This manuscript essay describes the legal history of slavery in England, focusing especially on the precedents for and limitations of the 1772 Somerset vs. Stewart decision.

James Patriot Wilson (1769-1830) was a Delaware lawyer and Presbyterian minister. The James Patriot Wilson docket book, also known as Wilson's Red Book, is a small, red leather notebook of approximately 430 handwritten pages recording Delaware court cases from 1792 to 1801, argued before the Court of Common Pleas, Court of Quarter Sessions, Delaware Supreme Court, Court of Oyer and Terminer, Court of Chancery, and the High Court of Errors and Appeals.