15 April 1804

Evidence

Forthcomingness

Ch. Real

The bill filed - and Defendant on his part being also unfortunate enough to have need of a document, the possession of which happens to be in the plaintiff, can the defendant, now that both parties are within the grips of the same court, avail himself of it's powers, for obtaining by the same opportunity the justice he, on his part, stands in need of? Can he not [...?] indeed. Not in that same suit, for concerning that the question was; not in virtue of that same bill : Yes, on condition of filing a cross-bill, doubling vexation, doubling expenses, doubling delay, dragging the plaintiff through the same misery and thorny road through which he has himself been dragged.

In this way, for the purpose of obtaining or [?]effectually trying to obtain, that same sort of justice which in another case is obtained by a single /man/ [...?], of the simplest nature, such a one of which dozens or scores are obtained in a Court of Common Law in the compass as well as for the purpose of a single cause, the party is compelled to [...?] a separate suit, and that of a sort some number of times more vexatious, expensive, and dilitary than the principal one. A suit of an immoderate size is thus crammed into the belly of another suit, the size of which but for this unnatural distension would have been comparatively moderate. In the natural history of reptiles /serpents/, we read of a sort of serpent called the Bora one of which of the size of a ship's cable was seen bathing with a huge swelling in the throat, and the horns of a stag sticking out of its mouth. The monster thus described may serve as an emblem of an English suit at law with an English suit in equity in the belly of it. To an English eye a viper gorged by a toad some number of times his own natural diameter is a more frequent spectacle.

In the case of an Issue out of Chancery we have already had occasion to observe this sort of intro-susception [...?]. In this case balking at the suit of law, considered by itself, the distinction is scarcely visible. It is as if the reptile[?], fresh from the egg, were to be swallowed by the toad.