"The air of England has long been too pure for a slave, and every man is free who breathes it.

Every man who comes into England is entitled to the protection of English law."[159] But this freedom was as yet held to be only co-extensive with these islands.

And for sixty years more our West India Islands continued to be cultivated by the labor of slaves, some of whom were the offspring of slaves previously employed, though by far the greater part were imported yearly from the western coast of Africa.

The supply from that country seemed inexhaustible.

The native chiefs in time of war gladly sold their prisoners to the captains of British vessels; in time of peace they sold them their own subjects; and, if at any time these modes of obtaining slaves slackened, the captains would land at night, and, attacking the villages on the coast sweep off the inhabitants on board their ships, and at once set sail with their booty.