24 March 1805

Evidence

Securities

Ch. Procedure technical

Thus it is that in the very nature of the case /things/ between the interests of the suitor, in other words the ends of justice, the legitimate ends of judicature, and the sinister ends of the man of law, the illegitimate ends of judicature, there is a wide and most unhappy difference, a strong and almost irreconcilable opposition: and the party /parties/ bound by the arrangements being altogether at the mercy of the author /authors of those same arrangements/, the consequence of this disastrous state of things, and the fate of the weak /weakness/ thus lying at the feet o the strong, may without much difficulty be deduced from the general principles of human nature: and whatsoever conception /inconception/ may thus be formed a person will receive but too ample confirmation from demonstrated experience.

Vexation and delay (understand vexation distinct from and superadded to expense) are in conception distinguishable from expence: but in reality so intimate is the connection between the three modifications of the inconveniences /mass/ attached to judicature that a portion of either will seldom be produced, but a /that a fresh/ portion of each of the other will be found adherent to it. Of the nature /[...?]/ of this connection, more will be said in another place: at present,suffice it to bring to view /just to notice/ the existence of it.

Thus it is that to produce a given quantum of profit to himself, the man of law has found it either necessary or at least convenient to impose upon the suitor not only an expense to the same amount, but an expense frequently to a much greater amount, aggravated by a mass of inconvenience in the shape o vexation and delay, (not to insist upon the collateral vexations showered down upon third persons without number or licence[?]) to a state greater amount.