James Stout

And he eventually wins.

Strong's legal defense wins.

This is a significant case in like British like legal history.

And it's the kind of thing where they win Strong's freedom, but they don't get a ruling that alters English law in respect to the rights of enslaved people, right?

Yeah.

So it's good because Strong doesn't have to be sold into slavery again.

But it also doesn't like – it doesn't go any further, right?

And Sharp is disappointed by this.

Yeah.

Because by this point, after two years of fighting this case and immersing himself in the law, Granville Sharp has become, in Siddharth Kara's words, the first British person to devote his life to the extirpation of slavery.

And his influence actually goes beyond that, though.

It's wild how influential this motherfucking dude is.

One of Sharp's overseas friends is an American of some notoriety named Benjamin Franklin.

And in his off time, Sharp had a habit when he wasn't fighting slavery, he would write essays that were often published as pamphlets or tracts.

And he sends one of these pamphlets to his buddy, Benjamin Franklin, which lays out Sharp's argument that Americans shouldn't be taxed if they don't have parliamentary representation.

This dude's like at the center of the entire global history.

It's fucking amazing.

Like, yeah, just writing a lot of letters and absolutely changing the course of human history.

It's like the Forrest Gump of the 18th century.

He's like a really smart Forrest Gump, yeah?