At the time of his death, Blue was a very old man, believed to be aged somewhere between ninety-seven and ninety-nine. Some people believed he came from the Caribbean, but years after his death, his children revealed that he had told them his birthplace was New York. ${ }^{13}$ A petition he wrote to the governor in 1823 reveals that he had been impressed in America to fight with the British in the Seven Years' War and he had subsequently fought with the  
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[^0]:    13 Susannah Scofield, granddaughter of Blue, provided a document, now lost, stating that Blue had told her father that he was born in New York. This account was reproduced in The Star, 21 September 1808.  
British in the American War of Independence. ${ }^{14}$ After being evacuated from America in 1782 he lived in Deptford, London, where he made a living working in various activities including chocolate manufacture. ${ }^{15}$ In 1786 he was arrested and convicted of stealing sugar from a West Indian ship that he was unloading. ${ }^{16}$