I, 150. " ... It is regrettable that Christianity did not change other parts of the Roman law of persons which ought to have been reformed. The chief example of this failure is slavery, which the law of Justinian fully recognized. The inertia of past centuries as to slavery was too great to be overcome. St. Paul's attitude towards slavery was to recognize the _status quo_, and he did not counsel wholesale emancipation. But Christianity continued the progress of the pagan law along the lines of mercy and kindness, _e.g._, to poison a slave or brand him was treated in later Imperial Roman law as homicide, and manumission was made easier; but the Church did not recognize the marriage of slaves until over 300 years after Justinian's death." II, 434, "In Roman law ... the slave was a thing or chattel--nothing more legally. Slaves could no hold property--slaves could not marry, their actual unions were never legally recognized." II, 436, "With the advent of Greek culture and Christianity the harsh manners of ancient Rome became greatly altered." II, 828, "One feature of the Lex Aquilia is ... that it granted an action in damages for the unlawful killing of ... the slave of another man." _Inst._, 413, pr; Gaius 3, 210. II. 829, " ... the owner had his option either of suing the culprit for damages under the lex Aquilia or of causing him to be criminally prosecuted." _Inst._, 4, 3, 11 Gaius 3, 213. II, 935, "A free person called as a witness could not be subjected to torture, but a slave could be tortured." CHAPTER II THE EARLY BRITISH PERIOD When Canada passed under the British flag by conquest there was for a time confusion as to the law in force. During the military regime from 1760 to 1764 the authorities did the best they could and applied such law as they thought the best for the particular case. There was no dislocation in the common affairs of the country. When Canada was formally ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Paris, 1763,[1] it was not long before there was issued a royal proclamation creating among other things a "Government of Quebec" with its western boundary a line drawn from the "South end of Lake Nipissim"[2] to the point at which the parallel of 45 deg. north latitude crosses the River St. Lawrence. In all that vast territory the English law, civil and criminal, was introduced.[3] It is important now to see what was the law of England at the time respecting slavery. The dictum of Lord Chief Justice Holt: "As soon as a slave enters England he becomes free,"[4] was succeeded by the decision of the Court of King's Bench to the same effect in the celebrated case of Somerset _v._ Stewart,[5] when Lord Mansfield is reported to have said: "The air of England has long been too pure for a slave and every man is free who breathes it."[6]