The Sun.
London, England, 1827-11-07 00:00:00

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4.

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fore not at all bound to these several obligations
which lie only upon slaves: • The person who sues
for his freedom in the manner proposed, must sub-
mit himself to be apprenticed, or to be enlisted,•ot
placed in some other situation, at the discretion of
the officer of the Crown. Is that a manner in which
a free person ought to assert his right ? What Ine'e
he to do but to bring his action against the defamer
of his rights ? and who can doubt but that he would
recover most overwhelming damages against the
person who had assaulted his freedom, and com-
pelled him to submit to a process that is only appli.
cable to a slave ? It does appear to me, that
upon this indictment alone the case totally fails, and
ought, perhaps, in strictness, to be dismissed, with-
out any further proceedings. But there is a much
larger question depending behind, and I shall, with-
out insisting particularly on the objection in thee,
charges, follow tbe example of the Learned Judge it:
the Court below, by; •ProCeedint'ito the considera-
tion of that question. 1. might With perfect pro..
priety.have dismissed the'ease-o-and require, per-
haps, some apology for not tieing so—in conformire
with the general practice that entitles a Court to
dismiss a cause in which the indictment or informa-
tion has wholly failed, and has not been followed by
any degree of satisfactory proof. But I observe,
first, that the Judge has proceeded to consider ii
much more enlarged question, and which I presume
he would hardly have done, if not compelled by
some startling observations on the part of the Ad-
vocate-General. The same conduct has been pur-
sued by the geetlemen who have argued the'case iii
this Court, who have very much confined themselves
to the consideration of the more general question ;
and; under` the protection of this practice, I venture
to prohced to a similar liberty of expressing the sen-
timents tile( oceyr to me on the sanie subject.
J. am - the more induced to do this, because,
as I before observed, papers have been submit-
ted by his Majesty's Advocite-General to the Sti-
cretary.or State, which I presume contain the ob-
jectione which were urged by himself, and induced
the ledge to apply his consideration to this general
question. I think that I may be considered as act-
ing not unfairly- when I advert to those topics as the
objections which the Advocate-General had sub-
mitted to the
.Court. The question depends upon
the interprctttion of Snmmersett's case, in which ;0
habeas corpus was granted, directed to Captain
Knowles, to bring up the body of Summersett,
negro, which was in his possession, in irons, with
the cause of his detention. It appeared by the affi-
davits exhibited, that Summersett had been bought
in Virginia, and brought to England by Mr. Steuart,
his master : and on his refusing to return, was
be sent by"bis master on board Knowles's ship to
carried to Jamaica, and sold as a slave. It ap-
' pears: that thin ease was some time before argued
upon a question addressed to Lord Talbot and ti
Mr. Yorke, whilst Attorney and Solicitor-General.
They gave -it as their opinion that a slave coming
from the West Indies, either with or without his
master, to Great Britain, doth not become free, and
that 'tics master's property or right in him is not
thereby determined or varied; and they were also
of opinion, that the master might legally compel him
• eo return to the plantations, ands as Lord Mansfield
expresses it, they both pledged themselves to the
merchants in London to save them harrnlessfrOnn all
inconvenience on such a subject ;. which pledge was
afterwards very fully confirmed by a similar judg-
ment pronounced in 1749 by Sir Philip Yorke, then
beCome Lord- Chancellor Hardwicke, sitting in the
Court of Chancery; both of - these persons being
great inen of that agh; and. (as Lord Mansfield ad-
:nits) great men in any, age. This judgment, an
pronouriced, in full confidence, and without a doubt
upon a practice which had endured universally in the
colonies, and (as appeared by those opinions) in
Great Britain, was, in no more than Q 2 years after-
wards, reversed by Lord Mansfield. The personal
traffic in slaves resident in England had been as
Public and as • authorized in London as in any
of our West India islands. They were sold
on the Exchange and other places of public re-
sort, by parties themselves resident in London,
and with as' little reserve as they would have been
in any of our West India. PoeSesSiona. Such suite
of things continued, without impeachment, for much
the greater part of last century. It appears that
Lord Mansfield was extremely desirous of avoidihng
the necessity of determining the question : e
struggled hard to induce the parties to a compro-
Mise ; said he had known five caseeso terminated
out of six ; but the parties were firm to their pur-
pose in obtaining a judgment, and Lord Mansfield
was at last compelled, after a delay of three terms,
to.peenounce a- sentence, which followed by a silent
.concurrence of the other Judges, discharged this
negro; thereby establishing that the owners of slaves
had no authority or controul over them in England,
nor was there any power of sending them back to
the colonies. Thus I see, after only two and twenty
veare; in which a decision of great authority had
teed delivered by lawyers of the greatest ability ,in
this country, a system confirmed by a practice which
had obtained, without exception, ever since the in-
stitution of slavery in the colonies, and had likewise
been supported-by the general practice of this nii.-
tion, and by the public establishment of its Govern-
. merit, and it seems without any apparent opposition
on the part of the public. The suddenness of this
convulsion alinost puts one in mind of what is mo-
tioned by an eminent author, on a very different QC-.
