date

4 Oct 1803 Evidence Judicature
4 Oct 1803

Evidence

Judicature

Anonymous

In the case where the mischief of the above finds /affords to/ no individual any person nature /motive of a personal nature/ for giving information of it the demand /need/ for this vehicle of intelligence is still more urgent. Sympathy for the public, antipathy against improbity, both of them modifications of Public spirit, to these pure and social motives especially if reinforced by the disocial motive of personal enmity towards a delinquent may urge a man with some considerable force urge man to convey to his superiors information the efforts of which if followed up would draw down punishment /censure/ on the heads of his delinquent colleagues. But in such case, under the /any such/ condition as that indispensable condition of open accusation what chance /security/ can there be of that degree of knowledge regularity /exactness/ of information which is necessary to the prevention of abuse when the only occasions on which it can be obtained are those rare and casual ones where the inciting force of enmity has burst through the restraints imposed by ordinary prudence? When the abuse is of such a nature that, the mischief of it /abuse/ without counting[?] any individual, falls exclusively on the public purse in[?] information given of it by a colleague to the prejudice of a colleague, is resented /almost seen to be/ by all as an act of treachery to all and a sort of civil excommunication, and much less intolerable than the ecclesiastical of old times is the natural and almost necessary consequence. What of the /case be of the number of those/ abuse in which the whole fraternity have their profit, and the removal of which would be felt by each of them as the private loss?
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  • Title: [4 Oct 1803 Evidence Judicature]
    Description: 4 Oct 1803

    Evidence

    Judicature

    Anonymous

    5. Sympathy towards the individual[?] delinquent - the smuggler on whose head the tendency of the information is to bring down punishment. Under the name /appellation/ of smuggler must for this purpose be understood not merely the habitual and professional smuggler but every individual whatever who, lying on any score under the legal obligation of saying furnishing contributions to the use of the public, seeks to evade the fulfillment of it.

    If on the one hand the restrictive motive the tendency of which is to restrain a man in such a case from giving open information are in this case more than ordinarily powerful /act in more than ordinary force/, on the other hand, in such stuff as the great majority of individual minds are composed of, the action of the inciting motives is more than ordinarily weak. These are 1. Public spirit. 2. Pecuniary interest in the part of the fair trader, who in respect of his traffic finds a competitor in the person of the smuggler. 3. Sympathy for the prejudices /Fair trader in respect of the damage/ flowing in upon him from that source.

    1. Public spirit. In combination with party enmity this principle is found in great abundance: in combination with national enmity in still greater. In the latter state it is found among all classes from the highest down to the very lowest from the least to the most numerous. A combination with love of power and /or/ love of reputation, or both together it is in certain countries /nations/ the leading countries /nations/ in particular such as France and England, among certain classes, over the leading classes by no means rare. But like every other down, love of power and love of reputation require a certain prospect of success: and it is only to certain classes, and in those classes to certain individuals that ny prospect of this kind lies open, in such sort as to operate in the character of a principle of action with any considerate force. In the physical world, gold is said to be by no means an uncommon element though except in a few favoured spots broke down into particles of such [...?] /smallness/ /scarcity/ and dispersion as to be of no commercial value. In the moral world, public spirit in a state perfectly pure, free from any of the combinations above spoken of, is much more rare than gold in the physical wold, and moreover when it does exist exists in particles of such [...?] [...?], as seldom indeed not to be capable in the character of of outweighing an existing motive the lightest article on the abovementioned list of restraining motives.
  • Title: [4 Oct 1803 Evidence Judicature]
    Description: 4 Oct 1803

    Evidence

    Judicature

    Anonymous

    II. Official abuses. Public Offices themselves are /being/ so numerous and erroneous[?] on the one hand, the abuses they are exposed to so various on the other much precision and of that detail which is necessary to precision could not without a too extensive digression be attempted here. Offices judicial, military, administrative: among administrative, offices for receipt of public money as well as judicial offices for the expenditure of it: be termed servitors[?] - individuals having business to transact in their respective offices.

    A[?] state of things which renders the task of open information particularly invidious /oppressive/ is that where the person to whom the information of the abuse would be to be adopted, stands in the situation of patron to the author of it, having especially in the case nor that an infrequent one perhaps introduced him into the situation which gave occasion to the abuse: the informer may in this case find himself in a situation little if at all different from him who should have his adversary for his judge.

    When the mischief of the abuse bears exclusively or more particularly upon a determinate individual, the character of an informer is affirmed with less difficulty - without any proportionable /comparatively/ very violent opposition from that portion of public opinion which is predominant /bears rule/ in the office /particulars/, and the only little other enmity a man /the informer/ is exposed to by it is that which may come under the denomination of private enmity. But even in that case if either the situation of the oppressed, or his comfort in that situation is dependant in any shape upon the good will of the oppressor, the force of the restrictive motives which tend to withold him from performing any such compliant[?], may be much too great to be surmounted /overcome/ so great as to be insurmountable may be so great as not to be capable of being surmounted without an irreparable violation of the rules of human prudence. In /So far as/ this state of things, [...?] the notification of a standing disposition not to accept for what it is /may be/ worth the sort of information conveyed by anonymous indication is but a branch of that general notification which in some way or other might in every line of government to be made - the notification of a constant disposition to afford protection to the oppressed.
  • Title: [3 Oct 1803 Evidence Judicature]
    Description: 3 Oct 1803

    Evidence

    Judicature

    Anonymous

    The official man /placeman/ in the financial or any other official line, better considered /informed/ of the extreme weakness and rarity of it by prejudice fortified by experience than the Judge is by such reflection as he is at once able and willing to bestow, is sure that [...?] [...?] this at any rate is not so much as of the number of the motives by which your application to him has been produced: nor were he sure it were the only one would he be the more civil to you. What he is sure of is that you are a troublesome fellow: what he is almost /next/ to sure of is that you are villain knave or fool - what he cares not about is - which it be: what would render you but the more troublesome to him if it were possible you should be such, is your being a man of the most active and /as well as/ purest public spirit: because then /in that case/ the same motive which exposes him to be plagued by being the receiver of your demonstrations[?], would upon occasion expose him to be plagued by you still more by being the object of them.

    Go to him unknown and without introduction, these /such/ affections and sentiments will be expressed to you without disguise. Go to him with an introduction, the outward civility will be proportioned to the need /demand/ he appears to himself to stand in of the good graces /good will/ of your introductor: his real sentiments and affections, and the regard he is disposed to pay to the information will be little varied by it. Be this as it may, the expedient of seeking out and employing the intervention of an introductor is so much added to the trouble and loss /consumption/ of time.

    To give this as the constant or any thing like the constant result of an application of the sort in question, would be to make no allowance for the infinitely diversified modifications of idiosyncratic temperament: but though the supposition of this sort of reception will not be uniformly verified in every instance, nor perhaps in a majority of instances, yet in every instance, antecedently /previously/ to experience /trial/, the probability in favour of its taking place, /being verified and/ that to a degree productive of sensible mortification and inconvenience, will every where be very considerable.