7 June 1807

+ Superseded?

6

1 o

Letter V

Litigation - Prevent. Promot.

Letter V

II. Litigation

2. Plff. malâ fide

II. The next grand division of the case is - that of simple oppression.

In this case either the Defendant has nothing worth conquering by any one else, or nothing that in the eye of David is worth getting, or that he can hope to get. But somehow or other the defendant, Uriah, has incurred the displeasure of David: the effect being thus established no matter what the cause, whether by having given a vote on the wrong side, or by having too beautiful a wife, or any other such offence, sufficiently [...?] pregnant with provocation. The ratio of Defendant to Plaintiff is now rather that of Uriah to David; than that of Naboth to the same potentate[?]; and lest the two parables be confounded, let not any thing about Bathsheba or any thing belonging to her be here likened to a vinyard.

The form assumed now by the destroying Angel, to whom all forms in or by which equal gains are to be made are equally agreeable is now that of Joab the captain[?] of the host: the Hittite is now set in his proper place at the front of the battle; what follows is of course: his fall is like that of Charles the 12 th between friends and enemies.

So far as material plundeer is concerned the labour, if denoted by Mahar-shalal-hash-baz, is here saved: the destroying Angel carries it off entire.

The case of simple oppression is therefore, in his opinion, a still better one than that of extorsion in the way of oppression. By simple oppression, he gets all that is to be got, and never misses[?] it: in the complicated case of oppression in the way of extortion he can never triumph but the plaintiff must triumph with time: and a worse thing still as we have seen that may happen is that plaintiff David triumphs alone: while no part of the plunder falls to the share of the destroying Angel but for the terror of whose sword the conquest made by David could never have been atchieved[?]. In the eyes of Law or Equity inequality of this sort can never be any thing better than the summitt of injustice.