casien, in the Roman History, " , Ad primunt
populus Romanas repente fit
taunt eladis Pompiani
alias." The people of Rome suddenly became quite
another people. The real and sole question which
the rase of Summersett brought before Lord Manse
as expressed in the return to the mandamus,
field,
,vas, whether a slave could be taken from this c.oun-
try in irons, and carried back to the West ?
In
Anddies, to
he restored to the dominion of his master all
the answer, perhaps, which the question required
was, that the party who was a slave could not be
sent out of England in ,tich a planner, and for sucb
a.purpose—stating the reasons of that illegality. It
is certainly true that Lord Mansfield, hi his final
judgment, exemplifies the Subject largely; for, in
one passage, he says, that "slavery is so odious, that it
cannot be established without positive law. Far
from me be the presumption of questioning any obiter
dictuni that fell from that great man upon that oc-
e.a-sion ; but I trust that I do not depart from the
modesty that belongs to my situation, and I hope
to my character, when I observe that ancient cus-
tom ;e generally recognised as a just foundation of
• all law—that villanage of both kinds, Which is said
by some tv lie the prototype of slavery, had no
other origin than ancient custom ; itt)d that a great
part of the common law itself, in all its relations, has
Little other foundation than the same custom; and
that the practiae of slavery, as it exists in Antigua,
and several' other of our colonies, though regulated
by law, :has been in xnany instances founded upop a
much (wows in the discussion of
similar authority•
the advocates on that question respecting villanage, •
hot little appears is; the
ot decision
ssary of Lorfor ma for
Mansfiel
re-
d
espon that point. It la p nece
late the systems which had given way of villaoege
regardant or gros, to which this species of slavery
was compared, though dissimilar enough in very
many respects, as is admitted by most writers 'on the
subject, and amongst, other persons by the Adveeate
General of Antigua, who, adverting to the
general
system of villa.nege, ventures very truly to say, "to
which eGlonial- slavery may be supposed to bear some
analogy, in the absence of more conclusive authority."
—These systems of villanage ha&been "long, though
silently, extinguished,
,as long as the reign of Ed-
ward NI., at the time at which Sir T. Smith wrots
and at which -he says, there was no villains in gros
remaining in England. Villains regardant survived
them sometime longer, but these were particulat
villains, not attached to the persons, but to the
manors or soll-S
r`not late negro slaves, to be shifted
about for„ the
-without being attaellea- to •'ctinireniene of the proprietor,
—I cannot ,help antertaini
ther the resemblancewhe-
n"), particulardbt manor.'
between some
villanagec ,and
were
the African slavery close -as to
g ect, by their decay,
the fall of slavery- in England.
f
one—, certainly had not prevented the introduction

of it into this country, and its continuance here for
several years. .It does not, appear that the public
was startled at the revival of villanage under the
new form of African slavery. The villains in gros
and regardant were both of a very different kind -
from that of African slavery. Villains in gros were
liable to any commands of their masters. Villains
regardant were attached to particular manors, and
to particular services dependent on those manors.
They were men of the form, colour, and speech of
their masters, born and bred in this country. The
African slavery was very differently composed ;
persons of different birth, complexion, and lan-
guage, and of all the various ranks of which their
own country, Africa, was composed, and employed
in various offices, according to the convenience of
their owners, unlike the cottagers or handicraftsmen
of our own country. It may, perhaps, be doubted,
whether the emancipation of slaves in England, pro-
nounced at the end. of the last century, was not more
owing to the increased refinement of the sentiments
and manners of the age, rather than to the decay of
the two systems of villanage, one of which had ex-
pired 200 years before, and the other 150 years at
least, and which then only slumbered in the me-
mory of a few antiquaries. The opinion of Lord
Mansfield upon this immediate subject made a very
small part of his celebrated speech ; it is almost.
