The decision (this link takes you to the handwritten original) set the Africans free. The court determined
Sengbe and his compatriots had been kidnaped from their homeland. Their rights had been violated. Justice Story’s opinion was based on the "eternal principles of justice."
One additional holding prevented a complete victory. No American statute required the United States to return the captives to their homeland. Private money would have to be raised to pay for return passage. In the meantime, the newly freed prisoners
lived in Farmington, Connecticut.
Sengbe helped to raise the needed transport fees. He wrote a letter on October 5, 1841:
...They say we are like dogs without any home. But if you will send us home you will see whether we be dogs or not. We want to see no more snow. We no say this place no good, but we afraid of cold. Cold catch us all the time...We want to go very soon, and go to no place but Sierra Leone.