26 Jan y 1808

Codification Jury Trial

Jury Trial

Horse

Take as before the case of sale. Whether in virtue of the transaction between him[?] and the plaintiff on the subject of the horse, a sale of the horse took place, the defendant being bound to know is supposed to be capable of understanding and accordingly to have understood /accordingly/. Supposing the law as that subject to be the state[?] of statute law, and the word sale to stand as part of /one of the articles of/ that statute law, and the plaintiff's demand to be grounded in that article, the import /meaning/ of that word is supposed to be perfectly known to and understood by law, and he consequently to be a compleat and sufficient judge of it.

Take the same man and put him into a Jury box, invest him with the function or at least with part of the function of a Judge, whose duty it is to decide according to law, and in and by so doing to give effect and execution to the law, to give efficacy and fulfilment to the engagements taken by the law, immediately[?] all his knowledge of the law, of the very same portion of the law - all his capacity of forming a right judgment on the import of the words of which it is composed, is according to them to be supposed to vanish /have vanished/. Party to a sale between himself and A he knows what a sale is. party to a sale between A and B. he knows nothing about the matter. A /The/ man who has been occupied /employed/ in selling all his life long[?] /from his childhood/ and hose subsistence has depended upon it, knows not what selling is: to find a man who knows what selling is, you must[?] to a [...?], filled by a set of [...?], no one of whom perhaps, judicial delay excepted, ever sold any thing in his life.