His solution is to buy the man — whose name is Temeraire — for Claire, who now owns a human person. She informs Jamie that they must free him, but he tells her to wait — they can't release the man in Kingston, or he'll just be captured and sold again. The argument that at least he'll be treated more decently as their slave than as a free man taking his own chances is one that doesn't totally sit right with me — it rings too much of the pre-Civil War arguments used to justify the institution of slavery as a necessary and benevolent one. To her credit, Claire appears to be troubled by this as well. The look on Temeraire's face when he is told that he will be free...but not yet, is almost too much to deal with.