William Legge (1731-1801) is most remembered for his namesake to Dartmouth College.
He was involved with the Methodism and evangelical Christianity. He was a sponsor of John Newton. Alike Thornton, Legge was a philanthropist and donated to a hospital for ‘fallen women’.
American Revolution:
Legge was the Secretary of State for the Colonial Department 1772-1775, meaning he was influential and powerful over the American colonies during a period of conflict that would eventually lead to the American Revolution. For example, Dartmouth had to respond to the Boston Tea Party and supported the implementation of the Intolerable Acts in 1774.
Relationship to Wheatley:
Wheatley and Dartmouth had an established relationship due to their evangelical belief. In her novel she includes a poem addressed to him, in which she says she understands the plights of the colonists desire for freedom because of her own traumatic childhood being enslaved. The poem is emotional and has a strong anti-slavery message.
To the Right Honorable WILLIAM, Earl of Dartmouth, His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for North America, published in her novel.
“Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung,
Whence flow the wishes for the common good,
By feeling hearts alone best understood,
I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate
Was snatch'd from Afric's fancy'd happy seat:
What pangs excruciating must molest,
What sorrows labor in my parents' breast?
Steel'd was that soul, and by no misery mov'd,
That from a father seiz'd his babe belov'd:
Such, such my case. And can I then but pray
Others may never feel tyrannic sway?”
Letter from Phillis Wheatley to David Wooster, 18 October 1773.
“The Earl of Dartmouth made me a Compliment of 5 Guineas, and desir'd me to get the whole of Mr. Pope's Works, as the best he could recommend to my perusal, this I did, also got Hudibrass, Don Quixot, & Gay's Fables -- was presented with a Folio Edition of Milton's Paradise Lost, prin ted on a Silver Type, so call'd from its elegance, (I suppose)”
The full letter is accessible with this link below! Im very grateful for the Massachusetts Historical Society for allowing me to quote these letters as well as having loads of primary sources and educational information on Wheatley available for free.
Access the poem below: https://www.masshist.org/database/821
More information on Legge here: https://cowperandnewtonmuseum.org.uk/william-legge-second-earl-dartmouth/
The image is from the British Museum and is available here https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG135785
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