Proverb: Two Blacks make not a White (antedating 1713)

[Garson O'Toole]

The online Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs includes "Two blacks don't
make a white" and the reference says it is "Similar to two wrongs
don't make a right." The first cite given in Oxford database is an
explanatory statement in 1721:

1721 J. Kelly Scottish Proverbs 321 Two Blacks make no White. An
Answer to them who, being blam'd, say others have done as ill or
worse.

The topic of the 1713 cite below is argumentation over church policy.

Cite: 1713, "Miscellany Numbers; Relating to the Controversies About
the Book of Common-Prayer, &c" by Robert Calder, Observations upon Mr.
Anderson's Excursions and Digressions, Page 47, Edinburgh.

  Pag. 5. You say That we are vastly more guilty than ye in this
Matter; so the Church of England is not innocent, for this you
instance Bishop Wettenhall.
  Sir you forgot your self in the preceeding Page, that retorquere non
est respondere, that is, two Blacks make not a White.

http://books.google.com/books?id=s6IOAAAAQAAJ&q="two+blacks

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org