23 June 1807

(8)

Note continued

Letter V

II. Litigation

II. Def t.

malâ fide

Under whatever name, satisfaction, costs, punishment or any other in case of judgment against the wrongdoer who in case of litigation ripens into a malâ fide defendant, a burthen has been made to fall on him, this burthen, as above observed will by its apparent value, operate as a check.

Notwithstanding whatsoever diminution its value has experienced as above in the articles of certainty and proximity its real value, and thence to a certain if not equal degree its apparent value even in the eyes of the wrongdoer, whose appetites and passions dispose him to undervalue it, still if by any means such as the unrestrainable indignation of the legislator, it has happened to it in any instance to be raised in magnitude to a certain pitch, the addition made to the extent of its value in this dimension may still enable it to operate with success in the character of a check to the commission of the wrong, countervailing and overpowering the effect of the utmost defalcation that can have been made from the extent of its value in its two other dimensions, one or both of them.