31 Jan y 1805

Evidence

Securities

Ch. Engl. Summary

''.2. Justices

as well as law, all of a sudden he found himself prosecuted, and in due time punished. Punished? - and for what? For having broken this or that jurisprudential rule of procedure - this or that one of the number of that inexhaustible stock of laws that never had been made. What was to be done? Procedure put an absolute veto upon the attempt to serve the public on such terms: under the yoke of a tyranny, which from /by/ being itself exempt not only from punishment but from reproach of any kind was but so much the more intolerable. What was to be done? Either since security was to be given against [...?] of this kind, or every man who was most competent to this necessary branch of public service would shrink from it, and thus society would fall to pieces. The [...?] remedy[/] it is but repetition to say would have been to draw up a system of summary procedure, and that a rational one which is as much as to say such would have run counter in /throughout in opposition - to/ every point, and cast shame upon the regular /technical/ mode. For this as for all other tasks, a man of ability and willingness would have been necessary. Of willingness howsoever it might have been in respect of ability, not a particle was to be found any where among men of law of ability, not to speak of willingness adequate to such a labour including that of combating the inevitable opposition of men of law no sufficient stock was to be found elsewhere. On this occasion as on so many others, the resource was - to cut the knot instead of untying it. A blank form of conviction was to be drawn up for the use of the non-professional Judge, and that form filled up and signed, the judgment, unless in case of corruption or other criminal misconduct, was to be unassailable.

+ To untie the know would have required labour: to cut it required none.

+ (for this is among the cases in which adequate utility can scarce exist without willingness)