sional report of the
case in _Morison's Dictionary of Decisions_ says: 'The Lords appointed
counsel for the negro, and ordered memorials, and afterwards a hearing
in presence, upon the respective claims of liberty and servitude by
the master and the negro; but during the hearing in presence, the
negro died, so the point was not determined.' In the English case, to
which we shall presently advert, it was maintained, that from the
known temper and opinions of the court, the decision, would
undoubtedly have been in the negro's favour. At the time when Mr
Grenville Sharp, to his immortal honour, took up in the courts of law
the question of personal liberty as a legal right, there was a more
serious risk of Britain becoming a slave state than it is now easy to
imagine. There was no chance of negroes being employed in gangs in the
field or in manufactories, but there was imminent danger of their
being brought over and kept in multitudes as domestic servants, just
as they are still in some of the southern states of America. Mr Sharp
drew attention to the following advertisement in the _Public
Advertiser_ of 28th March 1769, as one of a kind becoming too common:

'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 Mr Owen, at the Angel Inn, behind St Clement's Church in
the Strand.'

Mr Sharp's early conflicts in the law-courts are more romantic than
the last and decisive one. He and his brother had found a poor
mendicant negro, called Jonathan Strong, in rags on the streets of
London. They took him into their service, and after he had become
plump, strong, and acquainted with his business, the man who had
brought him from the colonies, an attorney, seeing him behind a
carriage, set covetous eyes on him. The lad was waylaid on a false
message to a public-house, seized, and committed to the Compter,
where, however, he managed to make Mr Sharp acquainted with his
position. The indefatigable philanthropist had him brought before the
lord mayor as sitting magistrate. After hearing the case stated, his
lordship said: 'The lad had not stolen anything, and was not guilty of
any offence, and was therefore at liberty to go away.' A captain of a
vessel, saying he had been employed by a person who had just bought
the youth, to convey him to Jamaica, seized him b