23 Mar. 1805

Evidence

Securities

Ch. Procedure Technical

Let even Be the degree of ability /power of persistence/ on the part of the defendant be ever so sufficient, if through timidity or indolence the resolution /determination/ be wanting, and that determination be known, the victory /the jus nocende[?]/ to the oppressor in the character of plaintiff is equally /still alike/ secure.

In the character /station/ of defendant, exactly the same oppression, exactly the same effect, may with equal certainty be produced by almost exactly the same means. Secure against assistance on the part of the destined victim, a man /the oppressor/ in this case has but to inflict in the his own hand the [...?] injury, instead of employing in the character of plaintiff, as he would have to do, the hand of law.

To this plan of intentional injury grounded in the assurance /thus derived[?] eventual/ of essential /impregnable/ defence, the actual assumption of the character of defendant is not by any means necessary. The assumption of this character depends so [...?] evident /in the first instance/ not upon a man's own act but upon the act of another man in the character of plaintiff. Where Titius[?] has commenced the suit, then and not less it sits with /the option devolves on/ Sempronius whether or not to defend it. The success of the plan is alike decided, whether the victim, impressed[?] from the first with the fruitlessness or ineligibility of resistance[?], abstains from ever be assuming the character of plaintiff, or whether, actuated by the same /like/ considerations, he abandons it sooner or later after having taken it up.