Its positive legality was
affirmed, in professional opinions, by two eminent lawyers, Talbot and
Yorke, each afterwards Lord Chancellor. It was also affirmed on the
bench by the latter as Lord Hardwicke. England was already a Slave
State. The following advertisement, copied from a London newspaper, _The
Public Advertiser_, of November 22, 1769, shows that the journals there
were disfigured as some of ours, even in the District of Columbia.
"To be sold, a black girl, the property of J. B., eleven years of
age, who is extremely handy, works at her needle tolerably, and
speaks English perfectly well; is of an excellent temper and willing
disposition. Inquire of her owner at the Angel Inn, behind St. Clement's
Church, in the Strand."
At last, in 1772, only three years after this advertisement, the single
question of the legality of Slavery was presented to Lord Mansfield, on
a writ of _habeas corpus_. A poor negro, named Sommersett, brought to
England as a slave, became ill, and, with an inhumanity disgraceful even
to Slavery, was turned adrift upon the world.
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