22 May 1804

Evidence

Forthcomingness

Ch. Investig. Engl. Law

§.6. Equity application

It being in the nature of magisterial procedure to require instead of a single witness examined at one sitting: viz: the trial, two or more witnesses, interrogated /examined/ at two or more sittings with intervals of uncertain duration between each, a professional lawyer, arguing from the nature of the case /a priori/, with allusions to the comparative delation of the system of procedure pursued in other countries, would have no bad case to make in this ground for the defence of existing abuse /mal-practice/, and the comfortable proposition that all improvement is radically impossible. Unhappily all this fair argument /theory/ /magnificent edifice/ falls /crumbles/ to dust at the sound of a single allusion to experience. The cause /sorts of causes/ in which investigatorial procedure has place, are precisely those which are dispatched /receive their decision/ in the shortest space of time. Where investigatorial procedure has place (I speak of felonies) the same cause has been known to be begun and finished in the same day. The causes to which it does not extend - the Equity causes - are the hereditary causes, which like the gout and other disease, extend from generation to generation, filling with bitterness the cup of each mans life. In time indeed, but not by time alone, is business done. And moreover the causes thus marked as the most expeditious are moreover the most important of all causes.

and to a compleat extent, setting aside the fragments exercised /worked with//operated/ by Courts of Equity