The pleadings upon the legality of this proceeding were solemn and full. The question was, Whether it was to be held a just inference, from the fact of the slave, being undoubtedly by the law of the day property in the colonies, that, while his colonial master made a temporary stay in Britain, he should be property there also, without any direct law to that effect. Had it been a question of inanimate goods, there would be no reason why the property should not continue in the colonial owner. It would be all one to the inanimate object what hands it was in, and regularity and justice would decree that the person who was owner of it in one country should be so in another. But in these cases there was a separate adverse interest of a very strong character. Was the uniformity of this right of possession sufficient to overrule another right--that which every man, black or white, had to the freedom of his own person, unless there was special law to restrain it? The counsel for the negro not only pleaded strongly on this his personal right, but on the consequence to the moral condition of the British Empire, if the inhabitants of slave countries could bring their slaves hither. From the strictness of the laws, and the uniformity of the course of justice, if slaves were permitted in England, it was the very place where property in them would be most secure. Thus the country might become a resort of slaveholders, and its boasted purity and freedom would be sadly contaminated. 'If that right,' said Mr Hargrave, 'is here recognised, domestic slavery, with its horrid train of evils, may be lawfully imported into this country, at the discretion of every individual, foreign and native. It will come not only from our own colonies, and those of other European nations, but from Poland, Russia, Spain, and Turkey--from the coast of Barbary, from the western and eastern coasts of Africa--from every part of the world where it still continues to torment and dishonour the human species.'