as slavery painted on the blackest ground can be. It is slavery itself, in its very definition; and what signifies the name, says Hudibras, since the thing is the same? But the indispensableness of the measure has nevertheless (to continue the metaphor) given colour to the practice, and it is now seen in another light and view. But to return: If your Lordship should be of opinion, for opinion it must be, if there is no positive law to ground your judgment upon, that Negroes in this country are free, I will place in opposition to this, the opinions of the late Lord Chancellour Hardwick, and his predecessor the Lord Chancellour Talbot, to wit, that Negroes in this country are not free. Your Lordship perceives, that I take your opinion upon supposition only; the other opinions are well-known facts. To search then for the grounds of your opinion, without the certainty of its being so, would be now premature and unnecessary: but, knowing the opinions of these two great oracles of the law, it is of necessity to conclude, that they had the most sufficient foundation for them, seeing that it is allowed on every hand, that no opinion was ever given in any case whatever with greater solemnity, or more deliberation, than these were. Now, my Lord, to investigate the reasons of these opinions, is one way, perhaps, to arrive at the truth: but to follow men like these, in their researches, is a procedure fitted only to abilities such as your Lordship’s are. As conjecture however is open to all, though positive knowledge is but the gift of a few; I shall therefore venture to suggest what might in part have led the ideas of these great and wise men to the conclusion which they have drawn, namely, that Negroes in this country do not become free. I have before stated, my Lord, and have agreed with one of the learned counsel, that the condition of slavery among Negroes is unknown to the common law of this land: that it is a new species of slavery, which has arisen within, and not beyond, the memory of man, as is necessary to the descriptive quality of this kind of law; and, therefore, being not under the comprehension, it cannot be within the absolute provision of it, however reduceable thereto it may be made, by analogy, implication, or construction. I have said too, that acts of parliament are silent on this head. I have repeated what I had before stated and said, in order to draw this inference: that although the slavery of Negroes is unknown to the common law of this country, and acts of parliament are silent thereupon; yet _the right_ which Mr. Steuart claims in the Negroe, Somerset, is _a right_ given him by act of parliament.