confined to a particular portion of it. There is
hardly any thing else that is expressed, save se-
veral well-merited civilities to the gentlemen of
his bar, and some expressions of contempt for the
danger and jealousy that might he encountered,
but of ss hich none ever appear to have occasioned
any reasonable alarm. Thus fell a system which
had existed in this country without doubt, and
which ' had been occasionally forced upon its
colonies, u:,:1 has continued to this day—that is,
above 50 years—without further interruption. It
is certainly severely to be lamented, that at the time
this great alteration happened, care was not taken,
by the attention of Parliament, to settle the present
question upon a permanent footing, if it were still to
be considered an unsettled question. The arguments
of Counsel, in that decisive case of Summersett, do
not go further than ao the extinction of slavery 111
England, as unsuitable to the genius of the country,
and to the modes of enforcement. They look no
further than to the peculiar nature, as it were,-of our
own soil—the air of our island is too pure for slavery
to breathe in; and those methods of force and vio-
lence which are necessary to restrain it, are not prac-
ticable upon this spot. The argements of Counsel
do not go farther than this ; and Mr. Hargrave, one
of the Counsel, who distinguished himself very much
in that character, by very laborious exertions, almost
in direct terms asserts that they cannot go beyond
it; for, in answer to a proposition which had been
made to him, that a modified slavery should be per-
mitted in England, which would be followed in the
Colonies, he expressly says, then (taking it for
granted that the modified slavery in England would
not at all affect the condition of slavery in the Co-
lonies) that upon the removal to the place, slavers'
would again attach upon him with more than its'
usual severity. It could hardly be otherwise than
that that gentleman was looking towards the neces-
sary countenance of slavery in its severest form,
produced by the return of the slave into the Co-
lonies. It is very observable, that Lord Mansfield,
When he struggled hard to decline the office of de-
termining the question in England, confines that
question almost in terms to this country ; he limits
is expressly to this country, for he says " the ques-
tion now is, whether any dominion, authority, or
coercion can be exercised on a slave in this country.
According to the American laws (meaning thereby
the laws of the West Indies), the service performed
by the slaves without wages is a clear indication that
they did not consider themselves free by coining
here." In the final judgment he delivers himself
thus—" The state of slavery is so odious that no-
thing can be suffered to support it but positive law."
That is, the slavery as it existed in the West Indies,
for it is to that he looks, considering that many of
the adjuncts that belonged to it there were not ad-
missible under the law of England. Lord Mansfield
very justly observes, that " if the merchants consi-
der the prohibition of slavery in this country of suffi-
cient commercial concern,. an application to Parlia-
'tient is the best, and, perhaps,-the only method of
settling the point for the future." In conformity to
this advice, it is much to be lamented that such an
application was not made to Parliament to settle the
question upon a right footing, if it were still to be
considered as a dependent question. It might have
saved a world of trouble and suffering to both par-
ties, which is now to be produced by the springing
up of this question at a very late hour of the day.
The unfortunate descendants of these persons, if
born within the colony, have come slaves into the
World, and, in some instances, have suffered all the
consequences of real slavery, though possessed of
independence and affluence acquired in the mother
country ; and the proprietors of these slaves are now
called upon to give up to the public all the slaves
that they have thus acquired by descent—and
where these persons so born have once descended
at any period of their lives into the country of their
parents ; and this not only in Antigua, but
most probably in all the islands of the Archipe-
lago ; for it cannot be supposed that this claim, if
maintained with respect to this island, will not be
extended to all the others. These are matters that
might have cost, at that time of slay, comparatively
little expence and little suffering; but which now
cannot he settled without a gross violation of im-
portant interests on one side or the other. It ap-
pears to me to be a strong presumption in favour of
the parties charged with violating the law, that
neither the persons so charged, nor those who had
an interest in preventing it, have, within the space of
50 years that have elapsed, even in one instance,
called the attention of English justice towards it.
Black seamen have navigated West Indian ships to
this island, but we have not heard of other slave
markets, nor has the public been much gratified with
.eemplaints of their desertion, though it is probable
that eeme may have taken, and not unfairly, the ad-
vantage that vas held out by the law. Ido not
think that the fact remaining dormant
w so long could.
