29 Feb y 1808

Letter VI

Omissa & Facienda

No Alleg sans Oath

Two enormous[?] /all-pervading //Enormously extensive/ mischief flow from this abomination:

1. One [...?] /is/ in the enormous quantity of balderdash habitually [...?] /[...?]/ out under favour of licence: and with it a proportionable quantity of complication, delay vexation and expence.

The Client not being presentable for any falsity it may happen to it to contain, leaves his lawyer to fabricate allegations on his behalf to whatever effect and in whatever quantity he pleases.

The lawyer being not only not permitted, but rewarded in proportion to the quantity, obtains at the same profit in proportion to the quantity, and reputation in proportion to the zeal of which the magnitude of the quantity is the demonstration and the measure.

The mischief /grievance/ is but to [...?] in the English modification /branch/ of technical procedure. But in that case it is restrained in degree by the forms: the forms of pleading.

In the Scottish branch those forms being for the most part wanting, the mischief has no bounds.

In English procedure, the effect of those forms is to draw in some sort a line of demarcation between the clause[?] (whether demand or defence) and the testimony delivered in support of it.

Scottish procedure affords no such line. Herein[?] another source of /and/ confusion with the complication and superfluity of matter of which it is productive.