10 July 1804

Procedure & Evidence

Evils causes

Intricacy

This consideration /observation/ might operate in vindication of the uncertainty, dilatoriness, vexatiousness, and expenciveness of the English system /established systems/ of procedure, if in these systems the mass of those evils were in any tolerably exact proportion to the complexity of the suit, as produced by the above causes. But, look at the actual /established/ state of things, no such proportion nor anything like it will be discernible.

The only appearance and that altogether a faint one that can be discovered of any thing like the observance of any such proposition, is what is /may be found/ discoverable in the law, confused and indeterminate as it is in so great a part of its extent, that masters[?] the bounds between the jurisdiction of the courts called Common Law Courts and the Courts called Courts of Equity. In the Courts of Equity the mode of proceeding is more dilatory than is in the Common Law Courts, and it is in these Equity Courts that causes are carried on of a nature more complex than any that are carried on in the Common Law Courts. In this observation, general and indeterminate as it is, is included everything that can be said in affirmance of a proposition between the intricacy of the system of procedure and the natural complexity of the cause.