Black and British: A Forgotten History, from the acclaimed historian and star of 'Celebrity Traitors'

by David Olusoga

In 1729 a group of ‘many merchants and British Planters’ petitioned the Attorney-General, Sir Philip Yorke, and the Solicitor-General, Charles Talbot – both of them future Lord Chancellors – for an opinion. The two lawmakers were received at a dinner in Lincoln’s Inn after which they delivered to the gathered planters their learned opinion on the legality of slavery in Britain. The Yorke–Talbot opinion gave the planters everything they wanted. It stated that ‘a slave coming from the West-Indies to Great-Britain or Ireland, with or without his master, doth not become free, and that his master’s property or right in him’ remained unchanged. They also opined that for a slave in Britain, ‘baptism doth not bestow freedom on him, or make any alteration in his temporal condition in these kingdoms.’ Just as importantly Yorke and Talbot stated, ‘We are also of opinion, that his master may legally compel him to return again to the plantations.’15 This after-dinner opinion appeared to put slavery on a far stronger legal footing. But within two decades two other cases – those of Galway v. Cadee in 1750 and Shanley v. Harvey in 1762 – appeared to confirm Holt’s earlier judgements, that a slave became free upon setting foot on English soil. This was the maze of case law, precedent, contradiction and vested interest into which Granville Sharp suddenly found himself thrust in 1765.