12 June 1807

+ 9

1 o

Letter V

II. Litigation

The master engines or instruments with which the technical system has been used to operate in the prosecution of its objects as above described, may be comprehended as under the general description of 1. uncertainty; 2. delay; 3. expence; 4. vexation.

In this respect

[written in columns: column 1]

The counterpolicy of the legislator is or ought to be to reduce to their lowest possible quantity, the respective mass or degrees of uncertainty, delay, expence and vexation incident to litigation - i.e. to the application made by which the subject in his character of plaintiff, calls upon the hand of the Judge, to give execution in his, the plaintiff's, favour to this or that article in the main body of the law: he, at whose charge such service is demanded, resisting it, if the litigation goes on, in the character of defendant.

[column 2]

The policy of Judge and C o under the technical system has been to give incrase and employment to the utmost to the evils of uncertainty, delay, expence and vexation, in the character of instruments, whereby litigation, the source of lawyers' profit, and wrongs in some cases the source, in others the product of litigation are brought into existence: to expence more particularly, inasmuch as besides its other uses as above, it is in respect of that part which in the shape of lawyers' profit goes into the pocket of the partnership the still more direct object of such their policy.