23 Oct r 1807

L d Eldon's Bill

'.1.

Division vice Court

The absurdity of /mischievousness and thence the wickedness of/ the attempt to give eternity to human laws has been held up /stigmatized/ to infamy /view/ so long ago as in the sacred volumes /Jewish scriptures/ in the instance of the laws of Medes and Persians: but the instruction has succeeded no better in the repression /prevention/ of wickedness in this than in so many other shapes.

There are two descriptions of persons who possess an indefensible interest in the perpetuation of this /maintenance of this/ worst of [...?] one class is composed of the mixt[?] multitude of prejudice: those who derive a profit from any as yet unreformed abuse the indefensibility of which is notified to them by their own consciences /each man by his own conscience/ the other class is composed of the compact and well-known fraternity of lawyers.

What can not be defended by sound argument drawn from the principle of utility /grounded in consideration of general welfare/, must, if at all be defended by some such fraud or fallacy. Be it but once established that laws are susceptible of eternity, capable of being made alteration proof, thereupon all that remains to be done is to look for some device by the application of which, whatever /whatsoever/ the abuse be, the quality may be pretended to have been conferred[?] on it.

Lawyers are interested in the maintenance of this doctrine by a double title: 1. because it can scarce happen that there shall be /exist/ any species of abuse /modification of misgovernment/ in which they have not a /do not possess their/ share: 2. because wheresoever application comes to be made of the doctrine /the device/ in question, to their share /in their hands/ principally if not exclusively will[?] full[?] the making of it. Fraud and abuse of words is an instrument of which the custody /keeping/ is in their hands, and in the use of which exercise has given to them a degree of expertness not to be looked for elsewhere. If in that way a job of any kind is to be done for any body theirs as they will know, is the House of Call from whence /whatever[?]/ the hands that are wanted must be got for it.