May 1808

J.B. to H. of Commons

I. Reasons for the Work

Ch.1.

§.2. Demand proper Contents of

Ch. 1

§.2. Instrument of demand - its proper contents -

1. In every instrument wherein and whereby a demand made by a person in the character of plaintiff is expressed. Whatsoever be the nature of the demand - i.e. of the judicial service demanded by the plff. at the hands of the Judge, two things ought to be {distinctly and truly} stated in it: 1. the nature of the service: 2. the ground of the demand, as constituted by the right or title which the plaintiff has, in his own declared conception and persuasion at least, to warrant his calling upon the Judge to render him that service.

2. In every judicial case there are at least two parties interested: one at least on the plaintiff's, one other at least on the defendant's side of the cause: and except in the case where between the Plff. and the defendant there is no point really in dispute, the object of the suit being not to settle any point in dispute between the parties, but to obtain the sanction of the Judge for whatsoever comes to be done, (as in the meaning[?] of the case where a mass of property requires for the legal division of it the concurrence of a Judge) no judicial service can be rendered by the Judge to the party who demands it, without imposing a correspondent burthen on the defendant at whose charge it is demanded.

{3. By every such judicial demand two distinguishable services are required to be eventually performed, one or other, or both, at the hands of two distinct persons, viz. the Judge and the Defendant: the one the service which it is required that the defendant himself shall, by the Judge, be engaged to render to the plff., the other, the service which is rendered by the Judge in so far as by his authority the defendant is engaged to render the principal service immediately above mentioned from whence the advantage to the plff's. side of the cause more immediately takes its rise.}