14 August 1804

Procedure

False Ends

(4 '2 ------ --------

It is an Utopia, the branches(?) of which are sure to receive the fullest confirmation from the concurrent testimony of all travellers. Should any false brother /any renegade/ prompted by whatever rare and extraordinary motive, take upon him to betray the cause of the profession, and substitute in every part of the picture the true colours to the false - an event /a -----/ scarcely ever exemplified and always too rare to be expected /by ---- too rare and unnatural/ - the effect will be next to nothing /he will find his labour bestowed to better purpose //lost// /. With one voice he will himself stand accused of misrepresentation, and his assumed mis-statements if not the result of ----- will be imputed to his ignorance. But to what purpose, or with what hope, should any man be guilty /plunge into the guilt/ of his brother's honesty. The state of the law can no otherwise be defended than in the language of the law, and the language of the law is that sort of composition which /that/ no men but those who are paid for it, or expect to be paid for it, could ever yet prevail upon himself to swallow. Saxon, Moeso(?)-Gothic, Arabic, Chinese, heraldry, Algebra men have learnt for amusement. Law language, I mean the language of English law - and those parts of it with which the depths /recesses/ of the labyrinth are stored nothing but the hope, the ---- passport added to the ------ of rich emolument, could even yet interest a man to make his own. A slight sketch, yes: such as is to be found in Blackstone: but the picture /in the sketches/ given by Blackstone, a man will find a picture as faithful of the but too real and too numerous deficiencies /infirmities/ /bad ------/ of the existing system, as the pictures that are to be read of the new Jerusalem are of any real Jerusalem old or new. Under the name of pays de Cocagne proverbial language in France speaks of a country in which partridges as numerous as flies /--------/ fly abroad ready roasted, crying come eat me. The falsity of such a representation if given as a true account of ornithology in France or England would /could/ not be more universally notorious, than the falsity of many of those pictures of the state of the law in its most -------- features which may be seen displayed in English books. + For the disbelief of what is continually ----- before their own eyes is one of those manifestations of ----- confidence in which Englishmen are continually exercised by English lawyers.

+ Reference to `Truth versus Ashhurst'.