17 Sept. 1803

Instructions

Considerations

2. Interest pecuniary

The force with which a sinister interest of the pecuniary kind /class/ acts upon the mind may be the same, whether it be certain or contingent, acting on both sides or only on one side, acting upon the witness singly or acting upon him as one of a body of men any how composed, a private partnership a joint stock company, a set of persons taxed in conjunction for certain purposes such as the parishioners of the same parish. In these several cases the interest in question is but the fraction of an interest: but the a fraction of one sum may be equal to the integer of another.

The prospect which an only son has of succeeding to the estate of his father, the estate not being in settlement /settled upon the son/, is but a contingency: but between the force interest created by such a prospect and the force of an interest created by an estate to the same amount settled on the son, it can not reasonably be supposed that in effect there should be any material difference. In the money market interests called contingent /contingencies/ have their price as well as those which are called certainties.

If by a decision in favour of the plaintiff, a witness would gain twenty pound, while by a decision in favour of the defendant he would gain ten pound, the force of the interest by which his testimony is drawn to the side of the plaintiff is equal to a force of ten pound.

If upon the decision in the cause on which the testimony of a witness is to be given a joint stock company with a million for its capital in which he has a thousandth share has at stake a sum of ten thousand pound, the force of the interest by which his testimony is drawn to the side of the company is equal to a force of ten pound.