1819 July 4

Defence of | | ag st Edinb gh Review

II. Indirect attacks

5. Judica teipsum

3

On the part of the Whigs had there been the least spark of a regard for the so much /indefatigably/ boasted purity here would have been an occasion for the display of it. But here instead of correctors of it, they were accomplices in it.

If there be one fact more incontestable than another, it is that the common law including the system of judicial procedure had for its object from beginning to end the interest not of the people over whom it was made but of the Judges /Kings[?] removeable creatures/ by and for whom it was made: and it is to this in conjunction with the low taxes that we are indebted for the denial and sale of law, and the delay vexation and expence by which the sale is made[?] /effected/ those corrupt objects are accomplished.

If ever there was a situation in which interest was set /made to stand/ in opposition to duty it is that of an English Judge. There is no country under the sun in which so much is made in that situation as in this: for if not in what is above where shall corruption be found.

In a cause between power and weakness, the temptation to create[?] inequity is as great as it is in the power of temptation to make it: peerage or advancement or peerage for self, every thing else for dependents and corruption[?] of all sorts. Out of this source[?] comes libel law

All this has been made manifest by me in several works: but those who suffer by it can not carry their eyes[?] into this scale[?] of inequity[?], and those who profit by it, Whigs as well as Tories of course will not.

In a cause between A and B, it is my belief that partiality is but rarely if at all exercised. it certainly is not the fashion. But it may be exercised to any extent – it is actually at this moment exercised by every Judge without exception /for any thing that any body can know to the contrary/, and there would be no possibility of its being punished, prevailed, or so much as known. Such must every where be the case in so far as real law is silent, and where for want of one the rule[?] of action is manifested upon each occasion by every Judge according to his own pleasure, for which something which he may call a precedent never has been nor ever can be wanting.