18 June 1805

Evidence

Introd

Ch Procedure Technical

'.8. Mendacity encouragement

limited to parties

3 continued

I now turn to the Memoirs /Memorials/ of the Advocates of the practices under the system of procedure, the stories told in the name of the parties by the [...?] the Marchons[?], the Lingeats[?] of the French Bar, I turn over the miscellaneous and abridged histories of causes under the name of Causes Celebres,, and then I behold the consequence. Falshoods massed upon Falshoods, and not only falshoods uttered in the hope of detection, but falshoods of which the proof /not only the legal detection/ is certain but the utter falsity notorious from the first; years together spent by one party or by both parties in the accumulation of these falshoods, 6, 8, 10, 12 years of the life of one or both the parties embittered and filled with distress in all its forms, less of property, reputation liberty, every thing frequently at the end of this [...?] of slow torture less of the /that/ life of which it had destroyed the value.

By a sort of happy treachery the events even of individual still more readily of professional iniquity, will in the warmth of argument be betrayed by casual imprudence. I have again to these ingenious and entertaining productions of professional /written/ eloquence, and again and again I find confirmed by their confession what any man may /may sufficiently be/ be without any such confession that under the natural system of procedure, under an obligation on the part of the parties to face each other at the outset of the cause in the presence of the Judge, the abominations there displayed, in a word all the abominations of which the system /practice/ of technical procedure is made up, would have been utterly /radically/ impossible. (a)

Note

(a) See amongst others the case of the Marquis des Brosses in [...?] de Logicase[?] de Manchère[?] 8[?] Vol. 1 Londres (Paris) 1780. For above the years the wife of this unfortunate man, and his brother, sometimes ++ in conjunction sometimes separately, keep him in a state of torment. It is on the occasion of this scene of wickedness that he observes "En presence du Marquis des Brosses sur les livres[?] (viz: in the presence of the Event in question), une defence plus [...?], les [...?] même connais, les [...?] [...?] epârgni[?] la mortefication de [...?] Arrêt. Il aurait tort cependant de se plaindre. Tout est bien dans l'ordre de la Justice

+ what a man may be abundantly assured of without any such confidence, viz:

++ (p.130) viz. from before the [...?] not how long 17 July 1738 but after 2 July 1749 (p.163) it appears not how long contrive to keep him sometimes in prison, sometimes out of prison, always in a state of [...?]