When they were seized they usually sent to these, if they had an opportunity, for their protection.

And in the result, their godfathers, maintaining that they had been baptized, and that they were free on this account as well as by the general tenour of the law of England, dared those who had taken possession of them to send them out of the kingdom.
The planters, merchants, and others, being thus circumstanced, knew not what to do.

They were afraid of taking their slaves away by force, and they were equally afraid of bringing any of the cases before a public court.

In this dilemma, in 1729, they applied to York and Talbot, the attorney and solicitor-general for the time being, and obtained the following strange opinion from them:--"We are of opinion, that a slave by coming from the West Indies into Great Britain or Ireland, either with or without his master, does not become free, and that his master's right and property in him is not thereby determined or varied, and that baptism doth not bestow freedom on him, nor make any alteration in his temporal condition in these kingdoms.

We are also of opinion, that the master may legally compel him to return again to the plantations." This cruel and illegal opinion was delivered in the year 1729.