date

12 July 1807 2 Letter V
12 July 1807

2

Letter V

III. Litigat. prevent.

4. Favour, according to the nature of it, the institution of pre-appointed evidence: recordation of physical events, such as births and deaths recordation, by transcript or abstract, of contracts, (including testaments and other conveyances included) having the effect of creating, confirming or destroying title, whether to things or to services of persons: to property or condition in life: remembering that is is by no means a necessary consequence, that because evidence is in this permanent shape preserved, other evidence touching the same fact must in every case be nullified or excluded: but that such other evidence as the case happens to afford, may be received in failure, or in explanation, or in conviction, or in completion, or in contradiction, of such preappointed evidence.

5. Afford every power and faculty necessary to secure on every occasion the investigation and production of such relevant and necessary evidence as the individual case happens to afford: saving always the case of preponderant inconvenience in the shape of delay, expence and vexation as above.
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  • Title: [14 Oct. 1811 Evidence Introd]
    Description: 14 Oct. 1811

    Evidence

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    Taken thus in its utmost latitude the following are the general topics under one or other of which whatsoever there may be occasion to say respecting the provisions proper to be made by the legislator for the creation or preservation of pre-appointed evidence will, it is supposed be found capable of being included Recordando, or 1. Subject matters to which it is applicable 2 Uses or advantages derivable from it, not forgetting the inconveniences to which it is liable to give birth, - on the occasion of the application made of it in these several subject matters or subjects of recordation. 3 Objects or ends proper to be kept in view in the application made of it to these several subjects. 4. Means by which those ends or objects may most effectually be attained.

    As to the subject matters they seem capable of being reduced under the four following heads following: viz 1. Rules 2 Contracts taken in that largest sense in which not only Conveyances Engagements and Conveyances but Wills (i.e. Testaments) and all other operations of private and individual will by which under the authority of the legislator rights or obligations are either created, destroyed or modified 3 Miscellaneous matters of fact of a legally operative nature the knowledge of which may, serve - either in respect of their being of a legally operative nature as above /already/ described serve for the direction of the Judge, or on any other account for the information and guidance of the legislator or administrator as abovementioned in the character of so many of the materials of statistic science of so much of a stock of matter belonging to the statistic science.
  • Title: [20 March 1808 Letter V §.6]
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    6. Want of d o for compelling deposition on the part of every person capable of yielding testimony, saving the cases in which such deposition would be productive of preponderant mischief in the shape of vexation, expence or delay.

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    8. Want of d o for securing to the judicatory in which a suit is commenced the assistance to the above purposes from the several other judicatories within the dominions of the same state.

    9. So, from judicatories within the dominion of foreign states in times of amity.

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  • Title: [3 June 1807 Letter V Litigation]
    Description: 3 June 1807

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    I. Arrangements respecting the matter or substance.

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    7. 3. To prevent on the part of the Judge licentious interpretation, prescribing regular and prompt returns to be made of the several clauses in the body of the law, which within a determinate space of time, have in the several judicatories been subjects of dispute: together with the interpretation given to them in each case: to the end that, if any fault appear in the decision, the decision may be amended, if in law, the law.

    II. Devices respecting the matter or substance

    5. Seat of the uncertainty the substantive part, i.e. the main body, of the law.

    5. 1. To prevent that part of the rule of action which has been preserved in the state of conjectural law from being reached and anticipated by rational conjecture, rendering it throughout as irrational and absurd as possible.

    6. 2. Ex. gr. In regard to contracts (including Testaments and other Conveyance) viz. Contracts the execution of which would not be productive of assignable mischief to a preponderant amount, attaching to the general rule according to which they are adopted by the legislator and receive from him the force of law, as many groundless, irrational and thence unconjecturable exceptions as may be devised.

    7 .3. In regard to such portion of the rule of action as could not be kept out of the state of real law, doing whatsoever can be done towards rendering it uncognoscible by interpretations called constructions, the more irrational and thence unconjecturable, the better.

    Example. In regard to costs, where by the legislator 2 is directed to be given, giving 1½; where 3, 1¾.