Note 152 — ADDRESS.

Memoirs, pp. 91, 92, note. The text of the first edition (1765), as quoted by Sharp's biographer, Hoare, was as follows: "And this spirit of liberty is so deeply implanted in our Constitution, and rooted even in our very soil, that a Slave, or a Negro, the moment he lands in England, falls under the protection of the laws, and, with regard to all national rights, becomes eo instanti a freeman." As altered, the latter part was found to read thus: "... a negro, the moment he lands in England, falls under the protection of the laws, and so far becomes a freeman; though the master's right to his service may possibly still continue." Hoare remarks, that he finds this reading in the fifth edition, 1773. It appears also in an edition printed at Philadelphia so early as 1771. And thus the text was finally left by the author, and so remains. In the third edition, printed at Oxford in 1768, for "possibly" in the last clause we have the word "probably." Of this prior reading Hoare makes no mention.