in the manner of hides, redwood, or grain, had been well-served out by the abolition (although many, including myself, were aware of the unfinished state of this abolition). Miss Spencer insisted that the commonly held assumption that a black Englishman's life consisted of debauchery, domestic knavery, and misdemeanour, served as a false and dangerous model, while the notion of irreversible savagery in old Guinea presented an equally untruthful picture. It was determined that I should tour England as a servant of the Blackheath mission, and in the company of my wife. Upon our return to the capital we would travel to Africa in the office of missionaries and preach the Gospel in the hope of spiritually reforming my former countrymen and persuading them to embrace the faith of Jesus Christ. My exhilaration, on being presented with this solution to the ills that had plagued my life since the departure of my master, was doubled on learning that my stay in Guinea would be brief. Truly I was now an Englishman, albeit a little smudgy of complexion! Africa spoke to me only of a history I had cast aside.
Across the full breadth of fair England we trod, the spectacle of my Christian wife and I sometimes provoking the vulgar to indulge themselves in a banquet of wicked jest. We who are kidnapped from the coast of Africa, and bartered on the shores of America, occupy a superior and free status in England, although an unsatisfactory reluctance to invoke the just English law permits the outward appearance of slavery to be enacted by some persons. This creates in the minds of many true Englishmen a confusion as to the proper standing of the black people in their presence. My divers addresses were often prefaced with exempla of this taxing discrepancy as I read from contemporary English newspapers on this phenomenon.
To be sold, a handsome creole wench named HARMONY alias AMY. Fourteen years of age, she reads but a little. She has a scar on her breast occasioned by a bum, and a toe cut off each foot. Any person who may have a mind to the said girl, is desired to apply before the 30th.
Such short illustrations seldom failed to produce a gasp of shame from amongst those present, many of whom secretly flourished upon bread whose origins lay in slavery. I would proclaim: "The air of our island is too pure for slavery to breathe in!' Furthermore, I would maintain that the maxim, 'Once free for an hour, free for ever!' should be fervently adhered to. Then I would quote from the holy book. 'Did not He that made them, make us; and did not One fashion us in the womb?' This fraction of scripture was generally followed by a period of contemplative silence into which I would introduce the notion that such a state of affairs as exists in England cannot be tolerated under the government of God. 'Surely,' I would say, 'it is a blasphemy against His benevolence even to suppose it.' I then continued, pointing out that the engrossment of the public mind in that disastrous conflict with France having reached a conclusion, time and energy must immediately be given over to correcting the situation of the poor, oppressed, needy, and much-degraded negroes. Having gained some resigned acceptance of this fact in the form of nodding of heads and whispered 'amens', I would then seek to assure my congregation that the painful circumstances that had forced me from obscurity and set me before them had not planted in my soul a single seed of revenge against those who had so cruelly treated myself and my family. God, I would remind them, is the true avenger of the oppressed, and that deeply injured race of black men of whom I numbered but a solitary one would, if supplicated in true humility, always secure from Him a favourable and candid hearing. Huzza's and tears often followed my delivery, but at this I would raise my hand and remind my congregation that the whole law of God is founded upon love, and the two grand branches of it are: 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart; and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' I then swiftly drove home the feathered shaft into their wounded English consciences: 'Again,' I would announce, 'from an English newspaper':
Run away from his Master, a Negro Boy of the Mungola country, named Jamaica. Under five feet high, about fifteen years old, very black features. This Sambo was formerly the property of William Jones, deceased. He is very ill-made, being lame in one leg, stooped in appearance, and Falstaffian in girth; he had when he went away a coarse dark blue linen frock, a thick-set waistcoat, tolerably dirty leather breeches, and set about his head an old velvet jockey cap. A suitable reward will be given to any person who will lodge him in any gaol.
To expose the hypocritical iniquities of English custom was not the main thrust of my mission. Its purpose was two-fold, three-fold if one includes the petitioning of the pocket for coppers and shillings, and the thanking of God for feeling and humane hearts and strong natural parts. The first purpose of my mission was to open a school in my native Africa, so that those of complexion might acquaint themselves with knowledge of the Christian religion and the laws of civilization. Those of England, who by means or motives of avarice were dishonouring Christianity, might thereafter witness the unnatural nature of their work being repaired by those of both England and Guinea working together in conjoined brotherhood. It was also intended that those of my native Africa should be given the great advantage of a little learning in reading and writing. Whatever evil intentions and bad motives these insidious robbers might have had, access to the divine goodness displayed in those invaluable books, the Old and New Testaments, ought to be shared with all humanity for the greater glory of our Lord God of Hosts, the God of the Christians!
The second purpose of my mission was to rally support towards the noble purpose of banishing the practice of slavery in the Americas that remain blessed with the good fortune to dwell under the English flag — the jolly Union Jack. I preached that the poorest in England may labour under great hardship, but not one would willingly exchange their status for the life of a West Indian slave. What freeman would resign his liberty for the bondage of the dog or horse? My people are born and sold like animals, tortured and all torn to pieces with moil, hunger, and oppression, and still the haughty English tyrants of the West Indies choose not to hear the loud cries for redress which emanate from the nobler in mind among the English of all classes. I proposed to my audiences widespread days of fasting and mourning for the condition of the West Indian slaves, and days of seeking grace and repentance for the souls of the tropical landlords and owners. I reminded these good people that several ladies in England now refused to drink sugar in their tea because of the cruel injustices done to those employed in the culture of it in the West Indies. I concluded by declaring that sacrifices were demanded of us all, for we were all made in God's image, though some of us be cut in ebony.