3 March 1804

Evidence

Securities

Ch. Procedure Technical

Falshood formed /encouraged/ by

Law Agents for want of

Confrontation

Nothing can equal /exceed/ the security with which falshood in this case obtains the assistance /benefit/ of an accomplice. Not only no punishment but scarce any the slightest danger of any the slightest risk[?] of disrepute /loss of character/ can attach upon any such existence of interested /professional/ prudence. The claim will miscarry /cause will be lost/: the Attorney forsees it will: - but he has his answer ready. It was your own doing: did not you say /tell me/ so and so - does it not appear upon the face of the Case which I took down from your mouth, and which you heard and /or/ read after I had penned it? Was it for me to contradict or so much as doubt you in regard to a fact that lay within your own knowledge? was it for me to charge you with either advancing falshood or with suppressing or disguising truth? Was it for me to suppose you /charge you/ capable of deceiving your own adviser, and where the deceipt could not but operate to your own prejudice?

The professional interest of the Attorney prompts /urges/ him to bring forward every communication that can tend to bring in /promote the constitution of/ the suit, to keep back every communication that can tend to prevent it. in the one case to bring forward the false just as much as if they were true. in the other case to keep back the true, just as much as if they were false. Is there common sense in the expectation - that the general course /train/ of conduct should run on in opposition to the general stream /force/ /current/ of interest?

In this profession, as in another, that instances may not be found, of here and there an individual, who having laid it down to himself as an inflexible rule, to be guided without deviation by the interest of his client without suffering himself to be biased by opposite personal interest arising out of his profession - having once for all laid this down to himself /this course of conduct/ in the character of an inviolable rule /law/ should throughout preserve resolution enough to persevere in it, is certainly not impossible, and may without danger of inherent[?] /practical/ error be conceded. But in this profession of all others - not to speak of other professions will any one seriously contend, that a stream of probity thus [...?] can reasonably be looked for on the part of the birth[?] of men[?]?