After a bad time at sea and a short period on shore in Africa, he returned to England, one out of three survivors of the voyage.

[2] Joining a theatrical company, Stanfield appeared in 1786 at York, where he also tried his hand at writing a comic opera.

For several years he held a principal situation in the Scarborough Theatre, and he afterwards had the direction of a small company whose circuit (about 1812) was in the north of Yorkshire and some of the adjoining counties.

[2] In 1788 Stanfield published an account of his experience of the slave trade in Observations on a Guinea Voyage in a series of letters addressed to the Rev.

In 1813 he published an Essay on the Study and Composition of Biography (Sunderland), insisting on the need of "moral illustration".