JB_045_445.xml

Title: [25 Sept 1803 Evidence Instructions]

Description: 25 Sept 1803

Evidence

Instructions

Considerations

1. Interest in general

9. Against criminative perjury, so powerful, so efficacious is the action of the guardian interests, that in the character of seductive interests, two of the most powerful motives, self-preservation and pecuniary interest viz: love of life are acting in the greatest possible force, the others are acting with more than ordinary force, in different degrees of magnitude, are scarce ever known to produce. Pardon together with pecuniary reward in [...?] from ,10 up to ,1000 are expedients continually resorted to in an English procedure for the obtainment of the evidence in the case of [...?] [...?] [...?] of first rate crimes. obtaining from accomplices. All this while, where self-preservation is out of the question, pecuniary interest, though in a magnitude ever so trifling, and though it be of that comparatively weaker sort which is created by the desire of gain, and not of that stronger sort which is created by the apprehension of loss, is under the same system made to operate as a ground of peremptory exclusion, preventing the testimony from being so much s heard: and this too, let the pecuniary interest at stake be ever so trifling /inconsiderable/ and consequently the damage to the party injured, were perjury of that sort to take place /suffering by the perjury, suffering it to take place/ Pecuniary interest acting upon the witness by itself, is thus made to shut the door against his testimony: pecuniary interest when reinforced by another interest infinitely more powerful by the most powerful of all interests acting on the same side - by an interest which includes all others put together - by this incomparably more powerful interest acting on the same side, no longer shuts the door against, opens it to /but throws it wide open to/ the same testimony. All this while this apparently irresistible invitation to perjury has scarce ever been productive of its natural and to appearances unavoidable effect. The reason is no where to be found in the joint influence of two concurring senses. In one is the particular difficulty of carrying in to effect a plan of perjury in this particular case: a cause which belongs not to the present purpose: the other is the joint of the interest of humanity, seconded and supported by a sort of narrow and spurious sort of honour or regard for a portion of the mass of popular opinion, as above explained. But the force of the action of the principle of humanity in a case where the tendency of it is to cause one man to save another from a mass of suffering - from a mass of punishment, will naturally be, ceteris paribus, directly as the magnitude of that punishment. Hence although the force of the motive acting in a sinister direction viz: self-preservation as also in the case - is by the supposition as the magnitude of that same punishment, yet such is the force of the principle of law - namely, [...?] as above that it almost always gets the better of the sinister interest of the same kind, even when that sinister interest has the force of allied force of pecuniary interest for its support

JB_045_450.xml

Title: [17 Sept. 1803 Evidence Instructions]

Description: 17 Sept. 1803

Evidence

Instructions

Considerations

Of a quantity of pecuniary interest represented by any given sum (say ,100) the force will be in a prodigious degree different, according as a result of the decision to the witness will be gain or loss to the amount of that same sum according as it is gain to that amount or lost to that same amount that will be the result. The mischief /suffering/ produced to a man by a loss to any given amount is much more than equivalent /equal/ to the enjoyment that would be produced by gain to that same amount. If a man who has /is worth/ ,400 gains ,200 his fortune after the gain /acquisition/ is to his fortune before the acquisition but as to 4: if a man who has ,400, loses ,200 his fortune after the loss is to his fortune before the loss but as 3 to 6. If a man who has ,400 gains another /other/ ,400 his condition after the accession is not very high: if a man who has ,400 loses the ,400 his condition after the loss is as low as it ever can be. When a man who had originally ,400 receives a gain of ,400, his state /fortune/ is capable of receiving accession upon accession without end: but when a man whose original fortune was as ,400 has lost ,400, his loss at that single [...?] is as great as it can be /there is no room, in [...?] for any further losses/.

JB_045_446.xml

Title: [16 Sept 1803 Evidence Instructions]

Description: 16 Sept 1803

Evidence

Instructions

Considerations

2. Pecuniary

Considerations respecting the effect of pecuniary interest upon evidence.

1. The value at stake being given /the same/, as also sensibility o the individual to a gain or loss to that amount, as deducible from the state of his pecuniary circumstances in other respects, a mans testimony is more exposed to just suspicion in the case where he is a party to the suit, than where he is not a party; as also more where he is plaintiff, than where he is defendant.

2. For a man who is not a party to the suit - that is has no natural interest of the pecuniary kind in the success of that side in favour of which his testimony tends - can in general gain no advantage can gain no thanks from the party in whose favour if the testimony be wilfully false, and at the same time successful the falshood operates, unless the party is privy to the falshood, and in some sort a [...?] of it. /particular in the guilt./ False evidence /Perjury/ therefore in this case requires two to be concerned in it: whereas, where the party and the witness are the same person /there is no party concerned besides the witness himself/, it requires but one.

3. In a situation of a defendant, false evidence, in a cause relative to money, is not so dangerous in its tendency viz: in the way of example, on the side of the defendant, as on the side of the plaintiff. The reason is, that in the character of a defendant, as such a man is not in his own power the means of increasing his [...?] /the numbers/ at pleasure: on each occasion whether the suit to which he is a party takes place, depends, directly at least, not upon himself, but upon another person, - the plaintiff. By his false testimony /falshood/ the utmost he can hope to do is to exonerate himself from the particular /single/ obligation which another person, in the character of defendant, so long as he confines himself to that character, it is not in his power to impose any sort of obligation upon anybody by any subsequent attempts /succeeding falshoods/, whatever his success may have been in the first.