date

12 June 1807 Letter V II. Litigation
12 June 1807

Letter V

II. Litigation

8. 4. Applying the principle of nullification to the defeating of contracts of all sorts, and on all sides, on grounds as irrational and absurd, and thence as unconjecturable, as possible.

II. Seat of the uncertainty, the adjective branch, i.e. the system of procedure.

9. 5. Applying the principle of nullification to the steps of procedure, on each side of the cause: thereby, except as to the burthen of costs, throwing back the plaintiff into the same condition as he would have been in, had he taken no step at all in support of his demand: with or without the liberty of taking another chance for justice, by a fresh suit: and the defendant who is in the right, in the condition he would have been in, had he taken no step at all in the way of defence: with or without the liberty of taking another chance for escaping oppression, by a fresh defence.

10. 6. Exclusions put upon evidence, and that by rules, great but uncertain in number, and, in almost every instance, sometimes observed and sometimes not observed.

11. 7. Evidence received in various improper shapes: improper, because not affording so good a chance for correctness and compleatness as would be afforded by others, thence stiled more proper ones: and this, when the delay, vexation and expence attendant on the improper is greater than would have been attendant on the proper shape.
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    Description: 3 July 1807

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    9. So likewise, throughout the whole system of procedure, apply the principle of nullification to as great an extent as possible: rendering its effect sometimes dilatory sometimes peremptory, and rendering it, on each individual occasion, as difficult as possible to foresee which of the two effects it will have.

    III. Seat of the uncertainty, the matter of fact -

    10. Exclude the light of evidence, on pretences as numerous, as frivolous, and thence as uncognisable, and even unconjecturable as possible: taking care that, of the rules [...?] of these exclusions, there shall not be so much as one that is not continually broken through! and that for reasons which are not good but in the supposition of the badness of the rules. Devices.

    11. To the exclusion of the best shape, require to as great an extent as possible that the evidence shall be presented in the worst shape possible: most favourable to perjury, to misdecision, to the production of factitious delay, vexation and expence. (Device │ │) observing in particular to admitt under the worst shape what you exclude under the best.

    II. Directions and Instructions for the creation of delay. See Table

    III. and IV. Directions and Instructions for the creation of expence and vexation.

    Expence and vexation, these in so far as factitious, are produced principally by factitious complication. For the nature and intimacy of its connection with factitious delay see Table 1, Note │ │. Causes of factitious delay are in general, in a correspondent degree, causes of complication, vexation and expence.
  • Title: [PRIVATE 3 July 1807 3]
    Description: PRIVATE

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    Directions and Instructions employed or in the fabrication or strengthening of the above engines - principally by means of a precedent use of the devices mentioned in Letter I.

    1. For creation and preservation of uncertainty.

    1. Seat of the uncertainty the matter of law - contrivances respecting the form.

    1. Keep jurisprudential i.e. fictitious from being converted into statutory i.e. real law (Device).

    2. Keep the materials of jurisprudential law in as perfect a state of latentcy[?] and uncognosibility as possible.

    3. Keep them by means of fiction and jargon (Devices │ │) in a state of as perfect unintelligibility as possible.

    4. In whatever patches the materials of the body of statute law make their appearance, keep them in as high a state of obscurity and ambiguity as the nature of law in that form admitts: and this as well in respect of method as of phraseology, and terminology.

    II. - Contrivances respecting the matter or substance -

    5. To baffle conjecture, be careful to place and preserve the materials of jurisprudential law, and in particular the alledged reasons on which the several decisions are grounded, in as compleat a state of irrationality and absurdity, as the state of the laws in respect of knowledge, will admitt.

    6. In particular in regard to contract, (testaments and other conveyances included) cooks up the general rule by which the force of law is given to them, and besides[?] taking care, that it shall never have any determinate assemblage of words for the expression and fixation of it, clog it by exceptions, limitations, conditions and distinctions, as numerous as irrational, and thence as unconjecturable as possible.

    7. By constructions as forced, or what is better, as fully in the teeth both of letter and spirit as the legislature will endure, extend on every favourable occasion to statutory the uncertainty so essentially inherent in jurisprudential law.

    8. Apply to all contracts of the principle of nullification (Device │ │), and that on occasions as numerous, and on grounds as frivolous, and irrational, and thence as unconjecturable, as the laws[?] will endure.
  • Title: [23 March 1808 Letter V Ends]
    Description: 23 March 1808

    Letter V

    Ends of Justice

    Proceeding upon this plan, I observed at the first step five distinguishable incidents in the character of immediate causes of failure of justice, as above delineated /determined/ and consequently of the three more particular evils which that general denomination may be /has been/ seen to comprehend: viz. Misdecision (on the part of the Judge to the prejudice of the plaintiff's side. 2. Non-decision [...?] in the same quarter. 3. Non-demand, on the plaintiff's side, that is on the part of him who should have been plaintiff, and who would have been but for some defect /evil/ somewhere, the effect of which is thus to deter him of his right: 4. Desistment, viz. from demand, the effect of which when taking place as it must be understood to do, before decision pronounced, in the sense as that of non-demand, in respect of the depriving the party of the benefit in question, and for want of the failure of justice to his prejudice takes /has taken/ place: 5. Non-justiciability on the part of the defendant: the condition he is being such, as to enable him to elude the power of justice.

    /Carrying the eye of scrutiny/ Applying the scrutiny in like manner to the discovery of the causes of that mass of injustice the pressure of which is confined as above to the defendant's side, I found in the first instance /at the first step/, misdecision, as before, and then non-defence, and lastly desistment from defence as a cause of evil matching with non-demand on the plaintiff's side: on this last side non-decision, and non-justiciability of the party on the opposite, not finding any thing to match them on the defendant's side.