8 June 1805

Evidence

Introd.

Ch. False Ends. Judge

'.3. Corruption. Cause

So much for supposition: but in point of fact how did the matter stand? The faculty of recovering fees was not introduced to the Judge: those fees were allowed to derive their birth, and did derive their birth from such and such accidents and occurrences: such and such operations the performance of which, on the part of the suitor and other persons, either was necessary or was said to be necessary to the enabling the judge to exercise his functions in a manner conformable to justice. It was left in the power of the Judge, commonly to determine the quantum of the fee receivable on each occasion, always to determine and encrease the length or number of the operations so to be performed, and thence of the occasions out of which such fees were to arise. The power of determining and consequently encreasing the length and number of those operations could with difficulty if at all even now, could not by any means in those ages of ignorance /imbecillity/ and barbarism, be refused to the Judge. But the power of increasing the length and number of those operations was in other words the power of making business: and the power of increasing the number and consequently the aggregate amount of fees keeping pace as above with the power of making business, making business became /was/ thus the same thing with making money.

Even in the present advanced period of society, in which /when/ the experience of fraud in every shape /all shapes/ has opened the eye of the public /public eye/ and kept it awake to fraud in every shape, even in the present advanced period of society, and in situations in which the hand of fraud derives no assistance from the arm of power, the consequences of such a conjunction /concentration/ of such a mode of payment, are almost as unavoidable as they are notorious. To whom is it now a secret to what a degree the employer lies at the mercy of the planners of any work, architect for example, civil engineer, and so forth who is paid by a percentage, on the quantum of the expenditure occasioned /called for/ by his work? How much more completely unavoidable must those same disastrous consequences have been so in those times/early days/ without /devoid of/ experience, without /devoid of/ discernment, devoid of information, devoid of means of communication and interchange of sentiments, what little intelligence and sagacity were to be found, being in a manner monopolized by the Judge, together with a few other expedients and assistants attached to him by a community of interests and affections?