Slavery Illegal in Britain

James Somerset, a negro slave of James Stewart, was taken from Virginia to England, where he refused to serve his master any longer.

Stewart caused him to be arrested and put on board a vessel to be conveyed to Jamaica. Being brought before Chief-Justice Mansfield on a writ of habeas corpus (December, 1771), his case was referred to the full court, where it was argued for the slave by the great philanthropist, Granville Sharp.

The decision would affect the estimated number of 14,000 slaves then with their masters in England, involving a loss to their owners of $3,500,000. After a careful judicial investigation of the subject in its legal aspects, Chief-Justice Mansfield gave the decision of the court that slavery was contrary to the laws of England—that slavery could not exist there.

" Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from the decision," he said, " I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England, and therefore the black must be discharged."