gment. I
am bound in duty to maintain those arguments which are most useful to
Captain Knowles, as far as is consistent with truth; and if his
conduct has been agreeable to the laws throughout, I am under a
further indispensable duty to support it.'

Much reference was made to the ancient laws of villenage, or
semi-slavery, in Britain. Mr Dunning maintained, that these were
testimony that a slave was not an utter anomaly in the country. The
class of villeins had disappeared, and the law regarding them was
abolished in the reign of Charles II. But he maintained, that there
was nothing in that circumstance to prohibit others from establishing
a claim upon separate grounds. He said: 'If the statute of Charles II.
ever be repealed, the law of villenage revives in its full force.' It
was stated that there were in Britain 15,000 negroes in the same
position with Somerset. They had come over as domestics during the
temporary sojourn of their owner-masters, intending to go back again.
Then it was observed, that many of the slaves were in ships or in
colonies which had not special laws for the support of slavery; and by
the disfranchisement of these, British subjects would lose many
millions' worth of property, which they believed themselves justly to
possess.

British justice, however, has held at all times the question of human
liberty to be superior to considerations of mere expediency. If the
question be, who gains or loses most, there never can be a doubt that
the man whose freedom has been reft from him has the greatest of all
claims for indulgence. Accordingly, Lord Mansfield, the presiding
judge, looking in the face all the threatened evils to property, held
that nothing but absolute law could trench on personal freedom. He
used on the occasion a Latin expression, to the effect that justice
must be done at whatever cost; 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. 'Mr Stewart,' he said, 'advances no claims on contract; he
rests his whole demand on a right to the negro as slave, and mentions
the purpose of detainure of him to be the sending him over to be sold
in Jamaica. If the parties will have judgment, _fiat justitia ruat
coelum_--Let justice be done whatever be the consequence.' In finally
delivering judgment, he concluded in these simple but expressive
terms: 'The state of slavery