13 Feb y 1807

Inserendum[?]?

Letter IV

Montesquieu

This /[...?]/ is the price put upon justice, therefore it is the proper price: Such is the argument: - corollary therefore there neither is nor can be any such thing in extortion in the world.

In the way of direct assertion, there are many things that even a lawyer will not be ashamed to say: for instance in the way of insinuation there is nothing /what is there that/ he will not say? ││ I am sorry to add - or almost any man, who has a point to maintain, and feels himself hard pressed.

In the shape of delay vexation and expense, (open the door to insinuation) there is no mass of injustice so enormous, that may not in that [...?] meet with its defence /find a good defence/. ││ Accordingly it has been borrowed by Blackstone for the defence of English injustice: borrowed up by the Lord President of the Scotch College of justice for the defence of Scotch injustice in the same way it may be handed from branch to branch, and be[?] never the worse for wear, after defending go round the world, defend injustice every where.

In Turkey, causes decided and no delay manufactured: proof sufficient to Montesquieu and his pupils, that in Turkey neither property nor reputation nor life experience any regard. Little enough, but too probably: - But would they experience any more if long vacations were introduced there instead of /take place there of/ long [...?] sittings di dia in diem[?], would they experience any more? But suppose that in Turkey sittings di dia diem[?], were to open, and let in long vacations? would this mend the matter? To Christians, to Jews, to Turks themselves, would property and so forth be the more secure?

The Bastion[?] where he has heard the parties, trials them "with a bastinado": - Perhaps he does: and could not he[?] /then could not he/ although he never heard it /them/? if /could not he/ like learned Lords and gentlemen on both sides of the Tweed he decided the cause, without hearing from either party a single syllable?

In Turkey, suitors /though/ in a civil suit, are made to feel the cudgel: Perhaps so; and what then? My Lord President! Speak my good Lord! Is Scotland Turkey? In Scotland, the noble men and gentlemen [...?...?] in the Commission of the Peace, are they Bastions[?]? The Small Debt Courts, which are so good for ,5, so bad for ,5,1: these courts of unpolluted justice, are they so many cudgelling irons?