JB_092_349.xml

Title: [1 June 1807 Letter V III. Proper]

Description: 1 June 1807

Letter V

III. Proper Remedies

1. Solvent

What remains, is - to make application of this rule to the different positions in which in respect of interest, a malâ fide suitor - and in particular a malâ fide defendant - when arrived at the stage of appeal, is liable to find himself.

But, the interest by which at this stage a man's interest is governed, and in consequence his line of conduct may have commenced long before - may have existed antecedently to the suit, and given birth to the part he takes in it, the plan of operation on the part of the legislator must therefore commence at a stage equally early, so as to enable the legislator, by his instrument the Judge, to act upon a malâ fide defendant at the very commencement of the suit.

Calling the malâ fide litigant by the name of knave - (and this not for wit or malice, but as among mathematicians for abbreviation) let us for the present purpose divide the genus into two species - the solvent or frugal knave, and the insolvent, commonly the dissipating knave.

In the two characters corresponding to these two specific differences his interest is liable and apt to point different ways.

The invitation held out by Judge and C o accommodates itself to his interest in both characters.

Correspondant to these differences must be the course taken in dealing with him by the operations of the legislator.

JB_092_353.xml

Title: [PRIVATE 1 June 1807 Letter]

Description: PRIVATE

1 June 1807

Letter V

III. Proper Remedies

II. Insolvent knave

Immediately before this put the [...?...?]

Very different, and much greater is the profit issuing out of delay, and by factitious delay, offered by Judge and C o to the insolvent knave, to enlist and engage him in their service: in the quality of malâ fide Defendant in the first instance, and thenceforward in the character of malâ fide Appellant, through as many stages of judicature as can have been provided for his reception: for his reception, together with that of his unwilling and extenuated adversary, where hard fate binds him to the pursuit.

To the insolvent knave, in or out of trade - to an individual who conscious of his inability to liberate himself from that state, were he to pay the whole of his debts due from him, considers it therefore as being his interest not to discharge any part of it, the profit by the delay is not confined to interest, but is co-extensive over the whole extent of the principal. According to his means of securing to himself the future use of it on the one hand, and the strength of the appetites by which he is urged to make a present expenditure of it on the other, he employs in purloining or expending the property of the adversary, whatsoever time he is enabled to command: in purloining it, by secreting it, or exporting it out of the reach of justice, or exporting himself along with it: in expending it, by consuming or giving away the substance or the value of it.

JB_092_348.xml

Title: [31 May 1807 Letter V II. Proper]

Description: 31 May 1807

Letter V

II. Proper Remedies

1. Solvent knave[?]

To observe the shape given by the man of law to the bounty thus offered for an instrument of malâ fide suitors was matter of indispensable necessity: such as hath been the shapes given to the bounty thus given by the Judge for the enlistment of these the instruments of his power and opulence, such is the shape that must be given by the legislator to the only instrument which with any rational prospect of success, he can hope to effect the extirpation of them.

We have seen the chief resources, the whole force of the artists genius expended in the production of factitious delay, (clear, of course, as far as might be, of all visible reproach to the manufacturer) as on all occasions and in all stages of the cause, so in particular on the occasion of appeal.

The whole secret, if it be one, is declared by this one simple though comprehensive expression - making it the interest of dishonest men to become and continue litigants, i.e. suitors, on which-ever side of the suit their position in relation to the matter in dispute calls them to.

On the particular occasion here in question, making it the interest of the malâ fide suitor to become appellant. Such under the reign of jurisprudential law, and under the impulse, given by the fee-gathering system - such, and with but too much success, has been the study of the Judge.

Corresponding to the cause of the disease, must on this, as on other occasions, be the nature of the remedy. Take away the interest, in pursuit of which the dishonest man becomes and continues malâ fide suitor - most commonly malâ fide defendant - the malâ fide defendant, malâ fide appellant.

Such, by the arm of statute law - such, if really it be his wish to extirpate the disease, must and will be, the operation of the legislator.