Equiano’s exaltation when he was finally able to purchase his freedom for £40 on July 11, 1766 quickly gave way to the terror of shipwreck. However his determination to survive was, to put it mildly, phenomenal, and he finally, and with considerable relief, left “the American quarter of the globe” and returned to “old England”. There he became a hairdresser, and learned to play the French horn, but the pay did not compare with a sailor’s, so he was soon back on board ship, sailing to the Mediterranean, Turkey and Greenland, on an expedition on which the young Horatio Nelson was almost killed by a polar bear and they barely escaped death when their ship was trapped in ice.
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A. J. Harper 