[...?] July 1804

Procedure & Evidence

8

Enquiry Mode

Ch. Advantages

Under the technical system in general and under the English systm in particular, malâ fides on which ever side it be demandants or defendant's has full swing. To shame it is never exposed /From shame it is effectually protected/ in every case, except on the part of the defendant in the few cases where /in which/ in the character of a prison his presence is indispensable, in most of which he is commonly out of the reach of shame by being beneath it.

As to success, under favour of the factitious delay, vexation and expence attached to the system - provided that on the part of the party injured there be a given deficiency, and in favour of the wrongdoer there be a given superiority in point of opulence, so far from despair, there is on the side of the wrongdoer, a compleat assurance. The malâ fide demandant may say to himself, and with full /the fullest/ assurance my demand though groundless, can not be resisted. The malâ fide defendant - meaning on this occasion him who would have been made defendant had it been in the power of his adversary to have the expence of a demand may say to himself with equal assurance - I will not comply with the demand without law /litigation/, since it will not be made in the way of litigation /by authority of law/, for the man whom I leave injured is not able to bear the expence: or should he be rash enough to engage in the track of litigation, it is in my power and it shall be my care to throw so many thorns in his way, that he will find himself obliged to stop before he has got to the end of it.

In both these cases, the existing /technical/ system shown in all its glory: to the party in the right it provides certain ruin: to the party in the wrong, certain success and triumph.