Recollecting his passionate admiration of the neighbourhood of Ken Wood (I call it so because he did), his purchase of it reads like the crowning chapter of a romance. It was Lord Mansfield who first declared that the air of England was too pure for a slave to breathe, and that every man who inspires it is free!—a decision pronounced in favour of a runaway negro, James Somerset.[208] He decided against the barbarous custom of wrecking then, and till comparatively modern times, prevalent upon our coasts. He also favoured freedom of religious opinion, gave literary copyright to authors, and is said _to have been the founder of the commercial law of this country_. But his liberality only extended to a certain limit. He took the part of the Crown against the North Americans’ righteous resistance to taxation[209] without representation; and he would have restricted the liberty of the press. He had not sufficient magnanimity to forego monopoly of his highly-paid offices, for it was said of him that ‘next to the King he regarded the coinage,’ and had a keen appetite for emoluments.[210] About the years 1767-68 he had become so thoroughly unpopular, that not only were the public prints filled with abuse of him, but the very potters emphasized this feeling by making him figure disagreeably on articles of pottery and porcelain. At a recent sale of ceramic ware, I remember to have met with a curious example on a Chelsea porcelain punch-bowl, which was painted with portraits of John Wilkes in a shield surmounted by the British lion, with Lords Camden and Temple as supporters, inscribed ‘Wilkes and Liberty!’ with the motto underneath, ‘Always ready in a good cause,’ and a pendent portrait of Lord Mansfield, surmounted by a serpent, with George III. and the devil as supporters, and underneath a motto, ‘Justice en pettee!’