Oct 1805

Evidence

Appropriate

The cause /origin/ of the questions as subjects of debate themselves is one thing: the cause /origin/ of the importance that belongs to them is another. The questions themselves spring as we have seen out of one species of abuse: the /their/ importance that belongs to them out of another species of abuse.

Under the natural system, if, for want of due notice, or by any other accident, a party happens not to be prepared on this or that day with this or that article of necessary evidence, the evidence being by the supposition in his power /at his command/, he brings it with him the next day. But in the English technical system, in which the denial of justice is the ordinary state of things, and justice is not so much as pretended to be administered but after a short period separated from each other by distant intervals the next day does not come till six months after and /or/ in some places perhaps twelve months: and when another day for the production of the omitted evidence does come, it is not to be obtained but upon the terms of the second plunderage, performing once again for the benefit of the man of law all those useless ceremonies /preliminaries/ which never ought to have been performed at all. Under the care of English Judges a /every/ law suit is thus the very stem of [...?]: when a pretence has been found for preventing it from gaining the top of the hill, if it be destined to take a second chance it is not allowed to keep the ground that it has gained, but it is in the first [...?] /rolled back/ into the bottom, before a second chance is allowed it, of getting /being forced up/ up to the top.