Note 1 — CONSIDERATIONS ON THE NEGROE CAUSE, &c.

The late publication of Mr. Hargrave’s argument, as one of Somerset’s counsel, gives me the satisfaction of seeing in the whole, what I had before the opportunity of hearing only in part. I confess I know not which most to admire, the labour of this Gentleman’s researches, or the ingenuity with which his collected materials are systematized and disposed. It is a history, perhaps the most compleat that is, of the rise, progress, decline, and general state of Slavery; and, whilst it does as much honour to his humanity as to his understanding, will serve as a light to enlighten the footsteps of posterity, should a revival of the laws of Villenage be ever attempted in this country: but, having said this, I must recur to my former opinion, that, learned as his arguments are in general, in this particular case they are founded on false and mistaken principles, and are totally inapplicable to the merits of the present question. His first principle or point is, (vid. p. 12.) that “whatever Mr. Steuart’s Right may be, it springs out of the condition of slavery; and accordingly, says he, the return fairly admits slavery to be the sole foundation of Mr. Steuart’s Claim.” Thus, with a Petitio Principii, which neither is, can, or will be admitted, and upon a manifest error in the return made to the writ of Habeas Corpus, does the argument of Mr. Hargrave commence, rest, and depend. But if, instead of admitting, there being no law to countenance such admission, the return had relinquished the right, and denied the claim, of slavery: if it had set forth, that Mr. Steuart was the bona fide purchaser of Somerset in the legal course of trade: that he had bought him out of a ship’s cargoe from Africa, together with some elephants teeth, wax, leather, and other commodities of that country, for which he paid his money, or otherwise gave in exchange the manufactures of this country: that he had brought him here as an article of commerce with his other goods, under the sanction of the laws of trade: that he meant to export him hence under the same protection, with his other property, in order to be sold for his better advantage in one of the English Colonies in America: that a writ of Habeas Corpus might as well issue on account of his elephants teeth, his wax, his leather, and his other commodities of that country, as on account of his Negroe, they being expressly under the same predicament of law, and so forth: I say, under such circumstances, and upon such a return, what would have become of this stately pile of elaborate argument?

High-built, like Babel’s tower, to magnify the fall! Must not the lawyers have saught new ground to build upon? Must not the Court have lost that error of insufficiency, which now supports its only right of Judgment?

Note, Although this argument of Mr. Hargrave is said to have been delivered in the particular Case of Somerset a Negroe, yet it is meant and intended as a course of reasoning upon the general question of the state and condition of Negroes.