The following extract is from page 39 of the Transactions National Asso. Prom. S. Science:—
“At our first meeting in 1857, the subject of Judicial Statistics was brought under consideration, in one of the able and useful papers read by Mr. L. Levi, and in consequence of the discussion which took place, very considerable improvements were introduced into that department of the treasury, so that, at our last Congress, hopes were entertained of such complete and regular information being afforded, as the Annual Report of the Minister of Justice presents in France. A most important step has since been made in that direction. The meeting of the International Statistical Congress has been held under the presidency of the prince consort, whose opening address, marked by the sound sense, the accurate information, and the general ability which distinguish all his royal highness’s exertions, is in the hands of all our members. Having been requested to superintend the judicial department, and having afterwards, in his royal highness’s absence, presided at the general meeting, it was a great satisfaction to find the unanimous adoption of the plan which it became my duty to report, embodying the resolutions in full detail upon the whole subject; and there was a strong recommendation unanimously passed, urging the government to appoint a permanent statistical commission. The report has been presented to the House of Lords (where, indeed, I had several years before brought forward the resolutions which formed its groundwork this year), and is now among the printed papers of the session. There were naturally present at this International Congress eminent men from various parts of the Continent; and in announcing the assembly of the present meeting, I took the liberty of inviting those distinguished foreigners, with whose presence I trust we are now honored. Among others was a negro gentleman of great respectability and talents, Dr. Delany, who had attended different departments, and in his able addresses has communicated useful information and suggestions. When inviting him to this Congress, I informed him that he would have the satisfaction of visiting the country which first declared a slave free the instant he touches British ground. Dr. Delany’s forefathers were African slaves; he is himself a native of Canada.[6] It is truly painful to reflect that, although his family have been free for generations, his origin being traced to one whom the crimes of white men and Christians had enslaved, he would be, in the land of trans-Atlantic liberty, incapable of enjoying any civil rights whatever, and would be treated in all respects as an alien, the iniquity of the fathers being inexorably visited, not upon their children, but upon the children of their victims, to all generations,—children whose only offence is the sufferings of their parents, whose wrongs they inherit with their hue.”
“Note.—It was stated to Dr. Delany that he would be in the country which first pronounced the great decree of a slave’s fetters falling off the moment he touched British ground. This was first decided by the courts of Scotland, in the case of Knight, a negro, 1778. In Somerset’s case, 1772, the courts of England had not laid down the rule generally, but only that a negro could not be carried out of the country by his master. In the Scotch case, the printed argument was prepared by Mr. McLaurin (afterwards Lord Cleghorn, son of the celebrated mathematician), and the appropriate motto which he prefixed to his paper was:—
“‘Quamvis ille niger, quamvis tu candidus esses.’” Ibid. p. 53.
A most remarkable feature noticed in the position of the learned lord, in relation to Major Delany, was the occasion which he took to proclaim to him—a black man, and for the first time before such a distinguished audience—that important historic fact in legal jurisprudence, as found in note above, that it was in Scotland in 1722, the great declaration was made by Lord Cleghorn, that the moment a slave touched British soil, he stood a freeman “by the irresistible genius of universal emancipation.”
It is also worthy of record that so many long years should elapse, and he be made the first to receive the great decision from history correctly given by no less personage than the ex-high lord chancellor of England.