In 1769, Somerset a slave from Virginia accompanying his master, Charles Stewart, on a business trip to England deserted when they arrived in London. Captured, he was hushed up on board a ship until Granville Sharp, an abolitionist, took up his cause and sought legal redress.

?Fiat justicia, ruat coelum?- (Let justice be done, though the Heavens may fall), lashed out Lord Mansfield, the Chief Justice of the King?s Bench in the London crammed Court on 22 June 1772. Lord Mansfield was presiding over what came to be famously known as the ?Somerset case?.

James Somerset was a Negro slave who instituted a Court case, orchestrated by Granville Sharp, against his master for ?illegally? detaining him in a ship bound for Jamaica where he was to be sold. In the year 1769, Somerset, a slave from Virginia, was accompanying his master, Charles Stewart, on a business trip to England. In London, Somerset deserted his master. Captured by slave catchers after a hunt of 56 days, he was clamped in irons and hushed up in a ship waiting in the Thames.

?The ?Somerset case? or what was also known as the ?Negro case? became a pet subject for discussions. It kept alive the debates on the abolition of the slave trade.?

The abolitionists led by Granville Sharp took up the cause of Somerset. They realized there was no other way of waging the war against slavery but through the legal channel. They wanted the laws to be looked in fresh light. Granville Sharp had failed in the John Hylas, Thomas Lewis and Jonathan Strong cases but failures had not dampened his determination to continue seeking legal redress in favour of aggrieved slaves. Somerset was to be another acid test.

As the ship Ann and Mary was about to lift anchor in the Thames, its Captain, John Knowles, was served with a writ of habeas corpus ordering him to appear in Court together with Somerset. This implied that the slave was now summoned to appear in Court with the ship?s captain. Released from the iron fetters, Somerset met Granville Sharp to find out the course of action to follow. A legal team which Sharp assembled to defend Somerset constituted of Francis Hargrave, an unknown name in the London legal circle and J. Alleyne who was called to the Bar only a week before. Charles Stewart secured the services of John Dunning, a reputed lawyer. He was going to fight his case on the basis of the property law which stated that a slave was the personal property of his master, just as he would own a real property or a horse or a cow and could dispose of it as he wished.

The ?Somerset trial? was to be presided over by the 65 year old Lord Mansfield, a highly respected Conservative and the ?most powerful judge in England?, who had served as a government cabinet member, was Chancellor of the Exchequer, Attorney General and Speaker of the House of Commons and then of the House of Lords. Lord Mansfield gained much notoriety in the John Wilkes case when he gave Wilkes a death sentence. Educated at Oxford, Lord Mansfield was an exponent of classical Ciceronian philosophy. He used to spend a great deal of time translating Latin texts in English. One of his intimate friends was the poet Alexander Pope.

Would Somerset succeed when three previous cases filed in Court by Granville Sharp had failed? Furthermore, if a precedent was to be evoked, the Yorke-Talbot ruling of 1729 was all in favour of slave owners: ?a slave doth not become free when coming to Great Britain; baptism doth not bestow freedom; the master may legally compel him to return to the plantations??

Lord Mansfield knew the significance of the case whatever was to be the outcome. He tried to push for an out of court settlement as he felt profoundly uneasy having to decide on a case in which the right to property clashed with the right to liberty. But no compromise could be reached for both parties were adamant in obtaining a Court ruling. Granville Sharp was more than ever confident of the ground works he had done for Somerset; Stewart cashed his hope on the Yorke-Talbot ruling and more so on West Indies or American laws. With both parties adopting the tough line, Lord Mansfield was forced to hear the case. It was then that he exclaimed, ?Let justice be done, though the Heavens may fall.?

The issue to be looked into was not the abolition of slavery, nor a claim for perfect equality among men but whether one man could own another ?in the manner in which he owned his horse or dog? and as such whether any authority or coercion could be exercised in ?this country? on a slave according to the foreign laws.

Jubilations

At ten in the morning of 22 June 1772, Lord Mansfield started to speak in a packed Court. Having summarized Captain Knowles answer to the writ of habeas corpus, he went to the Yorke-Talbot ruling in 1729. Lord Mansfield said he would give ?all due attention? to all these elements before giving a ruling.?The only question before us?, he went on to say, ?is whether the cause of the return is sufficient? If it is, the Negro (Somerset) must be remanded; if it is not, he must be discharged.

?Accordingly, the return states that the slave departed and refused to serve, whereupon he was kept to be sold abroad. So high an act of dominion must be recognized by the law of the country where it is used. A master could remove his slave from England only if English law permitted it. Whatever inconveniences, therefore may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England, and therefore the black must be discharged.?

There it was. Somerset could not be forcibly deported! Lord Mansfield had ruled in his favour, the first ever court case won by a black slave. The conclusion of Lord Mansfield was that the English law did not provide for forced removal of any person from England. It overruled Yorke-Talbot. So long as the slave Somerset would remain in England, he would enjoy the privilege of being a king?s subject.

The Mansfield judgment opened the first chapter in the heroic struggle for slave emancipation. It was all the more significant in that it gave slaves the status of human beings in England. Steven Wise hails this judgment as a ?landmark that led to the end of human slavery? in his recent well researched book ?Though the Heavens may fall? devoted to the Somerset trial.

Jubilations and cheers greeted this ruling of Lord Mansfield. The black community in London celebrated this event by an intimate gathering and drinking to Mansfield?s health. 200 years later, in 1972, an epitaph in Westmister Hall declared Lord Mansfield the ?brightest ornament of human nature that any age or country has hitherto been able to boast of.?

But the ruling was also misunderstood in 1772 and for many more years. The black population believed slavery was abolished, sending a wave of panic amongst slave owners across the world. Lord Mansfield was careful not to ban slavery all of a sudden because of its severe economic repercussions but had opened the path for abolitionists with the indication that the ?air of England was too pure for slavery to breathe.?

The ?Somerset case? or what was also known as the ?Negro case? became a pet subject for discussions. It kept alive the debates on the abolition of the slave trade. As British public opinion was becoming more sensitive and started viewing slavery as what Lord Mansfield described in his ruling an ?odious? matter, the Prime Minister, William Pitt, introduced a Bill in 1792 abolishing the slave trade. But events surrounding the French revolution; the uneasiness in America where it was thought that Britain could no longer be relied upon in maintaining slavery; at home in England, the king, George III, suffering from mental trouble - these factors delayed the decision of the British parliament to end the slave trade until 1807, now exactly two hundred years ago.

In the meantime, ?Somerset? was used as a reference in a number of Court cases in the American states where slaves? quest for liberty was growing, the Mansfield judgment having ignited the first spark.

Anand MOHEEPUTH