The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman of the slave trade. "That subject, handled in your striking manner, would ease the yoke (perhaps) of many — but if only one — Gracious God! — what a feast to a benevolent heart!" he wrote. In July 1766 Sancho's letter was received by Reverend Laurence Sterne shortly after he had just finished writing a conversation between his fictional characters Corporal Trim and his brother Tom in "Tristram Shandy", wherein Tom described the oppression of a black servant in a sausage shop in Lisbon, which he had visited. Laurence Sterne's widely publicised 27 July 1766 response to Sancho's letter became
USS Tristram Shandy (1864) an attempt to take Fort Fisher and thus close the Confederacy's last major seaport, Rear Admiral David D. Porter deployed a large fleet of gunboats, ironclads, and transports off the fort and commenced laying down a heavy shore bombardment. Army forces slated to take part in the operation, under General Benjamin Franklin Butler, arrived from northward too late to commence operations on the first day. Ill feeling resulted between Butler and Porter, with the former officer returning to Washington, D.C., and the operation temporarily shelved. After participating in the initial December bombardments of Fort Fisher, "Tristram Shandy" took part in