20 Jan y 1808

Letter V

Ch 5 malâ fide Appeal

how prevented

Note that though in cases of litigation the pecuniary shape is the shape in which the advantage to the litigant is most apt to take /be reaped/, and as being the most readily subjected to calculation, is the first adapted to the purpose of exemplification, yet according to the impression made by it /in proportion to the value put upon it by the litigant/ in his record, advantage in any other shape if to the same amount will in the occasion in question be producers of the same effect.

Though the [...?] of [...?] /pecuniary/ or exemplum from meaning[?] loss is on both sides of the suit the most frequent cause of litigation, yet the [...?] of gratifying enmity at the expence of the adversary is unhappily by no means an unfrequent one: and in this case, in so far as the suffering [...?] to be inflicted on the adversary assumes a pecuniary shape, the calculation /account/ is no less simple in this than in the one above mentioned /former instance/. In this case the the loss to the adversary viz as before the plaintiff, becomes to the malâ fide litigant, the defendant so much advantage: not necessarily indeed so much profit, meaning pecuniary profit, but shall so much advantage in smaller shapes, [...?] that a shape in which it rises and falls with the amount of the sum of money in question, exactly as in the other case.

Loss to plaintiff, by lying[?] not of his money, say 12 per cent: advantage to the malâ fidi defendant by keeping his money in hs hand, say 5 per cent: per contra loss which he will have to pay say 5 per cent: this gives profit indeed to the concupiscible appetite, 0: but real profit to the irasicible appetite, 2 per cent.