21 July 1805

Evidence

Introd. Jurisprudent

Equity Jurisdiction

In the Courts of Common Law the business of procedure is carried on upon one plan. In the Courts of Equity the business of procedure is carried on upon another plan as different from the other as any that can be conceived. Two plans here different for the accomplishment of the same object may be both wrong; and if to run counter to every end of justice is to be wrong are both wrong, but they can not both be right.

Not only did they travel /wish/ in use the execution of the same work /sort of business/ upon discordant and repugnant principles, but among the occupations of one of these sort of Courts is that of stopping and undoing the work of another /the other/. [When Penelope unravelled by night the web she had been compelled to weave by day, it was for the declared proposed purpose of impeding the work and not of forwarding it.] It To do this and that and other is contrary to equity and good conscience. So says /saeth/ the suitor in Equity to the Court of Equity. It is so it is indeed contrary to equity and good conscience, says the Court to the Plff in effect, as often as upon the ground /strength of the [...?]/ then made by the Plff it acceeds to his demand. Contrary to equity and good conscious? to do what? To do that very thing which the Courts of Common Law are constantly employed /occupied/ in doing, because the not doing it would be contrary to justice.

My property /land is withholden/ is taken from me. I apply for redress to the only Court /Court which in this case in question prefers to give in [...?]/ to which I can apply for it, a court of common law. When the Common Law storehouse of factitious expense, vexation and delay has been exhausted, and the time is come when it is no longer possible for the Common Law Court to forbear rendering a justice, I am dragged into a court of Equity, in which the process of factitious expense, vexation and delay recommences with improvements: to a Court of Equity, in /by/ which my demand is decided upon on principles disregarded by the Court of Common Law; the facts being also decided upon by evidence not there admissible and obtained by a mode of enquiry altogether different.