[148] seizure, as he might, or by legal process, the Trial by Jury in a suit at common law, before one of the high courts of the realm, was equally secured. In the case of seizure, the fugitive, reserving the proceedings, might institute process against his master and appeal to a court and jury. In the case of process by the master, the watchful law secured to the fugitive the same protection. By no urgency of force, by no device of process, could any person claimed as a slave be defrauded of this Trial. Such was the common law. If its early boast, that there could be no slaves in England, fails to be true, this at least may be its price, that, according to its indisputable principles, the Liberty of every man was placed under the guard of Trial by Jury.
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