TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
The original text used the character ſ (long-form s); these have been replaced by the normal s in this etext.
Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been placed at the end of the book.
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
Some minor changes to the text are noted at the [end of the book.] These are indicated by a dashed blue underline.
CONSIDERATIONS
ON THE
NEGROE CAUSE
COMMONLY SO CALLED,
ADDRESSED TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
LORD MANSFIELD,
Lord Chief Justice of the Court of
King’s Bench, &c.
By SAMUEL ESTWICK, A. M. LL.D.
Member of Parliament for the Borough of Westbury.
THE THIRD EDITION.
LONDON:
Printed for J. DODSLEY, in Pall-Mall.
M.DCC.LXXXVIII.
[ Price 2s. ]
ADVERTISEMENT
TO THE
READER.
THE judgment that was given in the case of Somerset and Knowles, so contrary to the received opinions at that time, and to the general sense of the nation before, having laid the foundation upon which all the various speculations that upon this subject have since been raised, and which are at length so magnified and enlarged as to become the object of a Parliamentary Inquiry; it is imagined, that a review of some of the arguments which were made use of on that occasion may not, in the present moment, be thought either impertinent or unseasonable.
It is under this idea then, that the following Considerations are again brought forward to the public notice: and although their primary object was to fix and ascertain the ground upon which the Owner claimed a right to his Negroe, and insomuch to develope the subject from the mist and mystery with which it was want to be surrounded; yet in the course of their perusal it will, perhaps, be found, that there are not wanting answers to some of the most leading and popular objections of the day; that there are some observations and remarks, as new in themselves, as they have been and are still unanswered; and withal, that no part of the performance is of a complexion that can do injury, that may not produce some good, and of which the author, notwithstanding the distance of time from its publication, feels that he has either cause to be ashamed, or reason to repent.