date

[lxxxiv. 56] 1821 Decr 3 Codification
[lxxxiv. 56]

1821 Decr 3

Codification Proposal

penult

?.5. Draughtsman Single

Lawyers interest begotten prejudice

The instance in which on the field of Constitutional law the evil inseparable from the use of the instrument has found some diminution © the [...?...?] inseparable from the use of it some excuse is that of the maxim /celebrated/ maxim The King can do no wrong. Taking advantage of the ambiguity attached to the two words ”can• and ”wrong• especially to the word ”can•, on /into/ a declaration of spotless and imaginary virtue they have they have stolen an /a scarcely efficient/ insinuation of [...?] impotence of impotence in his instance; and of responsibility to the purpose of exposure to punishment, in the instance of his instruments. 4 What the King has done can never be wrong, by his doing it that which in itself is wrong is converted into right. That which is wrong the King has not power to do: wherever wrong begins, there his power stops 3 If in the commission of any thing that is wrong the King has been a party though he himself is not punishable for it, some one else some servant of his in every case is.

The most opposite parties agree in to admitting of this production of absolute wisdom, because the most opposite parties each putting his own interpretation upon it, makes application of it to his own purpose.. Each swells and looks big, and in his own eyes and in the eyes of his dupes shews by the impunity [?] with which he employs the instrument the honor due to the inventor of it.

With or without her consent suppose the King to violate another mans wife. For this misdeed of the Master who is the servant that is to be punished? The Archbishop of Canterbury for instance or the Lord High Chancellor? This is among the question by which as yet no decision has been received

It remain what it has ever been an inexhaustible mine of controversy of endless and aimless [?] argument, and so will continue to be so, until with the rest of the flash language it is [...?] in that gulph of oblivion which awaits the whole mass of this [...?] part of the language.
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    Description: [clxiv. 237]

    1820 July 7

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    ?.8. Corruptive influence

    Falshood and deception

    1. King can do no wrong

    Of the /this/ original contract the application is confined to a case which has never happened but once, and which it is contended can never happen again. The /Under the Gwelphs the English/ Parliament has been found a convenient instrument: not much less so than under the Caesars the Roman Senate. But, unless under the government of this half God half man by whom no wrong can be done, wrong could not be done by somebody, neither in the one House nor in the other would the Parliament have any thing to say or do or say. Some man therefore or some men must accordingly be found who can do wrong. They accordingly are found: and they are the Kings Ministers. When any wrong is said to have been done, these men therefore /accordingly/ some or all of them are said to have done it. Well then this way of speaking what is the Constitution, what are the people the better for it. The King can not do any thing wrong by his own hand: but he can do any thing how wrong soever, by the hand of another, so long as he can find a hand to do it.

    Here then we see this fundamental maxim or axiom cloathed with a double sense, and converted into a sort of a pun. In one sense it expresses the irremovability and the impunity of the demigod: in the other sense it expresses his impotence. The misfortune is that while the irremovability and the impunity are strictly /altogether/ real, the impotence is as plainly fictitious.

    Suppose a body of men trained and armed at all points, attacking a company of men women and children all peaceable and defenceless, killing a number of them and wounding some hundreds more. Suppose a King ordering this destruction before hand, or when it is done, thanking and rewarding the actors for what has been done, with the avowed desire, that upon occasion the same thing should at all times be done in time future. What is there to hinder him from pursuing the same course, till all whom he suspects of /regards as/ being discontented with it are exterminated?
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    Description: 19 July 1804. 5

    The arch bishop of Canterbury ... hath... power of granting

    dispensations in any case, not contrary to the holy scriptures

    and the law of God, when the pope used to grant them. I 369

    2

    A parson....is called parson, persona,

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    creditur nisi juratis. I 390

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    Martial law.... ought not to be permitted in time of peace, when

    the king's courts are open to all persons to receive justice

    according to the laws of the land. I 400

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    The petition of right enacts, that no soldier shall be quartered

    on the subject without his own consent. I 400

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    Relation ... of husband and wife...founded in nature. I 410

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    If the hiring [of a servant] be general ... the law construes it to be

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    11

    A master ... may bring an action against any man for beating or maiming

    his servant; but in such case he must assign as a special reason

    for so doing, his own damage by the loss of his service; &

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    Qui facit per alium faut per

    se. I 417

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    The wrong done by the servant is looked upon in law as the wrong

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    By statute 32 Hen. 8. c. 38. it is declared that all persons may

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    23

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    special circumstances, for at the time of making it she is

    supposed to be under his coercion. I 432

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  • Title: [[lxxxiv. 27] 1821 Decr 6 Codification]
    Description: [lxxxiv. 27]

    1821 Decr 6

    Codification Proposal

    ?.5. Draughtman Single

    Aristocrat and Lawyers interest

    Relation between the Aristocrat's sinister interest and the Lawyer's sinister interest

    It is the lawyers interest that the number of such lawsuits such as afford lawyers profit should be at a maximum /as many as possible/: and that the most profitable be the most numerous: it is the same time his interest /and/ that of those that afford no lawyers profit the number be a minimum /be as few as possible/, the result of them to the lawyers being burthen without compensation /uncompensated/.

    Thus [?] [...?] is [?] The lawyers interest. The wealthy Aristocrat's interest is much diveded. In every case in which he is in the right and has an Aristocrat for his adversary it is his interest that the sum of expence on his part, vexation on his part and delay be as small as possible. But if he be in the wrong and has an Aristocrat for his adversary, much more if he has a man much [...?] in pecuniary circumstances for his adversary, it is his interest that on the adversarys side the expence be as great as possible: that so the adversary may be disabled or deterred from resistance.

    Upon the whole the sinister interest of the opulent Aristocrat coincides in this part of the field with that of the lawyer: for as to the evil that may result to himself from the factitious expence vexation and delay, a man's /the natural/ confidence in his own good fortune represents it to him as a rare casualty: which as towards all those, the [...?] of whose circumstances would disable or deter them from resisting him, he beholds, in the aggregate of that mass of [...?] an instrument of power by which he is enabled /constituted/ to tyrannise over all who are so circumstanced, be the multitude of them ever so great.