The statutes of 1750, (23, George 2d, Ch. 31,) may have possibly authorized, by implication, (so far as parliament could thus authorize,) the colonial governments, (if governments they could be called,) _on that coast of Africa_, to allow slavery under certain circumstances, _and within the "settlements" on that coast_. But, if it did, it was at most a grant of a merely local authority. It gave no authority to carry slaves from the African coast. But even if it had purported distinctly to authorize the slave trade from Africa to America, and to legalize the right of property in the particular slaves thereafter brought from Africa to America, it would nevertheless have done nothing towards legalizing the right of property in the slaves that had been brought to, and born in, the colonies for an hundred and thirty years previous to the statute. Neither the statute, nor any right of property acquired under it, (in the individual slaves thereafterwards brought from Africa,) would therefore avail anything for the legality of slavery in this country now; because the descendants of those brought from Africa under the act, cannot now be distinguished from the descendants of those who had, for the hundred and thirty years previous, been held in bondage without law. But the presumption is, that, even after this statute was passed in 1750, if the slave trader's _right of property_ in the slave he was bringing to America, could have been brought before an English court for adjudication, the same principles would have been held to apply to it, as would have applied to a case arising within the island of Great Britain. And it must therefore always have been held by English courts, (in consistency with the decision in Somerset's case,) that the slave trader had no legal ownership of his slave. And if the slave trader had no legal right of property in his slave, he could transfer no legal right of property to a purchaser in the colonies. Consequently the slavery of those that were brought into the colonies after the statute of 1750, was equally illegal with that of those who had been brought in before.[8] The conclusion of the whole matter is, that until some reason appears against them, we are bound by the decision of the King's bench in 1772, and the colonial charters. That decision declared that there was, at that time, in England, no right of property in man, (notwithstanding the English government had for a long time connived at the slave trade.)--The colonial charters required the legislation of the colonies to be consonant to reason, and not repugnant or contrary, but conformable, or agreeable, as nearly as circumstances would allow, to the laws, statutes and rights of the realm of England. That decision, then, if correct, settled the law both for England and the colonies. And if so, there was no _constitutional_ slavery in the colonies up to the time of the revolution.