THE OKEAT HISTORICAL AGES.
331
from school education, with only what she was taught in
the family, in sixteen months from the time of her arri¬
val, she attained the English language, to which she was
before an'utter stranger, to such a degree, as to.read
any, the most difficult parts ofthe sacred writings, to the
great astonishment of all who heard her." The records
of school education may be safely challenged to show an
equal improvement in an equal time. Her master further
stated that, "as to her writing, her own curiosity led
her to it; and this she learned in so short a time, that in
the year 1765 she wrote a letter to the Rev. Mr. Occum,
the Indian minister, while he was in England." Thus,
in about four years from the time when this interesting
little girl was seized by some lawless gang of free-boot-
ers in Africa, torn from her parents and friends, and
carried into a foreign land, a stranger to its manners
and its language, and when she was only eleven years
old, while she was laboring as a slave, without the ad¬
vantages of a school education, by her own efforts and
mental energy, she had so far advanced in improvement
as to write a respectable letter to an Indian minister,
then in a foreign country, who had previously been edu¬
cated at Dartmouth College, in New Hampshire.
After she had obtained a very respectable command of
the English language, as her writings testify, she was
not content with this acquisition. Her master further
states, " she has a great inclination to learn the Latin
tongue, and has made some progress in it."
In 1772, when she wis about seventeen years of age,
and had been ten years in America, her poetical produc¬
tions, which were written as an amusement in her leisure
hours, became known to her friends, who earnestly ad¬
vised to their publication. Though nothing was further
from her thoughts, while composing them, than such a
use of them, yet, in deference to their judgment, and in
compliance with their wishes, it was done.
The publisher, justly fearful lest the fact should be
questioned that these poems were really written by
Phillis, very prudently procured the following attesta¬
tion: "We, whose names are underwritten, do assure
the world, that the poems specified in the following page,
(referring to the table of contents in the manuscript)
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