question could not be regarded as finally settled
till 1772, when a slave named Somersett was brought
over to England from Jamaica by his master, and on
his arrival in the Thames claimed his freedom, and
under a writ of habeas corpus had his claim
allowed by Lord Mansfield. The master’s
counsel contended that slavery was not a condition
unsanctioned by English law, for villeinage was slavery,
and no statute had ever abolished villeinage.
But the Chief-justice, in the first place, denied
that villeinage had ever been slavery such as existed
in the West Indies; and, in the second place, he pronounced
that, whether it had been or not, it had, at all events,
long ceased in England, and could not be revived.
“The air of England has long been too pure for
a slave, and every man is free who breathes it.
Every man who comes into England is entitled to the
protection of English law."[159] But this freedom
was as yet held to be only co-extensive with these
islands. And for sixty years more our West India
Islands continued to be cultivated by the labor of
slaves, some of whom were the offspring of slaves
previously employed, though by far the greater part
were imported yearly from the western coast of Africa.
The supply from that country seemed inexhaustible.
The native chiefs in time of war gladly sold their
prisoners to the captains of British vessels; in time
of peace they sold them their own subjects; and, if
at any time these modes of obtaining slaves slackened,
the captains would land at night, and, attacking the
villages on the coast sweep off the inhabitants on
board their ships, and at once set sail with their
booty. The sufferings of these unhappy captives
in what was called the “middle passage”—the
passage between their native land and the West India
Islands—were for a long time unknown or
disregarded, till, early in Pitt’s first ministry,
they attracted the notice of some of our naval officers
who were stationed in the West Indies, and who, on
their return to England, related the horrors which
they had witnessed or heard of—how, between
decks too low to admit of a full-grown man standing
upright, the wretched victims, chained to the sides
of the ships, lay squeezed together in such numbers,
though the whole voyage was within the tropics, that,
from the overpowering heat and scantiness of food,
it was estimated that two-thirds of each cargo died
on the passage. Most fortunately for the credit
of England, the fearful trade was brought under the
notice of a young member of Parliament singularly
zealous in the cause of humanity and religion, endowed
with untiring industry and powerful eloquence, and
connected by the closest ties of personal intimacy
with Mr. Pitt. To hear of such a system of organized
murder, as the British officers described the slave-trade
to be, was quite sufficient to induce Mr. Wilberforce
to resolve to devote himself to its suppression.
He laid the case in all its horrors before his friend
the Prime-minister, a man as ready as himself to grapple