Note 6 — Chapter II
Reading edition
These words are not in Lofft or in the State Trials, but will be found in Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices, Vol. II, p. 419, where the words are added: "Every man who comes into England is entitled to the protection of the English law, whatever oppression he may heretofore have suffered and whatever may be the color of his skin. Quamvis ille niger, quamvis tu candidus esses and certainly Vergil's verse was never used to a nobler purpose. Verg. E. 2, 19.
William Cowper in The Task, written 1783-1785, imitated this in his well-known lines:
"Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free. They touch our country and their shackles fall."