have happened without ae marked difference of
its ;origin and history from that of ecte ordinary slave-
trade. Thc; system of slavery in our West India
colonies was perisct in every part, if I may use that
expression, meaning thereby that perfection which
ever exists in the adequacy of the means to produce
the intended effect. It was a system not to be
thrown oat of use, because of being incapable of
being used in the full extent in England. With the
'laws, Hof the colonies it could be conciliated. That
system 107 3,S Complet el y armed at every point, and
though frequently softened, as in the case of domestic
slares,it was in nowise deficieptin compelling the obe-
dience ci its subjects; whereas in Englainl it was
totally impot.ept, and the law could not borrow those
instruments from a foreign law which was necessary
to make the system work reoperly. This may have
occasioned 9ne great difference between the two
systems. The fact certainly is, that it never has
happened that the slavery .9.1 an African returned
from England has been interrupted ip the colonies,
in consequence of this sort of limited liberation con-
ferred upon them in England. There has been no
act or ceremony of manumistion, nor any act what-
ever? that could even formally destroy those various
powers of property which the owner possessed over
his slave by the most solemn assurances of law, such
as pledging him, or eellip him for the payment of
the Qwner's debts, or making any ether use of him
that the law warranted. Such rights coliki not b,e
extinguished by wye silence, or by this country
declining to act in such a conveyance. There is
nothing bat makes a liberation fto;p slavery ; lie
goes back to a place where slavery awaits him, and
where experience has taught him that slavery is not
to be avoided. Slaves have come into this island
and passed-out of it in yeturning to thewhatever coloniees
the
the same character of slime, miht b
intermediate character which they possessed in Eng-
land; and this without any interruption, or without
any doubt belonging to their character in that servile
state. They go back with a perfect knowledge of
the state which they are to re-enter. I cannot but

think that if the sovereign state has looked upon the
manner in which the law has been understood and
exercised in a subject country, without interposing
in any manner to prevent it, it has been, in fact,
more criminal, if the case is to be so considered, than
the subject country, which has followed the unpro-
hibited practice. It has been said, that in the de-
cline of the ancient villanage, it became a maxim of
very popular and legal use, " Once free for an hour,
free for ever !" and this has been applied as a
maxim that ought to govern in the case of
negro slavery. Now if this negro slavery was
an exact transcript of the ancient villanage, it
might not be improperly so contended; but it
is to be observed, that in the first place, this
was a maxim introduced when the system of
villanage itself was in a state bordering upon decay,
and growing to general abhorrence and contempt ;
and it is to be noticed likewise, that this system of
villanage was to be confined to this kindom, thongh
other countries had customs and usages of a similar
nature. It was no part of a system extending into
foreign countries or transmarine possessions. Vil-
lanage did not travel out of the country—did not
affect the stability of any law which this country
could consider as peculiar to its foreign possessions ;
and it has never been once applied since the case of
gummerset, to overrule the authority of the trans.
marine law. This cry, it is to be observed, is men-
tioned as a peculiar cry of Englishmen, as against
those two species of slavery. It could interest none
but the people of this country, and of those only the
masters, for no one else had any interests in the duty
or seevices of their villains. This cry has. not, as
far as we know, attended the state of slavery in any
other country, though that has been a state so pre-
valent in every other part of the world, and has ex-
isted at all times. ft may now be of use to consider
what has been the effect of other cases, very few of
which occur of any great affinity with the 'case of
Summersett. There is a case which happened in
the Court of Chancery, before the determination of
Lord Mansfield, which was in 1762, under Lord
Chancellor Northington—l mean the case of" Shan-
ley v. Harvey." A bill was filed by Edward Shan-
ley, as administrator of Margaret Hamilton, deceased,
against Joseph Harvey, a negro slave, and two per-
sons of the names of Gassop and Thorpe, his trus-
trees, for an account of part of the personal estate of
the deceased. it happened that Shanley had twelve
years before brought over this slave to this country,
he being then only eight or nine years old, and pre-
sented him to his niece, Margaret Hamilton, who
had baptized him and changed his name ; and on the
9th of July, 1752, she, being very ill, about an hour
before her death, directed Harvey to take out a purse
which was in her dressing-case drawer, and delivered
it to him, saying, " Here, take this; there is 700/. or
800/. for you in Bank-notes, and some more in mo-
ney, but I cannot directly tell what ; but it is
all for you, to make you happy. Make haste, put
it in your pocket." He then knelt down and thank-
ed her. She said, " God bless you ! make a good
use of it." The Lord Chancellor Northington, in
dismissing the bill with costs, said that " as soon as
a man sets foot on English ground he is free." It
must be observed that this is the first time probably
that this doctrine was so broadly stated in an Eng-
lish court, and perhaps a little prematurely ; but it
must likewise be observed, that his Lordship Nere
mentions only two effects of it, for he adds, " A'
negro may maintain an action against his master for
ill usage, and may have a habeas eorpus, if restrain-
ed of his liberty." This is an instance in which the
laws of England differed most essentially from the
law of the slave code in the West India colonies ;
for there every acquisition by the slave, whether by
legacy or otherwise, went to the master. But not
so here, where the law of England adjudged it to
the slave. And the Lord Chancellor enumerates
another difference; which is, that the law of England
empowered the slave to bring an action against his
master for the recovery of his wages. Both of these
are direct contradictions to the rules of the Slave
Code ; but nobody could infer from thence that the
whole of the Slave Code was by that decision in-
tended to be vacated in the colonies on that account.
