Zong's insurers had applied to the …
Years: 1783 - 1783
May
Zong's insurers had applied to the Earl of Mansfield to have the previous verdict set aside and for the case to be tried again.
A hearing is held at the Court of King's Bench in Westminster Hall from May 21 to 22, 1783, before Mansfield and two other King's Bench judges, Mr Justice Buller and Mr Justice Willes.
The Solicitor General, John Lee, appears on behalf of the Zong's owners, as he had done previously in the Guildhall trial.
Granville Sharp is also in attendance, together with a secretary he had hired to take a written record of the proceedings.
Summing up the verdict reached in the first trial, Mansfield says that the jury,
had no doubt (though it shocks one very much) that the Case of Slaves was the same as if Horses had been thrown over board ... The Question was, whether there was not an Absolute Necessity for throwing them over board to save the rest, [and] the Jury were of opinion there was ... (Walvin, James (2011). The Zong: A Massacre, the Law and the End of Slavery. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.)
Collingwood had died in 1781 and the only witness of the massacre to appear at Westminster Hall is passenger Robert Stubbs, although a written affidavit by first mate James Kelsall is made available to the lawyers.
Stubbs claimed that there was "an absolute Necessity for throwing over the Negroes", because the crew feared all the slaves would die if they did not throw some into the sea.
The insurers argue that Collingwood had made "a Blunder and Mistake" in sailing beyond Jamaica and that the slaves had been killed so their owners could claim compensation.
They allege that Collingwood did this because he did not want his first voyage as a slave ship captain to be unprofitable.
John Lee respondsby saying that the slaves "perished just as a Cargo of Goods perished" and were jettisoned for the greater good of the ship.[
The insurers' legal team replies that Lee's argument can never justify the killing of innocent people; each of the three addresses issues of humanity in the treatment of the slaves and says that the actions of Zong's crew are nothing less than murder.
At the hearing, new evidence is heard, that heavy rain had fallen on the ship on the second day of the killings, but a third batch of slaves was killed after that.
This leads Mansfield to order another trial, because the rainfall meant that the killing of those slaves, after the water shortage had been eased, could not be justified in terms of the greater necessity of saving the ship and the rest of its human cargo.[
One of the justices in attendance also said that this evidence invalidated the findings of the jury in the first trial, as the jury had heard testimony that the water shortage resulted from the poor condition of the ship, brought on by unforeseen maritime conditions, rather than from errors committed by its captain.
Mansfield concludes that the insurers are not liable for losses resulting from errors committed by Zong's crew.
There is no evidence that another trial was held on this issue.
Despite Granville Sharp's efforts, no member of the crew is prosecuted for murder of the slaves, yet the Zong case will eventually gain both national and international attention.
A summary of the appeal on the Zong case will eventually be published in the nominate reports prepared from the contemporaneous manuscript notes of Sylvester Douglas, Baron Glenbervie, and others, in 1831 as Gregson v Gilbert (1783) 3 Doug. KB 232.
A hearing is held at the Court of King's Bench in Westminster Hall from May 21 to 22, 1783, before Mansfield and two other King's Bench judges, Mr Justice Buller and Mr Justice Willes.
The Solicitor General, John Lee, appears on behalf of the Zong's owners, as he had done previously in the Guildhall trial.
Granville Sharp is also in attendance, together with a secretary he had hired to take a written record of the proceedings.
Summing up the verdict reached in the first trial, Mansfield says that the jury,
had no doubt (though it shocks one very much) that the Case of Slaves was the same as if Horses had been thrown over board ... The Question was, whether there was not an Absolute Necessity for throwing them over board to save the rest, [and] the Jury were of opinion there was ... (Walvin, James (2011). The Zong: A Massacre, the Law and the End of Slavery. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.)
Collingwood had died in 1781 and the only witness of the massacre to appear at Westminster Hall is passenger Robert Stubbs, although a written affidavit by first mate James Kelsall is made available to the lawyers.
Stubbs claimed that there was "an absolute Necessity for throwing over the Negroes", because the crew feared all the slaves would die if they did not throw some into the sea.
The insurers argue that Collingwood had made "a Blunder and Mistake" in sailing beyond Jamaica and that the slaves had been killed so their owners could claim compensation.
They allege that Collingwood did this because he did not want his first voyage as a slave ship captain to be unprofitable.
John Lee respondsby saying that the slaves "perished just as a Cargo of Goods perished" and were jettisoned for the greater good of the ship.[
The insurers' legal team replies that Lee's argument can never justify the killing of innocent people; each of the three addresses issues of humanity in the treatment of the slaves and says that the actions of Zong's crew are nothing less than murder.
At the hearing, new evidence is heard, that heavy rain had fallen on the ship on the second day of the killings, but a third batch of slaves was killed after that.
This leads Mansfield to order another trial, because the rainfall meant that the killing of those slaves, after the water shortage had been eased, could not be justified in terms of the greater necessity of saving the ship and the rest of its human cargo.[
One of the justices in attendance also said that this evidence invalidated the findings of the jury in the first trial, as the jury had heard testimony that the water shortage resulted from the poor condition of the ship, brought on by unforeseen maritime conditions, rather than from errors committed by its captain.
Mansfield concludes that the insurers are not liable for losses resulting from errors committed by Zong's crew.
There is no evidence that another trial was held on this issue.
Despite Granville Sharp's efforts, no member of the crew is prosecuted for murder of the slaves, yet the Zong case will eventually gain both national and international attention.
A summary of the appeal on the Zong case will eventually be published in the nominate reports prepared from the contemporaneous manuscript notes of Sylvester Douglas, Baron Glenbervie, and others, in 1831 as Gregson v Gilbert (1783) 3 Doug. KB 232.
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Years: 1783 - 1783
May
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