15 Apr 1808

Ch. | | Competition

Such saints [...?] the [...?] they have bred[?]

To honest sectors, as many as necessity forced into their grasp /hands/ they had made it their interest, and consequently their study and endeavour, to add as many dishonest suitors as by encouragement they could render such. To enable them to render justice to honest suitors, and in particular on the plaintiff's side of the cause, imprisonment frequently, power[?] of imprisonment was always /constantly/ necessary. But had they confined the application of it to the ends above indicated as its proper ends, it would have been, comparatively speaking of little use to them. They would have got hold of a man, but to little purpose, for he would never more[?] had long to stay in their hands. He would have been come at with proportionable facility: but consequently with so much the less profit to their underlings.

To the purposes of distinct suitors, imprisonment as applied and managed by them is admirably well adapted, in both sides of the cause.

On the plaintiff's side, as often as, whether habitually or though but momentarily it happens to the intended victim the defendant, to he[?] in a state of indigence /[...?]/ it [...?] the purposes of opposition[?]: of simple opposition[?} or opposition for the purpose of extortion[?], or destruction of rural[?] prosperity, as the case may be. The Defendant goes to jail: the Judge has taken care never[?] to see[?] him /made it a rule never to set eyes on him/, for fear of seeing reason for letting him out again. The Judge and his underlings receive in the first instance, and from the same quarter, the [...?] of the right of Opposition, their fees, The[?] persons[?] his[?] in fact for weeks or months, years, or life, or till the /appropriate/ purpose of the opposition[?] has been accomplished. The longer the /prisoner/ his[?] there, so much the better for the Judge: by the hands of his [...?] and instrument the Jailor, /he receives such profit as is to be extracted from the poor /imprisoned/ man's misery/.

/Anno 1798, the Chief Justice of the King's Bench made in this way almost , │ │ a year, of the Common Pleas, , │ │ a year./

/ ( a) In Scotland, even under the technical system he does not even now. By injuries to the liberty of the subject Scotch Judges get little or nothing: nor have they any such influence on /command over/ the legislature as English ones have./