SECTION II., 1902 [ 49 ] Trans. KR. $. C. 
IL—The Underground Railway. 
W. H. Wirnrow, M.A., D.D. war 
(Read May 27, 1902.) 
It is gratifying to Canadian patriotism to know that among the 
very first laws enacted by the newly organized province of Upper 
Canada was one for the abolition of slavery. In the year 1793 the 
conscript fathers of the new commonwealth, homespun clad farmers 
or merchants from the plough or store, with a large vision of the 
future, passed an act which forbade the further introduction of slaves 
and made provision for the gradual emancipation of all slave born 
children in the province. Dr. Scadding thus describes the picturesque 
surroundings of the scene: 
“We see them adjourning to the open air from their straightened 
chamber at Navy Hall, and conducting the business of the young 
province under the shade of a spreading tree, introducing the English 
Code and Trial by Jury, decreeing roads, and prohibiting the spread 
of slavery; while a boulder of the drift, lifting itself up through the 
natural turf, serves as a desk for the recording clerk.” 1 
From that time onward till the abolition of Slavery? in the 
American Republic, a period of nearly a hundred years, Canada was 
* Previous to this date, however, Lord Mansfield had declared, in 1772, 
“Villeinage has ceased in England, and it cannot be revived. The air of 
England,” he said, “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, whatever oppression he may heretofore have suf- 
fered, and whatever may be the colour of his skin: Quamvis ille niger, quam- 
vis tu candidus esses,” 
Cowper, the British poet of the slave, translated this dictum into verse 
that thrilled the age:— 
“Slaves cannot breathe in England: if their lungs 
Receive our air, that moment they are free ; 
They touch our country and their shackles fall.” 
Still earlier, in the very opening years of the eighteenth century, Chief 
Justice Holt had affirmed that ‘as soon as a negro comes into England he is 
free ; one may be a villein in England, but not a slave ” ; and later: “ In 
England there is no such thing as a slave, and a human being never was 
considered a chattel to be sold for a price.” 
? On September 22nd, 1862, President Lincoln announced that on the first 
day of January, 1863, “all persons held as slaves within any state 
Sec. II., 1902. 4, 
or desig- 
