4 July 1805

Evidence

Introd. Jurisprudential

Sources

Dormant Reports

The main end /object/, the main professional and official end /object/, is or rather was, the perpetuation and extention at least the perpetuation of uncertainty and confusion. So long as that is secured /treasure[?] /blessing/ remains unimpaired/, (and surely there is nothing in these dormant Reports /successive influences/ that can impair it) every thing besides[?] is of little consequence. And when indeed even[?] the confusion has swelled to a certain pitch, to a pitch which leaves neither hope nor fear of remedy, the perpetuation of it ceases to be an object, and whatever little additions or defalcations it it remains susceptible of, [...?] observation or are regarded with indifference.

It is the suitor and he only that, on this as on every other occasion, bears the burthen of the inconvenience that flows from the disorders of the law. On the faith of such rules of jurisprudence appear applicable, and to professional men in general accessible, a lawyer gives an /his/ opinion, and the non-lawyer brings his suit. The suit having run itself on to the last stage, out comes a dormant report, a precious[?] manuscript, in which it is discovered that the action will not lie. The plaintiff's hopes give place to disappointment; but lawyers of all such hue[?] had their [...?].

Had the manuscript been in print, the action would not have been brought.

Had the manuscript never been in existence, the action might /would/ have been brought or not, according as fortune were favourable or adverse /in a good or ill humour ran towards the fraternity of the law/.

The existence of these dormant Report books are so many massess of dormant law; as in effect compleatly so, so many massess of Statute-line to the same effect /proposal/ would be. What if so many Statutes, after having passed both houses were left to depend for their force and virtue upon the fiat of a bookseller? The negligence would not be more compleat. Neither neglect would be more unreasonable, neither more pernicious in its consequences, than the other. But the one has, the other has not, custom to protect and sanction it.