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Show 196 DESPO'I'ISI\t recognized no distinction betwee~t negroes and other men and which had nevn adm1tted slavery except in u'te peculiar and now extin?t form of villeinage, nc("J"rocs still continued, a~ before, to be br91.1ght to E1~crland and there to be held and treated as slavesa 1~racti~c which, with t he g rowth of t he African slave trade and t he increase of slaves in the colonies, became, during the first half of the 18th century, more and more frequent. The negroes 1 hus imported were too jgnorant and too helpless to vindicate their own rjghts; nor wa!) there any thing in t he public sentiment o~ that gross age, of which Mammon was t he peculiar god, to chcrk the growth of t his new system of f'lavery. Some litt le annoyance seems indeed to have been occasionally given to the slave-holder:-":, by claims of freedom set up on the ground of baptism, or on the c:ornmon law principle of the right of all men to liberty; but t hese claims were met, and to a great f'xtent s ilenced, by a legal ojl iniou obtained in 1729, from Sir Philip Yorke and Charles T albot, (after· wards Lord T albot,) in which "they pledged them· selves to the merchants of L ondon to save them harmless from all inconvenience" growing out of such claims ;-an ex part~ opinion to which a judicial sanction seemed to be given by Yorke, then become Lord Hardwicke, and Cha ncellor, by his deci~i on in 17~9, in the case of Pearne v. Lisle, (Ambler, Rcportg,_ 7v) In that ca!:le an a pplication was made for a wnt of ne exeat regno, a prohibition, that is, to Lisle t? i?~ve the kingdom, till he had fir;t paid to t he plamtlfi a certa in stipulated rent, due for certain negroes h1red a nd. held as s laves in the island of Antigua, and had a lso returned the negroes ; which application liard· wicke declined to grant, on the ground t hat the plamtiff' had a sufficient remedy in the ordinary course ~f Jaw. " I have no doubt," he said," that trover w1ll lie for a m'gro slave; it is as muc lr property a~ any other thing. 'l'he case in Salkeld, 666, ( Smtllt v. Gould,) was determined on the want of a proper de- 197 script ion. It :va~ trover pro utw JEtltiope vocal. negro (for one Eth1opmn called a 11cgro,) wi1hout sayin' slave. The be1ng negro did not necessarily i lg slave." {I-I~re we have a specimen of the cool a~s1~{. a n~e of em1 nent lawyers jn explaining away cases whwh t hey do not vcuturc to overrule, since it is abundantly apparent from the report of the case in Salkeld, and st1ll more so from t.hat in Lord Raymond that ~o far from ihe ~ech;ion having been grounded on thIS alleged defect In description, its very basis wa::; the fact that the nc.gro was claimed as a slave. Indeed, Lord 1-!o.lt stated 111 so many words, as t he reason of the dec1s10n, that "there is no such thinO' as a slave by t he law of E ng land."] " The reason ~id at the bar :J so Lo~d Hard~vicke proceeded," to have been gi v~n by ChJCf J ustwe Holt as t he cause of his doubt" [~noU1~r specimen of bold judicial misrcprcsentatio;1, sm~c. It was no doubt of Lord Holt's, but a solemn J ecJ:slon of the Court of King's Bench,] "viz., that the moment that?' ~lave sets his foot in England he becom~s free," (th1s reason was not given in t he case of Snntlt v. Gould, but in the other caRe of Smit!t v. Brow~"' 4- Cooper, which is found indeed on the same page 111 Salke1d,J " has no wciaht with it nor can any reason be found why t hey sh~uld not be equally so when t~1ey set foot iu J a rnaica, or any other En...,lish plantat10n. All our colonies a re subject to the laws of Englantl, a lthough, to some purposes they have laws of their own." (On this point doubtless HardWtck; ha? the advantage of lfolt; for the opinions of the English lawyers, since the E ngl ish revolution had gradually .been brought into coincidence w ith th~t of the colomsts, who had all along claimed that the ?0 Emon law was as much in force in the colonies alj 1 ~ ~ ~1glantl .] "There was once a doubt" co11tinued t le Judge," whether, if they were chri~tened they would ~10t become free by that act; and thcr~ were J?recaut10ns .taken in t he colonies to prevent t hem !f~~ becommg b.aptizeJ, till the opinion of Lord a ot and myself, then attorqey and solicitor-general 17 ~ { ' |