law trusts we ought not to distrust." "The Acts of Parliament contain no express words to take away so high a prerogative; and the King's prerogative, even in lesser matters, is always saved, where express words do not restrain it."[71] [Footnote 70: Whitelocke, Memor. 25.] [Footnote 71: 2 Hallam, 16.] It required six months of judicial labor to bring forth this result, which was of "infinite disservice to the crown." Thereupon Mr. Hallam says:-- "Those who had trusted to the faith of the judges were undeceived by the honest repentance of some, and looked with indignation on so prostituted a crew. That respect for courts of justice which the happy structure of our Judicial administration has in general kept inviolate, was exchanged for distrust, contempt, and a desire of vengeance. They heard the speeches of some of the Judges with more displeasure than even their final decision. Ship-money was held lawful by Finch and several other Judges, not on the authority of precedents which must in their nature have some bounds, but on principles subversive of every property or privilege in the subject. Those paramount rights of monarchy, to which they appealed to-day in justification of Ship-money, might to-morrow serve to supersede other laws, and maintain more exertions of despotic power. It was manifest by the whole strain of the court lawyers that no limitations on the King's authority could exist but by the King's sufferance. This alarming tenet, long bruited among the churchmen and courtiers, now resounded in the halls of justice."[72] [Footnote 72: 2 Hallam, 18.] Thus by the purchased vote of a corrupt Judiciary all the laws of Parliament, all the customs of the Anglo-Saxon tribe, Magna Charta itself with its noble attendant charters, were at once swept away, and all the property of the kingdom put into the hands of the enemy of the People. These four decisions would make the King of England as absolute as the Sultan of Turkey, or the Russian Czar. If the opinion of the Judges in the case of Impositions and Ship-money were accepted in law,--then all the Property of the People was the King's; if the courts were correct in their judgments giving the King the power by his mere will to imprison any subject, during pleasure, and also to do the same even with members of Parliament and punish them for debates in the House of Commons, then all liberty was at an end, and the King's Prerogative extended over all acts of Parliament, all property, all persons.