Somerset v Stewart

22 June 1772, Court of King's Bench

On 22 June 1772, in the Court of King's Bench, Lord Mansfield delivered judgment on the return to a writ of habeas corpus concerning Captain John Knowles's detention of James Somerset aboard the Ann and Mary.

Somerset's godparents had obtained the writ after Charles Steuart had him seized following an escape and confined on a Jamaica-bound ship. The litigation was formally against the captain holding him, not against Steuart.

A narrow question, narrowly answered

Mansfield framed the immediate question narrowly: whether the stated reason for detaining Somerset so that he could be sold abroad was legally sufficient.

He held that such an exercise of a master's power required positive law, said he could not find that this detention was allowed by English law, and ordered Somerset discharged. He had repeatedly tried to avoid giving judgment at all, including by urging Steuart to free Somerset or permit a private settlement.

What it stopped, and how it was read

The judgment prevented Steuart and Knowles from forcibly transporting Somerset out of England for sale in Jamaica. It did not expressly abolish every form of slavery or compelled service in England.

Five days later a newspaper reported that nearly 200 Black people celebrated at a Westminster public house with toasts and a ball. Five advocates had appeared for Somerset: William Davy, John Glynn, Francis Hargrave, James Mansfield and John Alleyne.

The last known evidence of Somerset is a letter indicating that, eighteen days after the ruling, he was telling another enslaved man that Mansfield had given them freedom.