remanded; if it is not, he must be discharged. The return
states that the slave departed and refused to serve,
whereupon he was kept to be sold abroad. So high an act of
dominion must be recognized by the law of the country where
it is used. The power of a master over his slave has been
exceedingly different in different countries. The state of
slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being
introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only by
positive law, which preserves its force long after the
reasons, occasions, and time itself from whence it was
created is erased from memory. It is so odious that nothing
can be suffered to support it but positive law. Whatever
inconveniences, therefore, may follow from the decision, I
cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of
England, and therefore the black must be discharged.'"

The influence of this decision was wide-spread, and hurtful to slavery
in the British colonies in North America. It poured new life into the
expiring hopes of the Negroes, and furnished a rule of law for the
advocates of "freedom for all." It raised a question of law in all the
colonies as to whether the colonial governments could pass an Act
legalizing that which was "contrary to English law."[366]

Notwithstanding the general and generous impulse for liberty, the
indissoluble ties of avarice, and the greed for the unearned gains of
the slave-trade, made public men conservate to conserve the interests
of those directly interested in the inhuman traffic.

"In an age when the interests of trade guided legislation,
this branch of commerce possessed paramount attractions. Not
a statesman exposed its enormities; and, if Richard Baxter
echoed the opinions of Puritan Massachusetts, if Southern
drew tears by the tragic tale of Oronooko, if Steele
awakened a throb of indignation by the story of Inkle and
Yarico, if Savage and Shenstone pointed their feeble
couplets with the wrongs of 'Afric's sable children,' if the
Irish metaphysician Hutcheson, struggling for a higher
system of morals,--justly stigmatized the traffic; yet no
public opinion lifted its voice against it. English ships,
fitted out in English cities, under the special favor of the
royal family, of the ministry, and of parliament, stole from
Africa, in the years from 17