TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
The original text used the character ſ (long-form s); these have beenreplaced 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 transcriberand 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. ]
THE judgment that was given in the caseof Somerset and Knowles, so contraryto the received opinions at that time, and tothe general sense of the nation before, havinglaid the foundation upon which all the variousspeculations that upon this subject have sincebeen raised, and which are at length so magnifiedand enlarged as to become the object ofa Parliamentary Inquiry; it is imagined, thata review of some of the arguments which weremade use of on that occasion may not, in thepresent moment, be thought either impertinentor unseasonable.
It is under this idea then, that the followingConsiderations are again brought forwardto the public notice: and although[iv]their primary object was to fix and ascertainthe ground upon which the Owner claimed aright to his Negroe, and insomuch to developethe subject from the mist and mystery withwhich it was want to be surrounded; yet inthe course of their perusal it will, perhaps, befound, that there are not wanting answers tosome of the most leading and popular objectionsof the day; that there are some observationsand remarks, as new in themselves, as theyhave been and are still unanswered; andwithal, that no part of the performance isof a complexion that can do injury, that maynot produce some good, and of which the author,notwithstanding the distance of timefrom its publication, feels that he has eithercause to be ashamed, or reason to repent.