[2][3] However, in Chamberlain v Harvey (1697) 1 Ld Raym 146 and in Smith v Gould (1705–07) 2 Salk 666 Lord Holt rejected this approach, but suggested on a wider basis that slaves were not chattels capable of supporting a legal property claim.
[6] Curiously, the opinion made no reference either to the abolition of trade in serfs of 1102 by the Council of Westminster,[c] or to the decision in In the matter of Cartwright, 11 Elizabeth; 2 Rushworth's Coll 468 (1569), a case often cited as authority for the statement "that England has too pure an air for a slave to breathe in.
Yorke subsequently endorsed the views expressed in the opinion (although not expressly referring to it) whilst sitting in his judicial capacity as Lord Chancellor in Pearne v Lisle (1749) Amb 75, 27 ER 47.
Yet mindful of Hardwicke's holding in Pearne v Lisle that English law would apply throughout the British Empire, and conscious of the economic ruin which the sudden abolition of slavery would cause in the colonies, Mansfield limited his ruling territorially.
[7] A transcript of the document is as follows: Nr Moot Case 100 – In order to rectify a Mistake that Slaves become ffree by their being in England or Ireland or being Baptised, it hath been thot proper to consult the Kings Atty & Sollt Gen & whose opin’s were as follows We are of Opinion that a Slave coming from the West Indies To GB or Ireland, with or without his Master, doth not become free; And that his Mars property or Right in him is not thereby determined or varied; And that Baptism doth not bestow ffreedom upon him, or make any Alteration in his Temporal Condn in these Kingdoms We are also of Opin that his Mar may legally compel him to return agn to yeplantations.