date

30 Jan y 1804 Evidence Securities
30 Jan y 1804

Evidence

Securities

Ch. Engl. Prolegomena

'.1

Ch. English Law. Introductory Observations

In the Roman system /mode/ of regular procedure in relation to the extraction and receipt of testimony, we have seen /seeing/ a uniform system of incongruity and imperfection: a system deplorably not good for any case with inconsiderable exemptions, and those in themselves beneficial ones, but uniformly applied to all cases. We have seen It is radically and totally unfit for its purpose inconducive to its professed objects /ends/: but to that general unfitness[?] /mischief/ /imperfection/ it has not added /does not add/ the particular mischiefs of complication on the part of the system, nor the reproach of inconsistency on the part of those who act upon it /the men in power/.

The reader will thus have before him a system which in respect of its leading factions /fundamental points/ may be seen to stand at the pinnacle of perfection: a system the excellence of which if not very clearly /distinctly/ understood is at least universally felt and recognized: recognized, and proclaimed with general /universal/ triumph and exultation: boasted of, and by the very men whose persuasion /correction/ of the exclusive excellence of it is most decidedly /frequently/ declared and acted upon in practice, in particular - occasioning[?] habitually departed /discarded/ from with the most unfeeling and [...?] indifference; habitually discarded, and exchanged for a system /mode/ which wherever it is if not exactly the same as the Roman mode above delineated is still worse.
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  • Title: [Jan 1805 Evidence Securities]
    Description: Jan 1805

    Evidence

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    Procedure Technical

    '.1. Established Practice

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    Ch. General View Established Practice

    Such being the possible securities for trustworthiness in evidence - the securities afforded by the nature of the case to the legislator whose intelligence may /in probity/ may make and prompt him to employ them, it remains to give a general view of the extent to which they have actually been employed by legislators in the existing state of things.

    On this part as in every other of the field of evidence, I confine my view to the two most [...?] systems of [...?], the Roman and the English.

    Look at which we will, the characters of imperfection /incompetence/ and inconsistency will be but too permanent and incontestable: In the Roman, the leading feature will be its radical and compleat incompetence: in the English, its infinitely diversified /variegated/ and still mere blamable /scandalized/ inconsistency. In the Roman, an invincible stupidity /blindness/, the fruit of long-rooted prejudices /practice/: in the English, what is most excellent what is but universally recognized as such in language: what is best and what is worst /the best and the worst/ what is most excellent and more absurd promiscuously employed in practice.

    But the original adoption /growth/ of good and bad together, all the claim of wisdom is but too effectually disproved on the part of past generations of men of law: - by the persevering and promiscuous continuance of good and bad together the praise of probity - of the pure and genuine love of justice /all pure and genuine affection for both/ is but too [...?] disproved on the part of their successors.
  • Title: [30 Jan y 1805 Evidence Ch.]
    Description: 30 Jan y 1805

    Evidence

    Ch. Engl. Proleg.

    ''.1

    In giving to the system the denomination of the English System, I had no other view than that of applying to that purpose a notorious and simple matter of fact. National attachment had no share in the bringing to view a matter of fact which will /may/ be seen to afford so little cause for national exultation /pride/ /self esteem/.

    The plain truth is that in this part of the system of established procedure, nothing more is to be seen than a fragment /a fragment preserved rather by accident rather than degree[?] /fortune rather than by wisdom//, a pretious[?] fragment of the system of natural procedure - of domestic procedure of that mode of procedure which common sense dictated from the first still continues and never will cease to dictate /present/ as the plan proper to be pursued, and which accordingly is pursued in the bosom of every private family in that sphere of interest which Nature has set up /established/ in the district /demesne/ of every family, by the head of the family, as often as occasion calls for the exercise of the unpleasant but sometimes necessary function of sitting in judgment on the conduct of any of its members /subordinates/. If the characteristic features of it are still perceived in the Trial by Jury /procedure/ in that system in the construction of which, together with the abuses with which it is covered, the cult[?] of lawyer craft have had so large a share, it may be sure in much better prosecution in the procedure of these tribunals, within the /whose/ pursuits of which the professional man of law has been unable or has disdained to penetrate /intrude himself/.
  • Title: [6 Feb y 1808 Appeals This no]
    Description: 6 Feb y 1808

    Appeals

    This no satire

    3. If under that [...?] law, I point out the practice, so far as redress /causes //regard/ of wrongs, as being one compleat [...?] of injustice, I point out as the only but all sufficient remedy, the consistent and invincible adherance to three[?] fundamental maxims of justice, to which no [...?] even of those by which the opposite injustice are in daily practice, can refuse his homage.

    4. If I denounce the technical system of procedure is a product and instrument of the feegathering ends[?] of remuneration, I point out /on/ the substitution in the character of a practicable as well as effectual remedy the all-comprehensive extension of the natural system already existing in full rigour and activity, and hopfully to a still greater extent by the side of it.

    5. If I denounce the kinds of the class of Judges as habitually polluted and stewed[?] and impregnated with the matter of corruption, I point with exultation to other classes of Judges, classes of which the population is happily in a hundred fold proportion numerous[?], as [...?] from it.

    6. If in the feegathering mode of remuneration, I have had[?] been[?] the root of evil, I have in [...?] been but a [...?], working in the track pointed /delineated/ by the ever memorable Committee of Finance.