The error of the opinion seems to be, that because
the Slave Code was overruled in England, where
the law of England differs, from it, it was therefore
abrogated in the colotries. in toto. The slave con-
tinues a slave, though the law of England relieves
him in those respects from the rigour.; of that code
while he is in England ; and that is all that it does.
With respect to other severities which it refuses to
inflict, it it spinis de pluribus una, which does not at
all dislodge the other severities of that code,all of which
he may avoid by continuing in this country. Scot-
land and Ireland have the same privilege, as beingmem-
hers of the same confederation ; and the Scotch
Judges have well expressed their opinion of the ex-
tent of the judgment of Lord Mansfield, in the case
of " Knight v. Wedderburn," in the year 1778, a
case argued with great ability, in which they deter-
mined the extent of this judgment to be, that the
dominion assumed over the negro by the law of Ja-
maica could not be supported in this country. What
does this prove, but the well-known fact, that dif-
ferent countries have different laws upon the same
subject ; and even different provinces of the same
kingdom ? It is a large chapter, and full of many
diffrent questions, that treats of such diversities, in
the writings of civilians. All that the Judges in the
different cases I have adverted to have determined,
is, that slaves coming into England are free there,
and that they cannot be sent out of the country by
any process to be there executed. I come now to
consider the adjudged cases which have been ad-
verted to, and there are very few which at all touch
upon this point ; and I cannot but think that the
cases could have been much more numerous and
more applicable, if the opinion had prevailed that
the case of Summersett had warranted a conclusion
of the wide import that is contended for. The first
case is that of " Keane v. Boycott," in the Court
of King's Bench. In that case it appeared that a
negro, whilst an infant, and in a state of slavery in
the island of St. Vincent, executed a contract, by
which he bound himself to his then master, who
was coming to England, to act as his servant for
five years, and the action was brought for enticing
the boy from the service of his master into the mi-
litary service, which the boy accepted. An action
was brought by the master against the officer who
had enticed him ; and it was determined that it
was a good contra"t, voidable only at the instance
of the bay, but not void, and therefore could not
act as a defence to the action against the officer.
But this has nothing to do with slavery, from
which, of course, the boy was free from his ar-
rival in England. It turns entirely upon the con-
tract, and therefore in no manner touches the
question. The next case in point of date to which
the case
tohfe„C‘ovuiritsli'amasttevn.tißonrohwans,,heerenpcoarltleedd,
and Palter. That was the case of a runaway negro
IN)vyasßosanquet
slave, who had come to England, and entered into a
contract with the master of a vessel to serve as a
seaman during the voyage to and from the East In-
dies. The ship was bound to Grenada, the very
island from wllich the man had deserted, and where,
on the arrival of the vessel, he was discovered by his
master, who claimed him as his slave, and who sub-
sequently agreed with the Captain; of the vessel to
sell his manumission for a price which the master of
the vessel paid ; whereupon the manumitted slave
entered into a contract with such master to serve for
three years. Upon his return to England, he sued
the master of the vessel for his wages for the voyage,
and had a Verdict ; but a rule Nisi was obtained, and
afterwards argued in the Corinnon Pleas by Lord-
Alvenley, Mr. Justice Heath, Mr. Justice Rooke,
and Mr: Justice Chambre. Mr. Sergeant Shepherd,
who was Counsel for the man, and was well known
as a person who would never omit any plea that
would be useful to his client, never argued the point
that because the man had been in England, and was
free there, he was consequently free at Grenada ;
and Mr. Justice Heath obserVed, that when the man
" was claimed at Grenada, he was incapable of per-
forming the service for which he now brings his ac-
tion. He wag liable," he says," tp severe punish-
ment for having run away from his master ; 'he was
a slave for life." Mr. Justice Rooke said, that

• •
k

"though the man might enter into a contract to go
to any other place but to Grenada, yet he could not
engage to go there without danger of being de-
tained ;" and further that, " being a runaway slave,
he became liable to punishment, arid the forfeiture tc
his master in Grenada of all the wages which he hae
earned during the outward voyage." After arriving
there he became liable to punishment ; "and being::
slave in Grenada, he could not enter into any contract
there without the leave of his master." Mr. Justice
Chambre observed, that " being claimed as a run-
away slave, he considered as a criminal—he wan
liable to very severe punishment—he was incapablii
of recovering, for his own benefit, the money which
he had earned upon the outward-bound voyage."
