30 Jan y 1804

Evidence

Securities

Ch. Engl. Prolegomena

'.1

Ch. English Law. Introductory Observations

In the Roman system /mode/ of regular procedure in relation to the extraction and receipt of testimony, we have seen /seeing/ a uniform system of incongruity and imperfection: a system deplorably not good for any case with inconsiderable exemptions, and those in themselves beneficial ones, but uniformly applied to all cases. We have seen It is radically and totally unfit for its purpose inconducive to its professed objects /ends/: but to that general unfitness[?] /mischief/ /imperfection/ it has not added /does not add/ the particular mischiefs of complication on the part of the system, nor the reproach of inconsistency on the part of those who act upon it /the men in power/.

The reader will thus have before him a system which in respect of its leading factions /fundamental points/ may be seen to stand at the pinnacle of perfection: a system the excellence of which if not very clearly /distinctly/ understood is at least universally felt and recognized: recognized, and proclaimed with general /universal/ triumph and exultation: boasted of, and by the very men whose persuasion /correction/ of the exclusive excellence of it is most decidedly /frequently/ declared and acted upon in practice, in particular - occasioning[?] habitually departed /discarded/ from with the most unfeeling and [...?] indifference; habitually discarded, and exchanged for a system /mode/ which wherever it is if not exactly the same as the Roman mode above delineated is still worse.