23 June 1805

Evidence

Introd

Ch. Non Notoriety

''.3 Contracts

In this state of things if a contract visibly[?] entered into fails of receiving, when and calls for it, the assistance of the Judge for the enforcement of the obligations imposed by it, the addition[?] of the services intended to be rendered in virtue of it, the party who suffers by such failure, fails not, as soon as such failure is made known to him, to receive a shock: a power which may be called a power of disappointment: which shock or pain is of course more or less severe, according to the value of the service the good, the property the benefit whatever be its nature of which he thus finds himself deprived. It may be next to nothing: it may be instead every thing that is dear to him, every thing he either considered himself as possessing in present or entertained any expectation of coming to the possession of in future.

No sooner did /had/ the art of writing come into general /any tolerably extensive/ use than it was /came to be/ employed to give expression and permanence to this particular class of private laws: and no sooner did the practice of making this use of it become frequent, than the influence of sinister interest, ever upon the watch, laid hold /took possession/ of it for the purposes of abuse. Instruments which did not contain the expression of the will of the individuals who upon the face of them appeared by the mention made of their names to have been parties to those contracts, authors /instruction/ of those private laws were framed in such manner as to appear to contain the expression of such will, and by so doing, obtained, unless the fraud came to be /were/ discovered, the assistance of the power of the Judge, which accordingly employed itself in enforcing the fulfilment of these spurious contracts in the same manner it would have employed itself in providing for the fulfilment of so many genuine ones. The fabrication of such spurious instruments constitutes the most extensive and mischievous modification of that species of fraud which has acquired the name of forgery.

+ pretended wills, pretended conveyances inter vivos pretended bonds notes and securities for the payment of money.