14 Jan 1805

Evidence

Securities

Ch. Procedure Technical

'.1. Introduction

An excuse /apology/ - or rather a shadow of justification /reasonable cause/ presents itself, I mention it in this place /thus beforehand/ that to the and/ for the sake /purpose/ of judging of the truth of it /what foundation there may/ /whether there be any and what foundation first/, the topic may be all along kept in view. True: says the argument /it may be said/: in the arrangements pursued in regard to the mode of extraction, and other dispractice[?] trends in the view of securing the trustworthiness of evidence, great /very considerable/ variations may be observed: yes, but these variations are no more than the apposite variations called for by the correspondent variation observable of the different cases.

Alas no! A defence of this sort may present itself to a distant view, as a topic ready prepared in the [...?] of common place. But when /as/ the particular cases came to be looked at in this view, the inapplicability of it in each instance will be but too incontestable.

Of the features of excellence/ congruity/ above catalogued /collected/ and brought to view there is not one that is not copied form English law /its practice of English jurisprudence/: yet so all [...?] by the stock the talents bestowed by fortune been improved, that is the bare list of those features the contamination and disgrace of the English system may already have been read by every English lawyer of any such there be who to the [...?] has added the courage to contemplate it in so unwelcome a point of view.

So much for the man of law. He, if he durst, would be able to anticipate the contents of the succeeding pages. But for this same lawyer every thing will require to be proposed and had in order to his views /for his view/. +

+ Neither on the one part nor on the other will any thing but necessity - absolute includible /[...?]/ necessity, but to silence the [...?] /song/ of ill-deserved eulogy which from the first dawn of reason he has heard uttered from mouth to mouth by a chorus of entrusted[?] instructors[?] and their [...?].