7 June 1807

11

Letter V

Litigation - Prevent. Promot.

Letter V

II. Litigation

A case that will sometimes happen is that in which the ruin of one man is pregnant with prosperity to another. In this case the oppression is of the nature of simple oppression upon the face of it, with a secret effect of oppression in the way of extortion in the back ground: the simple oppression constitutes the direct; the advantage similar in nature thought not exactly in the mode of manufacture to extortion constitutes a consequential damage.

Plaintiff and Defendant are rivals embarked in the same trade or love/line[?] or any thing else. Defendant is then rendered at once to the Plaintiff an object of jealousy and enmity. In the ruin of the Defendant the Plaintiff beholds a double gratification: one to the irascible appetite, another to the concupiscible. David reaps from the ruin of Uriah a double satisfaction: of punishing him for having had in his arms a wife so beautiful, and then taking her unto his own.