Summary

"Nations not so blest as thee {London, 1804}"

In London, Aminata attends a church service with prominent abolitionists, including Sir Stanley Hastings. Having never experienced a Christian service, Aminata struggles to concentrate and stay awake while the priest speaks. She sees attending church as "self-inflicted torture: to sit, unmoving but forbidden to sleep, in a cavernous room with arching stone and forbidden windows while a small man adopted a monotone for the better part of a villainous hour" (329).

It is only when the congregation begins singing "Rule Britannia" that Aminata takes interest. The song rouses something in her memory: she remembers hearing the lines whens she...