Escaping Soupsweet Land

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Henry Smeathman, a naturalist who, under the auspices of the British Royal Society, had spent four years gathering data on the fauna and flora of the area, recommended Sierra Leone to Granville Sharp in 1786 as a potential site for the resettlement of Poor Blacks left destitute in the UK after the declaration by Lord Chief Justice Mansfield in 1772 that slavery was not legal in England (see Hoare). 2. Greene's man, whom he called Dr ‘Martyn’ and who went by the sobriquet ‘Filthy Freddie’ (Sherry 102) was probably F J Martin who, as Director of Agriculture at the start of the war, had been appointed to the post of Food Control Officer as well. He was a graduate of Cambridge University and a brilliant soil scientist with notable contributions to the subject in well-regarded journals and monographs. Greene was to give recognition to Martin's substantive post many years later in his ‘Soupsweet Land’ essay. In spite of Dr Martin's penchant for telling smutty jokes, Greene did not make clear which of his habits earned him his nickname. But according to one source, he appeared to have been very (too) friendly with the natives (see Pratt 57, 59, 61–62, 66), something that was not likely to have endeared him to his countrymen. Or perhaps the label was merely a weapon deployed between foot soldiers in the tribal wars involving two ancient seats of learning.