18 March 1807

And now, my Lord, as to the use of this distinction - the practical use, but for which believe me my Lord I should never have attempted to pester Your Lordship with this or any other any such dry theory. For in these our[?] days, in the judgment of learned Lords and Gentlemen, not to mention so many other venerable [...?], in whose gravity occupies the place /in whose reverend minds Gravity sits in the place/ of wisdom a man who thinks and reasons before he sits[?] is a metaphysician, and being a metaphysician is thereby ipso facto a Frenchman, a Jacobin, an [...?] and a Papist convert. I hate metaphysics, was the cry of Burke: and on /in/ that time at any rate the sincerity of that most consummate of rhetoricians, whose every word was a diamond was not to be doubted of. Metaphysics is the term of reproach given to the language /discourse/ of every man whose study it is to have as a /lay the/ basis for honest and beneficial practice, to convey clear ideas. To the party man, the lawyer the rhetorician the imposter in every shape metaphysics thus explained, or in other words clear and close reasoning are [...?], and for the same reason that lamps and lanterns are so to thieves.

I beg Your Lordships pardon, if this [...?] or this metaphysician if as such it must be [...?] the practical use is this.

Upon the learned Reformer's faithful and apparently [...?] friend the malâ fide suitor, the /costs/ remedy will not operate: for either [...?] will not pay the costs at all, or if he does, it is because he finds it his interest so to do, inasmuch as the appeal determined and all charges paid he knows he shall will find himself[...?] by /upon/ the ballance[?].

Upon the other sort of appellant, the appellant who though he is so the [...?] is not conscious of being so, the remedey /nostrum/ called costs will be equally /alike/ imperative: why? because, expecting to be declared in the right, he does not expect to pay them. And under one or other of these two divisions are included all persons upon whom the remedy of it was good for any thing could operate.

To be sure if there were no such persons who notwithstanding whatever may be done towards the application of this remedy, composed of terror of costs, would find or deem it their interest to persevere in an appeal of the groundlessness of which they were conscious, there would be no such persons as I have taken the liberty to introduce to Your Lordships learned Reformer's notice under the name of malâ fide suitors: but presently a door shall fly open, and a chamber shewn, in which they may be seen revelling in crowds /swarms/, sucking the blood of injured innocence.