Freedom's In The Air

‘Let Justice be done, though the heavens may fall’… Now the overnight, merciful dew has fallen on the hottest July day on record, (why does it give us some sorta touch of personal pride?) and on my rant of yesterday about a Britain of whose recent past I’m more than a little ashamed in my rather downplayed English way... then the wickedly and useful perverse mind turns to what’s good; and in Saint Augustine’s succinct words, I exist; I know that I exist; and I am happy to know that I exist.. It’s hot again today; in London here a good place to be is hign above London on Hampstead Heath with its fresher, cooler air, its natural bathing ponds and view of City and St Paul’s down there; presided over by Kenwood House; filled with the shade of William Murray, 1st Lord Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice, who in 1772, presided over the case where James Somerset, slave, shackled in a slave ship moored off Bristol on his way to America, sued his 'master', Mr. Stewart of Virginia (the English colony, you’ll note) : ‘Let the slave go free’ His Lordship finally declared – adding the comment with which I began… and eventually, the heavens fell.. Or perhaps, the earth rose up to meet them… and generations of proud British and other students of the law have learned those words about our common law which His Lordship would perhaps have said, but didn’t actually: ‘The air of England is too pure for a slave to breathe, and so, everyone who breathes it, becomes free…’ Yes, this sweltering hot day, the air of Hampstead Heath feels fresher, cooler; in the nostrils, filling the chest, smells so good.