ischarged Sommersett," is absurd and
baseless.[397] For on the 27th of April, 1785 (thirteen years after
the famous decision), Lord Mansfield himself said, in reference to the
Sommersett case, "that his decision went no farther than that the
master cannot by force compel the slave to go out of the kingdom."
Thirty-five years of suffering and degradation remained for the
Africans after the decision of Lord Mansfield. His lordship's decision
was rendered on the 22d of June, 1772; and in 1807, thirty-five years
afterwards, the British government abolished the slave-trade. And
then, after twenty-seven years more of reflection, slavery was
abolished in English possessions. _So, sixty-two years after Lord
Mansfield's decision, England emancipated her slaves!_ It took only
two generations for the people to get rid of slavery under the British
flag. How true, then, that "facts are stranger than fiction"!

In 1770 John Swain of Nantucket brought suit against Elisha Folger,
captain of the vessel "Friendship," for allowing a Mr. Roth to receive
on board his ship a Negro boy named "Boston," and for the recovery of
the slave. This was a jury-trial in the Court of Common Pleas. The
jury brought in a verdict in favor of the slave, and he was
"manumitted by the magistrates." John Swain took an appeal from the
decision of the Nantucket Court to the Supreme Court of Boston, but
never prosecuted it.[398] In 1770, in Hanover, Plymouth County, a
Negro asked his master to grant him his freedom as _his right_. The
master refused; and the Negro, with assistance of counsel, succeeded
in obtaining his liberty.[399]

"In October of 1773, an action was brought against Richard
Greenleaf, of Newburyport, by Caesar [Hendrick,] a colored
man, whom he claimed as his slave, for holding him in
bondage. He laid the damages at fifty pounds. The counsel
for the plaintiff, in whose favor the jury brought in their
verdict and awarded him eighteen pounds damages and costs,
was John Lowell, esquire, afterward judge Lowell. This case
excited much interest, as it was the first, if not the only
one of the kind, that ever occurred in the county."[400]

This case is mentioned in full by Mr. Dane in his "Abridgment and
Digest of American Law," vol. ii. p. 426.

In the Inferior Court of Common Pleas, in the county of Essex, July
term in 1774, a Negro slave of one Caleb Dodge of Beverly brought an
action against his mas