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Here then, my Lord, without farther difquifition, I might venture to reft the defence of Mr. Steuart, and therein the law of the cafe itself. The reasoning, perhaps, may be faid to be new, and it is opinion only of my own that supports the doctrine: but, I truft, that, upon examination, it will be found to be not therefore the lefs conclufive. However, as I am upon the fubject, it may not be amifs that I should pursue it fomewhat farther; and, by extending the chain of enquiry, ftrengthen and enforce the arguments that have been already offered and applied. It was faid, by one of the plaintiff's counsel, that municipal laws were binding only in the ftate wherein they were made; that, as foon as a member of that ftate was out of it, they ceased to have their influence on him; and the laws of nature of course fucceeded to him. As a general propofition, my Lord, this might have had its admillion; but even as fuch, it is not without its exception. I think I have the moft

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claffical authority of the law to fay other wife. For instance, allegiance, which is the duty that every fubject owes to the fovereign, or fovereignty, of that particular state to which he belongs, is a municipal law; and yet, neither time, place, nor circumftance, can alter, forfeit, or cancel, the obligation. An Englishman (fays Judge Blackstone [], who removes toFrance or to China, owes the fame allegiance to the King of England there as at home; and twenty years hence as well as now. But, my Lord, with regard to the particular application of this propofition, when the gentleman endeavoured to make a distinction between the laws of the colonies and the laws of England, in my apprehenfion he was extremely mistaken. I fancy the relationship and dependency of the children colonies on their mother country did not occur to his mind. The circumstance of their having internal laws of their own, by no means argues a difference in

[f] Vide Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. i. p. 369. those

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thofe laws, independent of the laws of England. As well might it be faid, that the laws of England are not the laws of the county of Kent, because by the custom of gavelkind they differ from the general laws in the difpofition of estates; and fo of Borough-English, and wherever in this kingdom particular customs are to be found or met with. But, my Lord, it is not only a first and leading principle of legislation in the colonies, arifing out of their original grants and charters, and enforced by the royal inftructions given to commanders in chief there; but it is also enacted by the ftatute of the 7th and 8th of William III. ch. 22. "that no law, ufage, or custom, shall be made or received in the plantations, repugnant to the laws of England :" fo that, by these restrictions, the very leges loci (wherein, from fituation, from climate, and from other circumftances, one might naturally suppose some difference) are forced as much as may be to a conformity with the constitution and laws of this country;

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and to prevent even the accident of a contrary occurrence, your Lordship knows, that there is a counsellour appointed to the board of trade here, whofe efpecial business it is, to examine all the colony acts, and thereupon to make his report, if neceffary, antecedent to the royal confirmation of them. If property, therefore, in Negroes, was repugnant to the law of England, it could not be the law of America: for (befides the reafons already affigned) by the fame ftatute wherever this repugnancy is, there the law is ipfo facto null and void. But, my Lord, I will further endeavour to · elucidate this matter, by begging a question or two, by way of cafe in point. Let it be admitted, my Lord, that a colony of English had embarked from hence, in order to establish fettlements for themfelves in fome one of the late ceded islands in the West Indies, and that they were arrived, it may be faid, in the island, where English troops, trampling on the laws of God and man, are slaughtering

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even to extirpation a guiltless race of Caribs, the aborigines of the country. I mean the island of St. Vincent, an island under the tutelage of a Saint too! Suppose then, that, upon their arrival there, the Legiflature of that country had taken it into their heads to pass an act fimilar to the 25th of Geo. II. ch. 40. already referred to, thereby vesting these people as property, in certain owners allotted to them: Ifhould be glad to know, my Lord, whether this act could poffibly have operated as a law, and whether it was not, ea inftanti, upon its being enacted, deftitute and void of all force, validity, and effect? Your Lordfhip's answer doubtless would be, that this act must have been its own executioner, that it was felo de fe. Why then, my Lord, does not the principle directive of this conclusion on the cafe of the colony of English, determine likewife on the cafe of the Negroes? If an act of an American plantation making property of a colony of English there, is nullified ab initio from its

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