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
A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy non-mainstream views including political radicalism. The narrator is the Reverend Mr. Yorick, who is slyly represented to guileless readers as Sterne's barely disguised alter ego. The book recounts his various adventures, usually of the amorous type, in a series of self-contained episodes. The book is less eccentric and more elegant in style than "Tristram Shandy" and was better received by contemporary critics. It was published on 27 February, and on 18 March Sterne died. Yorick's journey starts in Calais, where he meets a monk who begs for donations to his convent. Yorick initially refuses to give him anything, but later