[154] Memoirs, p. 57.
[155] The Fox, Act IV. sc. 2.
[156] A private letter from the claimant to James Murray, Esq., of Boston, dated London, June 15, 1772, carries us back to the times, and even to the court-room. "I am told," writes the claimant, "that some young counsel flourished away on the side of liberty, and acquired great honor. Dunning was dull and languid, and would have made a much better figure on that side also." Of course he would. After speaking of the "load of abuse thrown on L—d M——, for hesitating to pronounce judgment in favor of freedom," the claimant says, "Dunning has come in also for a pretty good share for taking the wrong side." (Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings for 1863-64, pp. 323, 324.) Abolitionists had begun to be critical.
[157] Howell's State Trials, XX. 71-76.
[158] It is strange that there should be no single satisfactory report of this memorable judgment. That usually quoted from Howell's State Trials, Vol. XX. coll. 80-82, was copied from Lofft, a reporter generally avoided as authority. There is another report in Hoare's Memoirs of Sharp, pp. 89-91; also another in Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices, Vol. II. p. 419; and still another, and in some respects the best, in the Appendix (No. 8) to a tract published by Sharp in 1776, entitled "The Just Limitation of Slavery in the Laws of God, compared with the Unbounded Claims of the African Traders and British American Slaveholders." It is considered and quoted in other contemporary tracts.
[159] A British writer, giving an account of the Somerset case, says of this maxim, that "it has found its way into use as a classical expression, and, as no one has been able to find it in any Latin author, it is supposed to have been of Lord Mansfield's own coining." (Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, July 31, 1852, N.S. Vol. XVIII. p. 71: Slaves in Britain.) This is a mistake. The precise phrase will be found in Ward's "Simple Cobler of Aggawamm in America," written in 1615, and first printed in 1647,—"It is lesse to say, Statuatur veritas, ruat Regnum, than Fiat justitia, ruat Cœlum" (p. 14); but its origin, in substance, if not in form, is earlier. There is little doubt that it does not occur in any Latin author. Its Latinity is good, and might belong to the classical period. The latter clause, ruat cœlum, has classical authority, as in the passage of Terence, showing that it was a common saying in his time, "Quid si redeo ad illos qui aiunt, Quid si nunc cœlum ruat?" (Heauton., Act. IV. sc. 3.) The idea is also Roman. On the European continent, and especially in Germany, the maxim has another form, which is common,—Fiat justitia, pereat mundus. Binder, in his Novus Thesaurus Adagiorum Latinorum, (Stuttgart, 1861,) cites it in this form as Regula Juris, explained as "a designation for the maxims, taken from the Corpus Juris and the works of the different ancient civilians, which have become proverbial." In the same authority is the hexameter verse, Fiat justitia, pereat licet integer orbis, from Johannis Leibi Studentica (Coburg, 1627). In England the maxim was current in other forms. As early as February 26, 1624-5, in a letter to the English ambassador at Holland, alluding to "the business of Amboyne," we meet Fiat justitia et ruat mundus. (Birch's Court and Times of James I., Vol. II. p. 500.) In a speech in the House of Commons, December 22, 1640, against the judges who pronounced in favor of ship-money, an orator says: "If ever any nation might justifiably, we certainly may now, now most properly, most seasonably, cry out, and cry aloud, Vel sacra regnet justitia vel ruat cœlum." And he concludes with a motion, "That a special committee may be appointed to examine the whole carriage of that extrajudicial judgment, ... and, upon report thereof, to draw up a charge against the guilty; and then Lex currat, fiat justitia. (Parl. Hist., 2d ed., London, 1763, Vol. IX. p. 192.) In the answer of the Duke of Richmond (January 31, 1641-2) to the charge of the Commons, it is said: "Magna est veritas et prevalebit. I wish it may do so in what concerns me. Regnet justitia et ruat cœlum." (Parl. Hist., Vol. X. p. 254. Also, Howell's State Trials, Vol. IV. col. 116.) The first clause of the maxim is an old law phrase, found in Law Dictionaries, and often repeated. A letter, dated London, May 4, 1621, relating the fine and degradation of Lord Bacon, concludes, Fiat justitia. (Birch's James I., Vol. II. p. 252.) Charles I., in a letter to the Lords, dated May 11, 1641, interceding for Strafford, said: "But if no less than his life can satisfy my people, I must say, Fiat justitia." (Parl. Hist. Vol. IX. p. 316. Howell's State Trials, Vol. III. col. 1520.) If not classical in authority, the maxim is not without interest from association with great events of English history, while it is a perpetual injunction to justice. Shakespeare gives expression to similar truth, when he says, "Be just and fear not."
[160] Defence of Archibald Hamilton Rowan, January 29, 1794: Speeches, ed. Davis, (London, 1847,) p. 182.
It was this triumph which lifted Brougham, in our own day, to one of those vivid utterances by which truth is flashed upon unwilling souls.
[161] Speech on Negro Slavery, July 13, 1830: Works, Vol. X. p. 216.
[162] Memoirs, p. 169.