29 May 1804

Procedure

(4)

Ch. Special Pleading

What makes the abuse the more scandalous - the grievance the more crying, is - that it is not the unextirpated remnant of antient barbarism, the continuance of which is the result of simple negligence, but a comparatively modern arrangement /grievance/, substituted within time of memory - that is of distinct history, substituted by a strong and corrupt hand, under the sleep of the legislator /during the slumber of the sovereign/ to the more simple and better practice of former times: it is the result not of primeval ignorance but of misapplied /proverbial[?]/ knowledge misapplied, like forgery and libelling it is an abuse of the grand instrument of civilization - the art of writing.

In the case of this as of every other art, the rarer the art, that is the fewer the practisers the better they were paid in proportion to the demand for their service: and the better they were paid, the more attentive /eager/ they would be to multiply as far as depended on themselves, the occasions for the practice of it, and the extent to which it was to be practiced. Hence, instead of oral /vivâ voce/ allegations supported or confuted on the spot by vivâ voce depositions, the result of reciprocal /contemparious[?] and vivâ voce interrogation, came[?] plea upon plea in writing, the writing swelled /swollen/ in each instance by as large a mass of unnecessary words /verbiage/ as the ingenuity of the learned[?] author could find a pretence for [...?] [...?]. Thus swelled /grew/ expence, with its consequent and concomitant [...?]. But writing is a work of /takes up/ time and writing in one part supposes and necessitates reading on the other: and thus delay grew out of vexation and expence: fresh delay, productive /fruitful/ in its turn of fresh vexation and fresh expence: collateral injustice in each shape being at once the effect and cause of collateral injustice in every other, frequently also the cause of direct and ultimate injustice whether in a natural way by deposition of evidence, or in the way of positive law, by a positive decision, an act of perversity and folly, refusing on this or that pretence, all alike frivolous: and without so much as the pretence of necessity, refusing to give effect to the assurances given by the substantive or rather main body [...?] of the law.