[GarthB]

Originally posted by Jerry
Garth,
My sources tell me that the slave trade in Great Britain was outlawed in 1807; but slavery itself wasn't abolished there until 1833. There was quite the influx of slaves to Canada, Australia and the United States up to the mid-nineteenth century; some legal; many illegal.

I'm not sure where Newton fit into all of that.

I'm also not sure when he wrote the music for the Star Spangled Banner or the Canadian National Anthem; but it must have been during that time.

Jerry

1. Slavery was ruled illegal in Great Britain by its highest court On February 17th, 1772. Your sources may be referencing a subsequent act by parliament.

"The King's Bench, Britain's highest court, accepted the case on February 17, 1772. Lord Mansfield himself had been appointed chief justice to that court. Hence, he found himself in the odd position of deciding an appeal of his own prior ruling. On Monday, June 22, 1772, King's Bench Chief Justice, Judge William Murray, first Earl of Mansfield, and former speaker of the House of Lords (at left), overturned his own ruling, the one that he had made on that fateful Christmas day, six months before almost to the day. He was asked to write the final decision of the appeals court. He reasoned that slavery was so odious and unnatural that nothing but positive law could support it. No such law being found to exist, Mansfield concluded that there was no legal backing for slavery in England. Furthermore, he judged that English civil rights applied to all, and so no Black person could be removed from England against their wishes. He wrote the following words into British common law -- words that have been memorized by British schoolchildren ever since. "The air of England is too pure for a slave to breathe, and so everyone who breathes it becomes free. Everyone who comes to this island is entitled to the protection of English law, whatever oppression he may have suffered and whatever may be the colour of his skin."

2. You are confused. Newton had nothing to do with the National Anthem. The tune was by John Stafford Smith, words, of course, by Francis Scott Key.