He adds, that " from the contract he would receive
no benefit, for his master was entitled to all thd
wages he might earn." Lord Alvanley, who dis-
agreed with the other Judges as to the effect of the
contract merely, but not upon the general question;
stated, " the plaintiff being as free as any of us
while in England. engaged to serve the defendant;
who undertook to pay him a stipulated sum; and
adverting to the agreement entered into at Grenada,
whereby lie obtained his manumission, his Lordship
further stated, "that he was thereby redeemed front
slavery and the penal consequences attending his
then situation ;" and he proceeds thus—" When
the plaintiff was claimed in Grenada as a runaway
slave, he was not only liable to be remanded into
slavery, but, by the laws of the island, he was
amenable to severe punishment." The man was
clearly entitled to his freedom when he first engaged
in the service of the ship in London, although a run,
away ; at least if there be any truth in these ex-
pressions—" that as soon as a man sets his foot in
England—if he breathes the air of England—he Ts
free without any further ceremony ;" and it cannot
he denied to him, although a runaway, as ob-
served by Lord Alveuley, that this runaway
was as free as any of us in England. But it
appears that this runaway negro was, to pre-
' serve his freedom in Grenada, under the necessity
of obtaining a manumission there ; and he subse-
quently enjoyed his freedom in consequence of that
ceremony ; or, as that manumission implies, must have
remained a slave in Grenada without it. It is a clear
.recognition of the necessity of a manumission in that
country notwithstanding he had been in England,
and the judges were all concordant in that particu-
lar, though Lord Alvanley expressed some doubt
as to the validity of the contract upon other grounds.
I think that' this case bears directly upon the point,
and is a direct recognition of the principle contended
for, that a slave who returns to his country, returns
to a state of slavery. It is not to be said the man's
desertion is alleged as the cause of his return to
slavery; he had become a freeman by landing in
England, in the opinion of all the judges; and it is
only by virtue of his pre-existing state of slavery
that he became subject to be returned into it again,
until his manumission. The four judges all concur
in this,—that he was a slave in Grenada, though a
free man in England, and although he would have
continued a free man in all other parts of the world
excepting Grenada. I have been the more particu-
lar in stating this case, because I do not think it ap-
proaches so near as to possess the authority of a
direct decision upon the immediate subject, although
I have heard the question sometimes quoted, as al-
most amounting to a direct recognition of the free-
dom of the slave, on account of his having been in
England, when nothing can be more clear than that
it is in every respect a direct decision of the four
Judges to the contrary. The case of " Forbes v.
Cochrane and Cockburn" has also been adverted
to, which seems to me to tend, though perhaps not
so directly, towards the same conclusion. This
case happened in consequence of the flight of a
number of slaves belonging to Mr. Forbes, a sub-
ject of East Florida, on board one of his Majesty's
ships of war, commanded by Sir George Cock-
, burn, acting under the command of Admiral
Cochrane. These slaves were reclaimed by
Mr. Forbes, who insisted upon Sir George Cock-
burn's sending them back. Sir George Cockburn
declined this, saying, " that they had taken refuge
on board of an English man-of-war, and that they
were free from any constraint of his, although he
had no objection, if Mr. Forbes could prevail upon
them to return; but hailing received them into his
ship, lie could not-.llirect them to be turned out ;"
and that defence was sustained by the Court of
Common Pleas. In truth, this is no more than a
decision respecting the known privilege of ships of
war, which are allowed: to share in the privileges of
their own country ; and so, far it may be deemed an
assertion of the law of the country. It was likewise
decided, that if any attempt had been made, by force,
to take the men out of that station, the parties
guilty of making that attempt would have been liable
to a prosecution under the law of England. Re-
ference has been made to a local act, passed by the
people of Antigua themselves, in the year 1816, to
the effect that, if any person claiming to he free
should be committed as a runaway or supposed run-
away slave, and it shall appear to the justices that
"he or she is legally free, or in equity or conscience
ought to be considered as free, or hath been gene-
rally deemed or considered for any length of time a
free person," the justices shall by their warrant di-
rect such person to be immediately discharged out of
custody. The first of these—that of being " legally
free"—is clearly out of the question, upon the grounds
which I have stated on the general question : and I
think the second—that of being " in equity or con-
science" considered free, cannot be applicable to
slaves coming from England, to whose condition
such privilege had been universally denied, upon
this plain ground—that a residence in England
as a free man had never been held to answer
this description. It is what at all times, and at the
present time, has been powerfully resisted. That
temporary freedom has ever been contended as being
superseded upon the return of the slave, and they
never have been deemed and considered as free per-
sons on their return to Antigua and the other colo-
nies. They cannot, therefore, be considered as hav-
ing ever at all answered the description contained in
this legislative enactment. A similar objection lies
against the third. It is obvious that this cannot
apply to slaves who have returned to England, but
to those who might for a time have acquired a no-
minal freedom by rambling in the colonies under a
character of freedom, real or pretended, and if shown
to be clearly founded in error, it could not lead to a
consequence of freedom. It never could have been
intended, by this law, to have given freedom to
persons claiming it in consequence of their coining
front England ; for that, as I have observed, has been
uniformly resisted by the people of Antigua. And
it is a known and universal rule in the interpretation
of laws, that that sense is to be put on those laws
which is the sense affixed to them by the legislators.
