20 July 1805

Evidence

Introd. Jurisprud.

Ch. II Vices

'' 1. - Uncertainty

Here then by this masterly, and most assuredly not unfriendly hand we have a portrait, of the revered and learned /[...?] of the [...?]/ Judge, a portrait ad vocam of an English Judge: a portrait which, unlike the common run of portraits, gives in one frame the [...?] of the whole fraternity /brotherhood present, past, and future/: Facies anon[?] omnibus variorum [...?] [...?]: quales decit - sororum.

What /A truth of which/ he is fully sensible is - that his words become as it were part of the text of the law: of that law to which "in general" he and his colleagues "consider themselves as bound to adhere no less strictly than to the express dictates of the legislator." Having then words in his power, knowing them to be in demand /wanted/ he keeps them to himself. [...?] Sitting with correct documents in his power /pocket/, he knows arguments grounded upon incorrect ones. When [...?] he came to give /the time comes for his giving judgement/ [upon these arguments, and thence upon the documents] the judgement is grounded not on the correct documents, but upon the incorrect one: the documents which he knows to be correct, these he keeps to himself, and will not suffer to be published: the documents on which his judgement is grounded are the incorrect ones, which have been /were/ published because he could not help their being published, and because he would neither publish nor suffer to be published the correct ones.