l of the customs of North America, took to
England his Negro slave, James Somerset, who, being sick, was turned
adrift by his master. Later Somerset recovered and Stewart seized him,
intending to have him borne out of the country and sold in Jamaica.
Somerset objected to this and in so doing raised the important legal
question, Did a slave by being brought to England become free? The case
received an extraordinary amount of attention, for everybody realized
that the decision would be far-reaching in its consequences. After it
was argued at three different sittings, Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of
England, in 1772 handed down from the Court of King's Bench the judgment
that as soon as ever any slave set his foot upon the soil of England he
became free.

This decision may be taken as fairly representative of the general
advance that the cause of the Negro was making in England at the time.
Early in the century sentiment against the slave-trade had begun to
develop, many pamphlets on the evils of slavery were circulated, and as
early as 1776 a motion for the abolition of the trade was made in the
House of Commons. John Wesley preached against the system, Adam Smith
showed its ultimate expensiveness, and Burke declared that the slavery
endured by the Negroes in the English settlements was worse than that
ever suffered by any other people. Foremost in the work of protest were
Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce, the one being the leader in
investigation and in the organization of the movement against slavery
while the other was the parliamentary champion of the cause. For
years, assisted by such debaters as Burke, Fox, and the younger Pitt,
Wilberforce worked until on March 25, 1807, the bill for the abolition
of the slave-trade received the royal assent, and still later until
slavery itself was abolished in the English dominions (1833).

This high thought in England necessarily found some reflection in
America, where the logic of the position of the patriots frequently
forced them to take up the cause of the slave. As early as 1751 Benjamin
Franklin, in his _Observations concerning the Increase of Mankind_,
pointed out the evil effects of slavery upon population and the
production of wealth; and in 1761 James Otis, in his argument against
the Writs of Assistance, spoke so vigorously of the rights of black men
as to leave no doubt as to his own position. To Patrick Henry slavery
was a practice "totally repugnant to the