23 June 1805

Evidence

Introd

Ch. Non-Notoriety

''.3 Contracts

At other times, to instruments expressive of a will which was not his /a mans/ own, marks of recognition, whereby he represented them as being his own were observed in various ways by fraud or /[...?] or/ force.

The man of law, on his part, ever on the watch, (for such is the effect of the technical System) to take advantage of the wickedness of mankind and its attendant miseries, ever on the watch to convert them to own use, and aggravat them to his his own benefit, by aggravating those under pretence of alleviating or curing them, laid hold of /levied/ the opportunity, and applied to the disease one of his quack and drastic medicines.

Contracts (said the lawyer to the legislator) Contracts, you see are liable to be forged: or what is as bad instruments of contract which though adopted /given/ by the parties as containing the real /genuine/ expression of their respective wills and desires do not contain it, the assent given to them having been obtained by force or deception, are liable to be produced and the assistance of the Judge demanded for them and obtained, just as it might and would and ought to have been had these instruments bear in [...?] what they falsely purport to be. Spurious contracts are liable to be produced and conferred as if they were genuine: contracts unfairly, as if they had been fairly obtained. Take my advice and you will do away this grievance. I have invented certain formalities /contrived certain ceremonies/; certain operations such as those who mean unfairly such as were to put of spurious or unfairly made contracts, for genuine and fairly made ones, will not find it easy to perform: adopt these formalities, say that a pretended instrument of contract, produced as and without having been accompanied by these formalities, shall not be considered as genuine and fairly made, shall not receive from you that assistance which is necessary to its being endowed with a binding form - say for shortness that it shall be null, void, and of no effect.