Somerset’s Case
After James Somerset was loaded onto a British slave-ship bound for Jamaica, Granville Sharp and other committed Christians turned to the courts for justice.
1772
King George III 1760-1820
After James Somerset was loaded onto a British slave-ship bound for Jamaica, Granville Sharp and other committed Christians turned to the courts for justice.
1772
King George III 1760-1820
In 1769, Boston merchant Charles Stewart brought James Somerset, whom he had bought as a slave in the Massachusetts Bay colony, to England. James escaped, was recaptured and imprisoned on a slave-ship bound for Jamaica. Anti-slavery campaigner Granville Sharp issued a writ of Habeas Corpus and in 1772 forced Stewart and the ship’s captain in front of the Chief Justice, Lord Mansfield.
“THE question is [declared Lord Mansfield],* Whether the captain has returned a sufficient cause for the detainer of Somerset? The cause returned is, that he had kept him by order of his master, with an intent to send him abroad to Jamaica, there to be sold. So high an act of dominion must derive its force from the law of the country; and if to be justified here, must be justified by the laws of England.
“Slavery has been different in different ages and states.* The exercise of the power of a master over his slave, must be supported by the laws of particular countries; but no foreigner can in England claim a right over a man: such a claim is not known to the laws of England.
“Immemorial usage preserves a positive law, after the occasion or accident which gave rise to it has been forgotten; and, tracing the subject to natural principles, the claim of slavery never can be supported.* The power claimed never was in use here, or acknowledged by the law. Upon the whole, we cannot say the cause returned is sufficient by the law; and therefore the man must be discharged.”
William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, gave judgment on June 22nd, 1772, after a month of deliberation. The judgment had no direct impact on Britain’s part in the ongoing slave trade, but it did establish that English courts could and would never enforce the rights of slave ‘owners’ while in this country. The action was brought on behalf of James’s three godparents (he had been baptised while on the run) by Granville Sharp (1734-1813), whose reputation as an anti-slavery campaigner had been rising since the case of The Case of Jonathan Strong in 1767 and the publication two years later of A Representation of the Injustice of Tolerating Slavery.
See also How Britain Abolished Slavery.
That is, slavery is not a natural state; there is no recorded Act of Parliament (‘positive law’) establishing slavery; common law does not indicate that such a law was once passed, but has now been lost in the mists of time; consequently, there are no grounds for enforcing slavery in England.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.