June 1805

Evidence

Intro.

Ch. Means

' 6. [...?] Morals.

' 3. 6. 5. Fifth point of policy. Corrupting the public morals - Debasing the moral frame.

It is not every modification of a vice and criminality that the man of law has an interest in rendering: unless in the score above mentioned, viz: that of increasing the number of crimes and other offences liable to be punished, and thence to be prosecuted and defended.

The vices which in the pursuit of the sinister ends of the profession have received the most official and most constant encouragement from the men of law, viz: the vice opposite to veracity, and the vice opposite to the love of justice. Finding it necessary to his own purposes and for his own, to make a sort of diet[?] drink, of both these poisoned cups, it became equally necessary to him to endeavour to mitigate the abhorrence of those poisons in other minds. Intentionally or unintentionally /Intend it or not intend it/, such in some degree could not but be the effect of his own practice. Example is not only itself a precept, but in efficacy beyond all precepts. Neither the prostitute nor the procuress can to any purpose pretend to preach with severity against the breach of chastity.

Of the practices /lines/ by which this policy has been pursued, or at least this effect produced much remains not to be said here. Under the heads of Fiction, and decisions on grounds foreign to the merits, they have both been laid in their proper colours before the public eye.