30 April 1808

J.B. to H of Commons

1. Reasons for the Work

§ English pleadings inapplicable to Scotland

4. The nature of the service demanded not designated {In the common intercourse between man and man it would be apt to be regarded as a mark of imbecillity, if one man wanting something of another, were not to give any tolerably intelligible account of the object of his desire. In common law this imbecillity becomes matter of science or the fruits of it becomes as[?] an object of veneration as forming part and parcel of the matter of the science.}

5. Of the services which under the head of satisfaction as for wrong a plaintiff is liable to have need to demand at the hands of the Judge, those in principal use are as follows:

1. Delivery of an individual thing of the class of things moveable.

2. Delivery of a specific thing of the class of things immoveable.

3. Delivery of sufficient security for specific services of any description to be rendered by the defendant to the plaintiff.

4. Rendering of that particular species of service which is in most general demand, and which consists in the payment of a sum of money to this or that amount.

6. In the case of an individual thing moveable, in the designation of the service demanded will be included the designation of the thing which is the object of the demand.

In strictness of speech the English system of pleading can not be chargeable with imperfection on this head. The law does not in fact so much as undertake to render satisfaction in any such shape: it does not either command or authorize the Judge to render any such service. If in the catalogue of things moveable lying within the jurisdiction of English Judges a man were to look for the objects of property in respect of which the common law of England affords its protection to the proprietor, he would look for them in vain.

Subject to limitation in a great extent, the Courts called Equity Courts do, it is true, hold out against a wrong of this description - a remedy so disadvantageous as to be scarcely ever sought.