13 March 1808

Letter V

§.6. Reasons

Ends of Justice

The good man who had three Sons, Peter, Martin and Jack, and a wardrobe with three coats in it, gave by his will, as every body knows, a coat to each. If, under the terms of the will, one of the coats was by the name and description of the red one, left to Peter, another, in like manner the blue one, to Martin, and the third, the brown one to Jack, the right of each was thus compleat without the Judge. But if, instead of giving to each son his coat outright, the effect of the will was to order that to each should be given a coat to be chosen for him by the Judge, in that case till the Judge had given his decision, no one of the three legatees had a compleat right to any one of the three coats: all the right that any one of them had in the first instance, was a right to a certain service to be rendered to him by the Judge: viz. the service consisting in the investing him with a compleat right to one of the coats at the choice of the Judge himself.

Whether the good man named an executor, does not appear from the history: for argument sake let us suppose he did. In the first of the above cases, if on Peter's going to the executor and saying - Give me the red coat, it being the one that was left to me, if the Executor had said nay: you shall have ne'er a coat or you shall take up with the blue one, here would have been a wrong, and the Executor the wrong doer. In the other case if, on Peter's going to the executor and demanding the red coat as before, the Executor had said, nay: I can not give you that or any other of the Coats till the Judge has told us which, here could have been no wrong.