18 June 1804

Procedure

Ends

Ch. False

' 2. Emolument

In England at the present time the welfare of the governed in their capacity of suitors is professed to be the sole object, and at the worst in a very great degree is the object, of the part taken by the Monarchal head of the state, and her advisers, in the administration of what is called justice. Enormous as well as poisonous[?] would be the deception, if we once suppose such considerations of the subject prevalent int he early ages of jurisprudential history. Century after century, plunder in the mind of the Monarch was the end, judicature the occasion: justice, never the accidental result, the accidental and unheeded though from other causes happily the more frequent result, was not the end, and scarcely so much as the pretence. If a Baron or Knight (for a man of inferior account was not worth listening to) made application to the King for his assistance against fellow vassals, the first question was - what will you give me? According to the answer justice was professed, or not so much as professed to be administered. Under the reign of a John or a Henry, how should any object more honourable than plunder have been so much as professed, when for ages afterwards, those whose office it was to [put the outside upon the conduct of the sovereign, their Royal Master, know no better reason to give for law sending out his retainers for [...?] Judges to hear the complaints of suitors, than the convenience of saving his own case from being wounded by their noise[?]?

A William a Richard or a John would no more have felt himself hurt by being looked upon as an extortioner, than a Homer did, at being taken for a pirate.