May 1805

Evidence

Introd.

ch. Evils causes - non demand

But revenge, malice? When a powerful check as that of the --- of vexation and expence in its present setting(?) is removed, will not a more frequent a much more frequent one than is ---- to be made of the hand of justice, as in the character of an instrument of revenge, or even unprovoked malice?

I answer thus -

1. So as the nature(?) act be in itself not preponderantly mischievous, which is as much as to say, so as the cause be just, no matter what the motive is the motive is: when mischief is produced by the nature of the motive, it is only where the act would in itself have been mischievous, without that motive, and whatever had been the motive.

2. What is it that at present makes the hand of justice so ----- in the character of an instrument of malice? It is the weight that it receives from /given to it by/ the factitious load of vexation and expence. Take off the load, it will be /----/ fit for nothing but to do justice.

3. If the thing demanded /claimed by the demandant/ be trifling why does not the defendant give it up at once? If he does, there ends the suit, there ends the faculty /possibility/ of seeking in it a gratification for malice.

4. If the defendant's reason for non-compliance with the demand be good, why does not the demandant give the matter up /desist/? If he does, there again ends the suit, and with it the faculty of seeking in it a gratification for malice.

5. If malice be found in conjunction with a bad cause with a groundless claim or defence, groundless in the point of law and in fact, and accompanied with temerity or consciousness of wrong in the brain of the suitor, here there is a case for satisfaction, for satisfaction involving or backed by punishment. Thus then malice receives a check: but in what character? Not merely as motive, but as malice having had injury aggravated with mala fide or temerity, for its fruit.

6. If unaccompanied with either mala fide or even temerity unaccompanied at the same time with all factitious that is /which is as much as/ to an all considerable factitious vexation and expence, such should still abound in a degree before unknown where is the great evil? Every fresh suit instituted or defended is a fresh demonstration of the care of the sovereign for the people, of the confidence of the people in the administration of justice. In that state of things unless a man's cause be just what can he hope to gain from it?