Note 5 — CONSIDERATIONS ON THE NEGROE CAUSE, &c.

With respect to the statute of the 5th of Geo. II. c. 7. there are not wanting frequent instances of its having been inforced in this country; particularly in a case of the noted Rice: who, forging a Letter of Attorney with intent to defraud the Bank of England of a considerable sum of money, fled to France, was delivered up by that Court, and afterwards hanged at Tyburn. It seems, upon his absconding, a commission of Bankruptcy was awarded against him; and the Commissioners, as I am credibly informed, under this very Act of Parliament here mentioned, sold a Negroe of his in the city of London, as his property, and among his other goods and chattels, for the satisfaction of the creditors. But this act does not require cases for its confirmation, neither is it the place where executed that I contend for; it is the vesting of the property, without proviso or condition, that surmounts all objection. Suppose I had purchased a Negroe in the island of Barbadoes, or in any other part of America, that had been extended there at the suit of the King for a debt due to him, and had brought this Negroe with me to England: would Mr. Hargrave, or any other lawyer, say, that a writ of Habeas Corpus, or any other writ whatsoever not founded on the verdict of a jury, could dispossess me of a property, which I held under the sense, letter, and spirit of an Act of Parliament? Can any implication of law operate against the express words and meaning of a law? And would not such argument in its consequences be a mere reductio ad absurdum?