27 Feb y 1807

C2 + B.1

L d Grenvil 1. Proposs[...?]

Letter V

I Inadequate compensation[?]

III 1. Costs

II.[...?]

II. Occasional excessiveness.

Considered in the character of a check or remedy in the nature of a punishment against purposed delay, the eventual [...?] of burthen designated by the name of costs is tainted with another imperfection: - besides falling short of the mark, and so being to every good purpose ineffectual, it is liable to go beyond the mark, and so to become oppressive. To ward off this oppression is, even under the natural system, matter of some difficulty: under the technical system, it is impossible.

It falls short of the mark, if the allowance made at the expence of the vanquished parts to the victorious falls short of the burthen in all shapes, pecuniary disbursement of money being but one, which he has borne: in this case there is so much injury rests on the party in the right, injury for which no satisfaction is received.

The check imposed by allowance of costs goes beyond the mark, if, in contemplation and expectation of the allowance provided for him as he supposes by the law, in /on/ the name /score/ of satisfaction, for the burthen provisionally imposed on him in the shape of expence and miscellaneous vexation, he himself, whether through design or negligence, gives to the weight of that burthen an unnecessary increase.