On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
the colonies . Though in my opinion such apprehensions were groundless , yet , for the sake of unaCumity / I readily acceded to the alteration as you have reported it . Since that meeting Mr . Sharp has favoured me with copies of two letters ^ on the subject of the liberation of negroes in
England , written by him several years ago . The enclosed extract from one of them addressed to a benevolent physician at Falmouth ( who had interested himself to prevent " a poor negro boy" in that port from being sent abroad as a slave ) will shew the difficulties which Mr . S . encountered in prosecuting that " labour of love / ' to which he has devoted so large a part of his valuable life . The circumstances will probabl y be new to many of your readers . I remain Sir ^ yours , Clapton , June \ Q 1807 . J . T . RUTT , EXTRACT Or A LETTER FROM GRANVIXLE SHARP ., ESGt . TO PR . B . FOX . DATED JULY 11 , 1793 .
To satisfy your 3 d question—* ' What success has attended sinri - lar attempts to rescue from slavery poor negroes who have accidentally been brought into other British ports ?"—It is necessary that I should acquaint you that I was obliged to defend myself at a heavy expense against an action at law for having set a negro a . t liberty in the year 1767 one Jonathan Strong . That my prosecutor James
Kerr , Esq . a Jamaica planter , was at length non-suited and paid trip le costs . That J then printed the arguments which I had drawn up for my own defence against an opinion formerly given by the Liords Hard wick and Talbot jointly , when the one was Attorney General , and the other Solicitor General , ( a copy of which had been
produced to intimidate me , ) stating , " that a slave by coming from the West Indies to Great Britain or Ireland , either with or without his master , doth not become free , &c . and that the master may legally compel him to return again to the plantations / ' ( Signed ) P , York and C . Talbot , and dated 14 th January , 17 % [) . All which I disproved ^ as being contrary to the foundations of the English Law .
After the publication of my book in 17 ^ 9 ? 1 set many more negroes at liberty , recovering them by writs of habeas corpus , from on board the ships in which they were confined ; and by prosecuting their masters , until Lord Mansfield , in the case of James Somerset ( whom I protected , ) was compelled to give up the point in 1772 , and to acknowledge from the bench , ( in opposition to the
abore-mentioned , opinion of York and Talbot , which he cited , as well as against his own former assertions and practice , ) that a case so odious as the condition of slaves must be taken strictly : that tracing the subject to natural principles , the claim of slavery ncyer can be supported . That the power claimed by this return , " ( viz . the return mudo by Jaraas
Untitled Article
346 Liberation of Negroes in England .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1807, page 346, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2382/page/6/
-