22 April 1808

J.B. to H. of Commons

Reasons for the Work

The demand is incompleat unless it staes ground of demand in[?] [...?] [...?] the service demanded, grounds of demand or right viz. existence of some collative event, non-existence it its ablative one.

Universally then, be the sort of right what it may, under Statute law every man is, at any given point of time, in possession of such right, in whose favour an event, or state of things, has antecedently to that point of time taken place, to which such portion of law has given the effect of conferring on him that right, and which, neither at that same point of time nor at any subsequent point of time, has any event or state of things had place, to which the same or any other portion of law has had the effect of divesting him of that same right.

A benefit of any kind can not, in the shape of a right, be conferred on any person, in the character of a plaintiff or demandant, but a correspondent burthen, in the shape of an obligation, must at the same time be imposed upon at least one other person, viz. in the case of a suit at law, in the character of a defendant.

Accordingly To warrant the Judge, therefore, in acceding to any such juridicial demand, it is not sufficient to him to know what that demand is - what the service is which is thus demanded at his hands; it is necessary also that he understand what are the grounds of that demand: and to be satisfied that such demand is properly and sufficiently grounded in point of fact, as well as in point of law: and accordingly that, in favour of the individual appearing in the character of plaintiff, or in favour of a class of persons of which the individual plaintiff is one, an individual event or state of things to which in favour of such individual or such class the portion of law referred to has given the effect of a collative event, or state of things with reference to the species of right in question, has taken place, since which no individual event or state of things has taken place, in which that same, or any other portion of law, has given the effect of an ablative or divestitive event or state of things with relation to that same right.