12 May 1808

Ch.V. §.10

I. Reasons

Ch.V. Advantages

§.10. Malâ fide Defences ousted

Ch.V.

§.9. Malâ fide defences reduced in number.

Correspondent to the defalcation made from the number of malâ fide demands, would be the defalcation made {by correspondent causes} from the number of malâ fide defences.

Correspondent; but not equal: because ability to pay is not a necessary concomitant to the inability of averring with truth and safety the existence of a just man for not paying.

In England the title of this effect to the character of an advantage would be still more precarious than that of the other which is so intimately stated to it.

In England the emoluments of those exalted dignitaries, for whose sake men of inferior mould were created, depend in a still greater and more evident degree upon malâ fide defences than upon malâ fide demands.

With the full knowledge of himself and all the other Judges, of the mass of emolument attached to the Office of Chief Justice of England, a portion amounting in the year 1798, to upwards of £1,400 a year was afforded by malâ fide defences in number between │ │ and │ │ in a year defences known to be malâ fide ones to the full knowledge of those venerable persons from whence a word properly addressed could have at any time been sufficient to put an end to this traffick if the abolition of it had been considered as entitled to the appellation of an advantage. In 1798 more than £1,400 a year: and now in 1807, £│ │