16 March 1808

Letter V

continued

Causes (immediate)

of failure of justice

1. Misdecision: 2. Non-decision: 3. Non-demand. 4. Desistment. 5. Non-Justiciability on the part of the Defendant. Taken in the order of obviousness, such are the occurrences which present themselves as the causes to which, in the character of immediate causes, failure of justice as often as it has place to them - i.e. to some or more of them - may in each instance be ascribed.

By the consideration of time, (were that the only one) a different order might perhaps be suggested: as, for instance, 1. Non-justiciability of the Defendant: 2. Non-demand: 3. Desistment: 4. Non-decision: 5. Mis-decision.

On the present occasion the former of these two different orders seems best adapted to the purpose of explanation.