18 April 1804

Evidence

Forthcomingness

Ch. Written

§. Inspection Engl. Law

§. English Law

In English jurisprudence, the right of obtaining the faculty of preparatory inspection at the hands of persons unwilling to afford it, seems to be, as it naturally would be of comparatively modern date. It is one of those innovations, by which in spite of the vis[?] inertia opposed by all official establishments, the ends of their institution will now and then, or here and there a fresh instance, be fulfilled. In this instance we may see one /another/ of the few infractions made upon the principle system of negligence or perverse industry, by which it seems as if originally to have been settled that the party's chance for justice should depend - /be as dependent as possible/ not upon the merits of his case, but upon the interest, the corrupt leaning, hostile passion, or at best the caprice of those /such/ individuals of whom assume services in the character of witnesses or sources /keepers/ of real or written evidence /documents/ it is his misfortune to stand in need.

When on the one hand the right of obtaining /extracting/ evidence, even in the character of ultimate evidence was narrowed in such a multitude of instances, on such a multitude of pretences - when on the other hand, the case of personal evidence, the right of investigating and arranging /collecting/ the evidentiary matter /mass of evidence/ by preparatory examination was also confined within such narrow bounds as those which have been described in another place, no wonder that the faculty of obtaining the like preliminary indications by preparatory examination of another kind the correspondent /appropriate/sort/ /kind/ with respect to written evidence should have been of still later date. The practice of writing must have been very generally diffused, and miscellaneous scripts such as private letters trade men's books of account and Minutes /memorial/ of the transactions of corporate and other public bodies have become numerous and general before it would occur to suitors to entertain any hope of persuading Judges to extend their powers to the compelling the production of any such documents for the purposes of judicial decision in the character of written evidence.

So far as concerns the manufacture for the purpose /[...?]/ of contractual evidence there has been want of sufficient scholarship from the very earliest ages. But writing is one thing, reading is another in the language of procedure even to this day, a man who has entered into a bond is not supposed to know how to read it, what he prays for, when an action comes to be grounded, is not the liberty of reading it himself but the opportunity /indulgence/ of hearing it read by somebody else /having it read to him.