The Pearl/Volume 5/A Black Joseph.

[The Trial of Mrs. Inglefield, wife of J. R. Nicholson Inglefield, Esq., Captain of Her Majesty's Ship Scipio, for Adultery with John Webb, a black servant, in the Consistory Court, 1786.]

John Webb - a second Joseph - a black footman to Captain Inglefield, was the only material evidence against the lady. Previous to his deposition he had lived with the parties two years, mostly at Singlewell, a small village near Graves-end. When he first went there, the family consisted of three small children, all girls; in two or three months afterwards his mistress was delivered of a boy.

From the first moment of his being engaged he thought she took more notice of him than became her. She frequently smiled on him and took hold of his hand, and gently pressed it. About a month after her accouchement, happening to be alone with his lady, she put her hand about his neck, and kissed him. Upon the black drawing off, she laughed at him.

The next day after this occurrence, as he was dressing her hair, she put her hand under his apron, and unbuttoned one of the flaps of his breeches, and began handling and playing with his privities, but the witness, not liking this, declared he would not finish her hair if she did not let him alone. The lady, therefore, was again obliged to laugh it off.

The next day after this, in the forenoon, being summoned by the sound of the chamber bell, he went into the room, where he found his mistress alone, sitting on the foot of the bed. Mungo - according to his own account - avoided going near her as much as possible, but at length she caught him by the skirt of his coat, placed him on her lap, and handled his privities on the outside of his breeches, at the same time asking him - "Can you do anything? Do not be afraid; your master will know nothing about it." All this, however, made no impression on the generative powers of our African hero. He was a eunuch in spirit, though not in parts, and he tore himself away, but whether at this period he left his mistress laughing or crying does not appear.

The succeeding day, however, Mrs. I. renewed the glorious strife; while under the operation of hair-dressing, she once more applied her delicate hand to the rude parts of Master Comb, and was proceeding to unbutton when he drew himself off, leaving his mistress laughing out an intimation that she should leave her bedroom door open that night, and that he must come.

Master Webb, failing to improve the hint, was the next day met in an angry mood by his enraged mistress, who now spoke very harshly to him.

During these attempts it seems the Captain was from home, which was the time, he says, when his mistress tormented him the most. But what affected him more than all was that one day she absolutely kissed him before her daughter, a child of about four years old.

Towards the end of the summer the Captain and his lady resided on board the Scipio, then laying at Scheerness, for about a month, and one morning about 10 o'clock, when they had been there a fortnight, the Captain being gone on shore, his mistress called him into the after-cabin of the ship, and told him to empty a basin of water, which, when he had done, she shut the cabin door, took him round the waist with both her arms, kissed him and then, as a matter of course, handled him about his privities on the outside, he preventing her from unbuttoning.

All these warm attacks our youthful Negro of nineteen manfully withstood, and after some struggling he liberated his sweet desirable person from the fangs of his mistress, but passing from the room he was observed by Charles McCarthy, the steward of the ship, who questioned him as to what he had been doing, to which he replied-"nothing."

Two or three days after this aquatic adventure, he was questioned by his master as to all the previous particulars, when, like a faithful servant, he told him all that he knew. In consequence of which Captain Inglefield from that time ceased to cohabit with his wife. The concluding declaration of Webb is: "That he and his mistress, notwithstanding the critical situations in which he was placed, never had once the carnal use and knowledge of each other's bodies."

McCarthy, the Steward, corroborated the cabin incident, but in the end the Judge declared there was no proof of the lady's guilt, and ordered Captain Inglefield to take his wife home and treat her with matrimonial affection, and to certify his having so done by the first session of the next term.