On other occasions, of purely commercial character, his judgments are more learned and elaborate, besides being reported with more completeness and care; but no judgment of equal significance ever fell from the great Oracle. From various sources I have sought its precise import.[158] It is remarkable for several rules, which it clearly enunciates, and which, though often assaulted, still stand as reason and as law. Of these, the first is expressed in these simple words: "If the parties will have judgment, _fiat justitia, ruat coelum_: let justice be done, whatever be the consequence." The Latin phrase which here plays such a prominent part, though of classical stamp, cannot be traced to any classical origin, and it has even been asserted that it was freshly coined by Lord Mansfield on this occasion, worthy of such commanding truth in such commanding phrase. But it is of older date, and from another mint,--though it is not too much to say, that it took its currency and authority from him. Coming from such a conservative magistrate, it is of peculiar importance. With little expansion, it says openly: To every man his natural rights; justice to all, without distinction of person, without abridgment, and without compromise. Let justice be done, though it drags down the pillars of the sky. Thus spoke the Chief Justice of England.[159] [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.