If persons have been rambling about the country
under a false character, and that pretension is dis-
proved, they can no longer obtain the benefits which
are assigned to it. Those who contend for this in-
terpretation of the law, as giving freedom to slaves
merely because they have been in England, are bound
to show that ever since the local act, persons return-
ing from England have been allowed freedom upon
their return, where not objected to on the part of the
slaves themselves. Referepee has also been made to
another act which had passed previously, and said
to form part of the local law of that colony, in which
it is declared that they acknowledge no other
law than the common law of England, so far
its it stands unaltered by any written law of that
island, or by some Act of Parliament, Now this
enumeration of their laws omitted a very material
source from whence other laws were derived—that
of legitimate "custom ; and if that could not be deem-
ed a venial omission, it surely would be a gross abus-
ing of all principle to say, that upon that account
they should be deprived of their eomtnerce, which
every other island in that archipelago had uniformly
possessed, and which the sovereign state had pro-
moted and encouraged in all of them. It might not
have occurred to the gentlemen of that island to in-
sist upon custom, so protected, to be a source of
laws ; and omission of this kind, in describing the
sources of law, ear never have the effect of disabling
that efficacy which has not only been exercised both

before and since the framing of that decree, but has
been guaranteed and protected to the utmost by the
laws of the mother country, in common with the
state of the other islands in the same part of the
world. Having adverted to most of the objections
that arise to the revival of slavery in the Colonies, I
have first to observe, that it returns upon the slave
by the same title by which it grew up originally.
It never was in Antigua the creature of law,
but that of custom, which operates with the
force of law; and when it is cried out that mains
MISS abolendus est, it is first to be proved that,
even in the consideration of England, the use of
slavery is there considered as a mains usus in the
colonies: Is that a mains usus which the Court of
the King's Privy Council and the Courts of Chan-
cery are every day carrying into full effect in all con-
siderations of property, in the one by appeal, and the
other by original causes ; and all this enjoined and
confirmed by statutes ? Still less is it to be consi-
dered a Indus usus in the colonies themselves, where
it has been incorporated into full life and establish-
ment; where it is the system of the state, and of
every individual in it : and fifty years have passed
without any authorized condemnation of it in Eng;
_land as a mains usus in the colonies. The fact is, that

in England, where villanage of both sorts went into
total decay, they had communication with no other
country; and therefore i% is triumphantly declared,
as I have before observed, " once a free man, ever a
free man," there being no other country with which
we had immediate connexion, in which, at the time
of suppression of that system, we had any occasion
to trouble ourselves about. But slavery was

a very favoured introduction into the colonies ;
it was deemed a great source of the mer-
cantile interest of the country, and. was, on that
s.scount, largely considered by the mother country
as a great source of its health and strength.
Treaties were made on that account, and the co-
lonies compelled to submit to those treaties by the
authority of this country. This system continued
entire; instead of being condemned as mains uses,
it was regarded as a most eminent source of its riches
and power. It was at a late period of the last cen-
tury that it was condemned in England as an insti-
tution not fit to exist here, for reasons peculiar to
our own condition ; but it has been continued in our
colonies, favoured and supported by our own courts,
which' have liberally imparted to it their protection
and-encouragement. To such a system, whilst it
so supported, I rather feel it to be too strong to apply
the maxim mains uses abolendus est. The time may
come when this institution may fall in the colonies,
as other institutions have done in other flourishing
countries; but I am of opinion that it can only be
effected at the joint expence of both countries; for
it is in a peculiar measure the crime of this country,
and I rather feel it to be an objection to this species
of emancipation, that it is intended to be a very
cheap measure here, by throwing the whole expence
upon the colony. It has been said that the law of
England discourages slavery, and so it certainly does
within the limits of these islands ; but it uses a very
different language, and exerts a very different
force, when it looks to its colonies; for to this
trade, in those colonies, it gives an almost un-
bounded protection, and it is in the habit of do-
ing so at the present time in many exercises of
public authority; and even since slavery has become
odious in England, it has been fully supported by
the authority of many statutes for the purpose of
carrying it into full effect in the colonies. All the
efforts of the persons who have contended for its
abolition in the colonies, and who have obtained
many acts of Parliament for the regulation of it
therein, have in no degree weakened the force of
those English statutes which so powerfully support
it in the mother country. It has been observed that
the sovereign state has declared, that all laws made
in the colonies, contradicting its own law, shall be
null and void, and cannot be put in execution; but
is that the character of the laws in the colonies for
the encouragement of the proprietors of slaves ?
