The Sun.
London, England, 1827-11-09 00:00:00

mine the doctrine which we are called on to be-
lieve to be legal, namely, that liberty once ob-
tained may be defeased. In the first place, no
subject cam in this, or in any civilised state, con-
tract a life service to another subject, even with
his own free will, and fora consideration. Such
a contract is contrary, not only to the law of
England, but of reason. " Il n'est pas permis,"
says Montesquieu, " qu'un homme libre puisse
se vendre." The principle of this rule is very
evident. All contracts entered into between man
and man must be salvo jurie regis, and if life
contracts were allowed, it is obvious that the /ifs
regis must suffer. Apply this to the defeasance
of freedom. he black man or white man (for
West India Slavery is not essentially connected
with colour), who becomes free by inhabitancy
in England, contracts new duties with his new
station : with the privileges he puts on the obli-
gations of liberty, and the King possesses claims
over his service which he possessed not before. Can
the person thus emancipated into the duties of
an accountable political agent re-divest himself of
the engagements he has come under to his So-
vereign, by any engagement, whether voluntary
or compulsory, entered into with a subject ? The
authorities say no. " When the title of the
King and that of a private person concur, the
former' must prevail."—( Woods bast.) Even
the Colonists, tenacious as they are of their
privileges, do not deny the universality of
the law of England. " e acknowledge,"
says the report presented to the Assembly of
Jamaica, on the Slave Registration Bill, in De-
cember, 1815, " the power of Parliament to make
all laws equally affecting the whole empire." It
is allowed that no statute can be cited which says
in so many words, that a slave landing in Eng-
land is
.free, and shall remain so ; but the com-
mon law has established the first, and, that esta-
blished, both from statute and common law, the
second rule may he justly inferred. If the retro-
grading process, which the doctrine of Lord
Stowell lays down, really takes place, it would be
a curious question to discover its degrees. The
flame of freedom, we suppose, begins to decay in
brilliance as the weather growS warm, droops in
the socket as the latitude diminishes, and expires
when the ship crosses the Tropic ! A contem-
porary satisfies himself by conceiving, that the
liberty acquired by the slave, by inhabitancy in
England, is of a very peculiar kind, a quasi
dicas emancipation, analogous to that which a
debtor experiences when safely landed at Calais or
Dieppe; and that the manacles re-adjust themselves
to the negro on his disembarkation in the colonies,
after the same fashion that the Bench or the Fleet
opon their doors to the debtor. He forgets,
however, that the debtor is free on his return if
he keep out of view of his creditor, while
the negro, by the doctrine laid down in the judg-
ment which we are considering, on reaching .the
Colony is equally a slave, whether claimed by his
master or not. He forgets, too, a pretty broad
distinction in the two cases, namely—that the
claims which the debtor may be compelled to
satisfy must have been previously sanctioned by
himself—that he must have contracted to ren-
der the service which his creditor demands. If
any thing like this could be affirmed of the negro
there would he an end of the argument. Some of
the consequences which might result from the
establishment of the principle, that liberty may
defease, has been stated by the same contem-
porary. He imagines an emancipated slave
rising to the dignity of Archbishop of Canterbury,
and afterwards, by indulging in a thoughtless trip
to the land of his masters, having his frock
stripped off; and a hoe instead of a crosier put
into his hands. He might also have imagined
one in a similar predicament rising to the dignity
of Governor of some of these islands, and instead
of being received with hat in hand, handed over
to the parish hangman to receive fortylashes,
save one, as a runaway, under the sanction of
his own authority. Neither of these cases are,
however, very likely to happen; hut there are •
sufficient difficulties without them. Some few
years ago, seven men landed at a sea-port in the
West of England from a Portuguese vessel ;
they were told of the privilege which they had
purchased by touching the soil of freemen. The
Captain endeavoured- to win them back with-
out success, and the whole entered on board
a man-ofwar lying on the station, as able
seamen. What happened to a Portuguese ves-
sel, might unquestionably happen to an English
one. Now, let the man of war sail to the
West Indies, and let these men be sent
a-shore, the whole might be seized and ie-con-
signed to slavery, after they had, by the laws
of Great Britain, whose universality is ac-
knowledged by the Colonial Legislatures them-
selves, become bound to the King, whose
sanction gives to these laws their authority. It
is to be noticed, that in the case we here put, the
parties would be involuntary agents, they were
placed under authority, and must go whither-
soever that authority commanded. Sharpe tells
a story of a monster named Williams, a mulatto,
and the heir by will of his father, who, in the begin-
ning of the 18th century, sold his mother in Jamaica
for reproving his extravagance. Had the poor
woman been aware of the present doctrine, she
might have had the comfort of getting her hope-
ful son, who was merely emancipated by resi-
dence in England, disposed of in the same way,
and possibly, in that case, she might have re,
ceived more mercy from the legal heir. Cases
even more likely to occur than those we have
stated might be easily put, but we must go on to
what we ,consider more important. The female
who gave rise to these discussions, we think we
are fairly entitled to hold, notwithstanding Lord
Stowell's judgment, to tie a free woman. If we
consider her as such, then the Crown Lawyers
were not authorised, although they doubtless
chose what they considered the best method, to
sue for her condemnation, under any act passed
for the protection of slaves. His Lordship's
judgment will probably be reviewed, eve do not
think it will be reversed, in the Court of Conde-
legates, but their decision also, were it already
pronounced, does not bear on the real question
any more than that of Lord Mansfield
or Lord Stowell. That question ought
to be settled by an English Jury, and we ap-
prehend there can be but little difficulty in bring-
ing it under their notice. The female in ques-
tion'was not a voluntary agent in the re-imposi-
tion of her chains ; she was kidnapped ; and a
criminal indictment may be as legally preferred
against those who seduced her to quit England,
as if she had been a white native of this island.
If her mistress had told the female that by going.
to Antigua she, again became subject to the
shackles from which her residence in England
had freed her, is it probable—is it credible--
that: she would have accompanied her ? We
pretend to no great knowledge of legal forms,
but the same process by • which an English
woman, were she detained contrary to law in the
Weit Indies, would be restored to freedom, will
restclre this " mongrel woman," as she is ele-
gantly designated. Her freedom is not to be
detehnined by the tribunals of Antigua, but