date

13 Apr. 1805 Evidence Securities
13 Apr. 1805

Evidence

Securities

Ch. Procedure Tech. Engl. Law

'. Oppression licenced

Whether the Declaration (the result /produce/ of the sham appearance substituted to the real one) be in respect of the facts /matter of fact/ alledged by it be true or false, the sequel is equally secured /sure/ viz. the obligation on the part of the defendant to go on with the cause, or take upon /submitt to/ him the burthen due or undue which it is the object of the demand to impose upon him. Be the demand therefore ever so compleatly unfounded either in law or in fact, and on the part of the plaintiff himself ever so fully understood to be so, if on the part of the defendant is either unable or unwilling to oppose it - /there be a want[?] either of the ability of the inclination necessary to go on with the suit - (to carry it on to the period at which the Judge for the first time takes real cognizance /permitts a syllable to be said to him on the subject/ of it the effect of the demand is alike /equally/ secured. But a certain portion /part/ of the people /to persons in a certain condition in life/ as in a condition which deprives them altogether /compleatly/ of the ability /possibility/ of carrying on a cause to this period: is compleatly wanting and in this condition are /is/ the vast majority of the people.

In this condition there are the vast majority of the people placed by the mere substitution of the technical system to the natural - of the technical system in its least oppressive form, and without the addition made to the yoke, as will be seen presently, by the instance /head/ of special pleading. A sure mode /method/ /[...?]/ of oppression, instituted by authority, and at the price /at so easy a price as that/ of a lie, and that exempted not only from punishment but from shame, + the faculty of exercising[?] the opposition put into the hands of every man who is at the same time rich enough and unscrupulous enough to practice it.

+ for the declaration is the joint and regular act of the Attorney and the Special Pleader, nor is it are looked at or so much s heard of unless by accident by the party in whose discourse it purports to be
Similar Items
  • Title: [13 Apr. 1805 Evidence Securities]
    Description: 13 Apr. 1805

    Evidence

    Securities

    Ch. Procedure Techn. Eng. Law.

    ''. Oppression licenced

    '' Licence given /sold/ to oppression by English Procedure

    After the defendant has been compelled in law language to appear in English not to appear (for it /he/ would not be suffered but to employ an Attorney, the first step is the Plff's Attorney delivers in (not to the Judge who knows any thing about the matter but to an officer who does no more than receive and keep it) an allegation in writing an instrument called a Declaration. If the defendant on his part (that is /meaning/ his Attorney) denies the matter of fact contained in the allegation, such denial is called pleading the general issue: if, as a ground for the [...?] of the demand contained in the declaration, he alledges declared facts on his part - in other words exhibits counter-allegation or allegations that is called pleading specially or special pleading.

    From the exigency /nature/ of the case or by professional /managerial/ management a conceivable case is that it shall fall to the lot of the plaintiff instead of controverting the defendants fails alledged as above, shall oppose to those other facts: and that this process shall be repeated on both sides any number of times. To the possible number of these reciprocal allegations there is no determinate limit. Taken in the aggregate the art of comprizing them comprises /drawing them up constitutes/ a particular branch of lawyers practice, is denominated Special Pleading, and furnishes occupation /employment/ to a particular class of lawyers called Special Pleaders.
  • Title: [24 April 1808 Reasons for the Work]
    Description: 24 April 1808

    Reasons for the Work

    Thus the imperfections in the English System, though so much better than the Scotch.

    5. By an exertion of power, causeless upon the face of it the defendant is in general placed in that distressing condition, by means of the instrument called a writ, without the plaintiff's having given in any designation of the efficient cause of his supposed right to the service demanded at the charge of the defendant, and even without any designation given so much as of the nature of that service. For anterior to the Enforcement of demand called the Declaration comes the Writ

    (a): an order signed by the Judge, which gives no designation other than a false one of its own object, but of which the effect is to compel the defendant, on pain of an indefinable mass of punishment, to employ an Attorney to go through the form of litigation in his, the Defendant's name, and at his expence.

    The consequence is that it is just as easy for a man to commence one action without right as with right: to employ the hand of justice for the purpose of oppression, or extortion, or for the ruin of rival prosperity, as for the giving effect to his own just rights, or for the procuring due satisfaction for a wrong which he has sustained. To p. 5

    From p. 6

    9. With all these imperfections under the English system of pleading there exists a mass of cases, and to a vast extent, to which the regular and established forms do not extend. Under this description comes all cases which admitt of the sort of pleading called Special Pleadings.

    10. So all cases in which the service demanded by the plaintiff is not rendered by any other sort of judicatory than without the assistance of a Court of Equity.

    12. Not to speak of the cases which are understood to belong to the jurisdiction of the judicatories called Spiritual Courts.

    13 - and to judicatories called Admiralty Courts,

    11. So in the various species of Motive Causes: in which the cause takes its commencement in a speech made by an Advocate in open Court, grounded on evidence delivered in the shape of Affidavit evidence.

    (a) This supposes the Writ to be of the kind called judicial, as it is in most instances.
  • Title: [10 April 1805 Evidence Securities]
    Description: 10 April 1805

    Evidence

    Securities

    Ch. Procedure Technical

    ''.3 Objects ulterior

    9.1. A malâ fide demand makes a suit as much as a bonâ fide demand: therefore, it is the interest of the men of law requires that the number of malâ fide suits /demands/ be made as great as possible. Third object of technical procedure - to encrease /render/ the number of mala fide demands. of mala fide suits being such on the part of the demandant /plaintiff/ as great as possible.

    10.2. A mala fide defence continues a suit as much as a bonâ fide defence: therefore it is the interest of the man of law requires that the number of mala fide defences be made as great as possible. Fourth object of technical procedure - to render /encrease/ the number of malâ fide defences - of malâ fide suits being such on the part of the defendant, as great as possible.

    11.3. The quantity of profit extractable, in a given space of time, from the aggregate number of suits, being given, it is the interest of the man of law that the number of suits carried on within that time should be as small as possible: since whatever labour is not attended with profit, is needless. Fifth object of technical procedure, to render as small as possible the number of suits carried on by those whose capacity of expence affords no profit, or inferior profit as small as possible: in other words to exclude as much as possible the poorer classes, that is the great majority of the people, from the benefit of justice: - to place the great body of the people in a state of perpetual outlawry. N.B. This effect takes place in a considerable degree, without the necessity of any exertions directed to this special purpose /specially directed to this purpose. The greater the quantity /quantum/ of expense created, the less the number of those whose circumstances enable them to support it.