Has it not, since the declaration of its judgment
against slavery, declared in the most explicit and
authentic manner, its encouragement of slavery in its
colonial establishments ? Have not innumerable acts
passed which regulate the condition of slaves, which
tend to consider them, as the colonists themselves do,
as yes positce iii commercio,—as goods and chattels,
—as subject to mortgages,—as constituting part
of the value of the estates as liable to be
taken in execution for debt,---to be publicly sold
for such purposes ? And has established courts of
its highest jurisdiction for the carrying into execu-
tion provisions for all the purposes ? and these
its most eminent courts of justice—its Court of
King's Privy Council, and its Court of Chancery,
where all these regulations are carried into effect
with most scrupulous regularity, and under the au-
thority of Acts of Parliament ? Can any man doubt
that, at this time of day, slaves in the colonies may
not be transferred by sale made in England, and
which would be affirmed without reference to the
court so empowered; and how, under the guarantee
of such protection, can it be asserted that the taw of
England does not, support, and in a high degreefa-
your, the law of slavery in its West India colonies,
however it may discourage it in the mother country?
It is not most certain that this trade of the colonies
has been the very favourite trade of this country,
and so continues, so far as can be judged of en-
couragement given in various forms—the making
of treaties, the institution of companies, the devo-
lution from one company to another, the compulsion
of the colonies to accept this traffic, and the recog-
nition of it in a great variety of laws ? If it be a
sin, it is a sin in which this country has had its full
share of the guilt, and ought to bear its proportiOn
of the redemption. How this country can decline
to perform the act of justice, in performing the act of
charity, men of great wisdom and integrity have not
been able to discover. The example of France has
been glanced at, which has adopted a more decided
policy with regard to its colonial slaves. It
certainly discouraged the entry of slaves into France,
not permitting it according to the first edict passed
in 1716, but by the permission of the Governor or
Commandant of the colony ; and that edict com-
mands the slaves to return to the colonies at the in-
stance of the master. But in the event of the mas-
ter not having obtained permission for the slave to
go the mother country, m that case he was declared
to be free. France did not therefore do as this
country had done,—put their liberty, as it were, into
a sort of parenthesis; but it denied them freedom
in France, and held them bound to their masters if
the regulations had been complied with by them.
In 1736, an alteration took place by a further edict,
whereby, if the regulations had not been attended
to, the slave was not, as before, entitled to his free-
dom ; but he became forfeited to the Crown, to be
sent backto.be employed in the public works of
the colonies. 'Whether -that is the footing upon
which the question now stands, I am not informed,
and do not feel it to be of importance in determin-
ing this question. I believe they have been more
zealous in Christianizing their slaves, than we have
formerly been. England, the general sovereign of
all its colonies, has been looking on with indiffer-
ence, and permitting daily occurrences of this kind
to pass tinder its eyes, without taking any steps
whatever to correct them ; and with all the in-
dulgence which has been shown to the efforts
of gentlemen who have manifested a zeal for
the emancipation of slaves, the system of law
has been little relaxed. Our own domestic po-
licy continues to be actively employed in sup-
porting the rights of proprietors over the per-
sons committed to their authority in the character
of slaves 7 It cannot be denied that cases have
been mentioned by Dr. .L.shington,—l know not to
what extent 3,IWY prevail,--but, in any extent, they
are cases which must excite the sympathy of every
considerate man, and call for remedy to be admini-
stered by the mother country, if it is not supplied
That persons brought up with by the colony itself.
the expectation of eonsiderable wealth, Acquired in
this or other countries, should be subjected to the
reverses of fortune, which may befall them upon
visiting the country of their parents at an advanced
period of life, is a most severelardship- —that they
should be compelled to submit to the humiliation