23 Mar. 1805

Evidence

Securities

Ch. Procedure Technical

''. Parties unheard

To violate the rule [...?] alteram partem - to refuse a hearing to either side, is mentioned in a proverbial way among men in general, but more especially among men of law not merely of iniquity /as the ultimate point of iniquity: - and/ but of that sort of iniquity, of which in the established systems an example is hardly to be found. Of this partial and incompleat /inconsummate/ iniquity examples are indeed but rare /not frequent/. But if the like iniquity doubled, doubled by being repeated upon both parties, in the established system so far are the examples from being rare, that the rare case is the finding[?] any here and there/ exceptions to the rule. To refuse a hearing to either party from first to last, by proxy /to his professional/ as well as in person /agents as well as himself/ is a sort of iniquity never practiced by men /the man/ of law. Why? because nothing would be to be got, on the contrary about a [...?] /a portion/ of the people would be lost by it. But the double of this iniquity. this refusing /refusal/ to hear so much as the agent of the party till the last stage, coupled with the refusal to hear the party himself at any stage, is an iniquity that is but too extensively in practice? - Why? because there is every thing /so much/ to be got by it: because in comparison of what is [...?] got by means of it what would be to be got without it is as nothing /little worth/.