25 March 1804

Evidence

Forthcomingness

Ch.

Invitations

Simple invitations /Applications simply invitative/ are evidently not applicable with propriety to the case where the source of evidence is patent /already known/: to an individual /a human/ who in his individual capacity has been fixed upon as likely to possess the information requisite to qualify him for yielding evidence: nothing could be more unconducive /unsuitable/ to the end than to trust to the casual operation of possible /possibly acting/ motives for the discharge of an almost indispensable duty from the discharge of which it may happen to a man to be withheld by forces to the magnitude of which there are no definite limits. To trust the interests of justice to the success of an application this feeble and precarious, would be to place the fate of the party in a state of absolute dependence on the will and pleasure of the witness: a state of things the mischievousness of which has already been brought to view. +

The rule of prudence is too obvious to have any where been altogether overlooked in established practice. No system of procedure is so lame as not to furnish a system of punishment, more or less well-arranged, for in case of non-compliance with an application of this kind.

+ In B. Examination ch. Discreditory