58	SLAVERY & ABOLITION

been brought into England. See Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution,
p.488. Davis claims that Somerset's lawyers weakened their case by declaring slavery legal
in America.

38. Harris and McHenry, pp.298-9; Wiecek, Sources, pp.38-9.

39. Ridgely dates its demise to 1574, but villeinage probably lasted until the early seventeenth
century. As late as 1697, Lord Holt ruled in the case of Chamberline v. Harvey that the exis-
tence of villeinage demonstrated that slavery had been accepted by the common laws of
England. See Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, pp.482-3; Nadelhaft,
p. 199; and Harris and McHenry, p.301.

40. In the end the court agreed with Ridgely. Chase ruled, 'The laws relating to villeins do not
respect this case, nor can they have any influence in deciding it'. Martin, however, protested
that 'slavery did and can exist in England. A negro in America is in the same state that a
villein in gross was in England, subject to the will of his master, labouring under every inca-
pacity as to the rights of property, and liable at any and every moment to be sold'. Harris
and McHenry, pp.298-302, 313.

41. Ibid., p.296; See also Wiecek, Sources, pp.41-2.

42. Cover's discussion of Mahoney v. Ashton is brief and seriously flawed. For example, he
inaccurately refers to Mahoney as 'a woman'. See Cover, pp.17, 88-9.

43. Montesquieu's work was well-known to Maryland lawyers. Jennings briefly makes refer-
ence to him, but at no point are any of his fiery denunciations of slavery discussed. This is
all the more striking in light of the fact that, as David Brion Davis writes, 'Montesquieu's
logic demolished all the classical justifications for slavery and thus weakened appeals to tra-
dition'. See Davis The Problem of Slavery in the Age ofRevolution, p.493; Cover, pp. 13-14;
and Harris and McHenry, pp.299-300. For an excellent summary of Montesquieu's views
toward slavery see Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (New York, 1988
[1966]), pp.402-10.

44. Thomas Rutherforth (1712-71), Institutes of Natural Law, Being the Substance of a Course
of Lectures on Gmtius De Jure Belli et Pads (London, 1754-6). This work was later reprint-
ed in Baltimore in 1832. See Cover, pp.8-12, 270. For Ridgely's arguments, see Harris and
McHenry, p.296.

45. According to Robertson (1721-93), the philosophes foolishly erected 'systems when they
should have been searching for facts'. See R. A. Humphreys, William Robertson and His
"History of America" (London, 1954), p.20; J. Patterson, Kay's Edinburgh Portraits
(London, 1855); Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture, p.!69n; Tzvetan
Todorov, The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other (New York, 1984),
pp.151-77; and Harris and McHenry, p.300.

46. In this respect, Robertson's views were similar to those of David Hume, who was also cited
by Jennings. See Cover, pp.22-4; Humphreys, p.21. Robertson criticized the notion of a
'Black Legend'.

47. Harris and McHenry, pp.300-2; Wiecek, The Sources, pp.38-9.

48. Somerset had been denied back wages. See Drescher, pp.38, 41; Harris and McHenry,
pp.295-6, 304; and 'Verdict', Judgments, pp.65-9. It is interesting to note that during the
eighteenth century over 200 slaves successfully won their freedom in French courts. There,
as well as in England, judges occasionally held that 'any slave who sets foot on French soil
is free'. No evidence exists, however, that Maryland lawyers were aware of these prece-
dents. See Sue Peabody, '"There Are No Slaves in France": Law, Culture, and Society in
Early Modern France, 1685-1789', (Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Iowa,
1993).

49. The Court of Appeals ruled that the special verdict from the first trial should not have been
entered as evidence in the second. It did affirm, however, the General Court's decision to
admit hearsay evidence. Harris and McHenry, pp.305-11.

50. In doing so, the Maryland Court of Appeals anticipated the 'reattachment' principle advo-
cated by Lord Stowell in the case of Rex v. Alien (1827). See Wiecek, The Sources, pp.36-7.
As Charles Carroll of Carrollton wrote in a letter to Robert Goodloe Harper, the court's deci-
sion meant that 'slavery was only suspended during the residence of the Ancestor in England