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Show 202 DESPOTJSJ\1 not be a high prier. 'l1hen a loss follows to the proprietors of about .£700,000 sterling. How would the law ::;tand in respect of their settlement, their wages? }low many actions for any slight coercion by the master?" But though these prudential considerations '!lade the timid Mansfield anxious to escape a formal JUdgment, they did not alter his opinion of the law. " W c cannot, in any of these points, direct the law; the Ia w must direct us.'' "If the parties will have judgment, fiat juslicia ruat cmlum-Ict justice be done whatever be the consequence." At the same time he suggested, as a consolation to the slave-holders," an application to parliament, if the merchants think the question of great commercial concern," as" the best, and perhaps only, method of settling the question for the futurc,"-a suggestion, ho\vever, upon which, in the existing state of public sentiment, the London slave-holders did not venture to act. At last, after several postponements, as Stewart declined to terminate the case by manumitting Somerset, l\1ansficld proceeded to render judgment; which he did Very brielly; and yet, as his peculiar manner was, in terms suJliciently comprehensive not only to decide the case before him, but to establish a principle for the dech;ion of other cases. . "We pay all due attention," he said," to the opinion of Sir Philip Yorke and Lord Talbot, whereby they pledged themselves to the British planters for all the legal consequences of slaves com1ng over to t.lus kingdom, or being baptized, recogni::-:ed by Lord llardwickc, sitting as chancellor," in the case ~f Pearne v. Lisle. "'!'he only que::stion before u~ ~s, whether the cause on the return is sufficient. lf It IS, ihc negro must be remanded; if it is not, he must be discharged. The return !::itates 1hat the slav~ departed and refu~ed to serve, whereupon he was seized to be sold abroad. So ltiglt an uct of dominion must be recognized by the law of tlte country where it is used. ~l'ltc power of a ma.sler over lti:s slave ltas been exceed- IN AMERICA. 203 ingly difJerent in different countries. Tlte stale of ~lavery t.s of such a nature, t!tat it is incapable of being 'l.nlrodl~c.ed on any ~easons, moral or political, but only by posttwe lau:_, wluclt pre_ser~es its force long after tlte reasons, occaswns, and tune tlself from whence it was created, is erased from memory. It is so odious that nothing can be sujj"ered to support it but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from the decision, I cannot say this case b allowed or approved by the law of England, and therefore the black must be discharged." It is very true that this deci~:don is limited in it~ terms to thf~ case of persons claimed as slaves within the realm of England, that being the particular case before the court. It is also true that the counsel for Somerset, conscious of the pecuniary influence weighing against their client, and anxious to limit that intlucnce as much as pos::ible, were very careful not to question the legality of slavery in the colonies. But as all the colonial assemblies -.rore specially re· stricted, either by charter or the royal commi:::1sions under which they met and legislated, to the enactment of laws not repugnant to those of England, how could those assemblies be competent to legalize a condition, many of the consequences of which were pronounced by Lord Mansfield "absolutely contrary" to English law ?-and did it not follow, as one of the "inconveniences" of that decision, as Hardwickc had suggested it would, that slavery, illegal in England, was also illegal in the English colonies? . 'l'o evade this conclusion, the omnipotence of par~ Iament was invoked, as having, at least by way of ~nferencc and recognition, legalized slavery in AmerIca.; for which purpose 8Cveral acts were cited re· latlng to the African trade; particularly that of !) and 10 WJI. III. ch. 26; also the act of 1732, for the speedy recovery of debts in the colonies. The first of thc~c acts plainly speak!::i of negroes as a species of merchandise, the export of which from the African coast in British ships was particularly favored, by |