[...?] May 1808

I. Reasons

Ch. I Pleadings its Objections

§.1. Proper purpose

Ch. I. Proper Objects and contents of a System of Pleading.

§. 1. To what purposes to which a system of pleading ought to be adapted.

1. By a System of pleading I understand an aggregate mass of instruments (a) of procedure, of which the immediate component parts are the several sets of pleadings delivered to each judicatory on the occasion of the several suits (b) or causes that, in the course of a given length of time, have been therein instituted.

2. By a

set of pleadings I understand a chain or string of written instruments successively delivered in to a judicial office; having for its component links, two at the least, viz., an instrument that may be called an instrument of demand delivered in on the plaintiff's side, an instrument that may be called an instrument of defence delivered in on the defendant's side: to which may be added other such alternating instruments in a number which has no absolutely certain limits: but which of late years has very seldom, if ever, extended beyond four.

(b) (Suits) Understand of such the[?] species of suits in which this mode of altercation is in use. For there are some in which it is not: all suits, for example, which are heard and determined vivâ voce: of the which class belong, individually taken, by far the greatest number.

(a) (Instruments) Though the species of altercation denoted by the term judicial pleading, in the English sense, is not incapable of being carried on vivâ voce, having, in the early ages of English jurisprudence, been actually carried on in that mode, yet in modern practice no such altercation being carried on otherwise than in writing, as often as, without special notice, the word pleading is hereinafter mentioned a written instrument is the object that will be understood as intended to be designated by it. In Scottish procedure the word has a more extensive and less determinate signification. See ch.│ │ §. │ │