16 Sept 1803

Evidence

Instructions

Considerations

2. Pecuniary

Considerations respecting the effect of pecuniary interest upon evidence.

1. The value at stake being given /the same/, as also sensibility o the individual to a gain or loss to that amount, as deducible from the state of his pecuniary circumstances in other respects, a mans testimony is more exposed to just suspicion in the case where he is a party to the suit, than where he is not a party; as also more where he is plaintiff, than where he is defendant.

2. For a man who is not a party to the suit - that is has no natural interest of the pecuniary kind in the success of that side in favour of which his testimony tends - can in general gain no advantage can gain no thanks from the party in whose favour if the testimony be wilfully false, and at the same time successful the falshood operates, unless the party is privy to the falshood, and in some sort a [...?] of it. /particular in the guilt./ False evidence /Perjury/ therefore in this case requires two to be concerned in it: whereas, where the party and the witness are the same person /there is no party concerned besides the witness himself/, it requires but one.

3. In a situation of a defendant, false evidence, in a cause relative to money, is not so dangerous in its tendency viz: in the way of example, on the side of the defendant, as on the side of the plaintiff. The reason is, that in the character of a defendant, as such a man is not in his own power the means of increasing his [...?] /the numbers/ at pleasure: on each occasion whether the suit to which he is a party takes place, depends, directly at least, not upon himself, but upon another person, - the plaintiff. By his false testimony /falshood/ the utmost he can hope to do is to exonerate himself from the particular /single/ obligation which another person, in the character of defendant, so long as he confines himself to that character, it is not in his power to impose any sort of obligation upon anybody by any subsequent attempts /succeeding falshoods/, whatever his success may have been in the first.