21 June 1807

(2)

Letter V

II. Litigation

III. Def t.

malâ fide

To the three of the principal shapes which property can assume Estates called freehold estates in land, houses and other immoveables. Estates called copyhold estates, having also land houses and other immoveables for their subject matter - to these and to the recently created and unhappily increasing species of property called government annuities, not to mention others of inferior account, Judge and C o have succeeded in imparting this useful property.

True it is that an investment or use transformation of this kind may have been effected, and no litigation, thence no lawyers-profit, be the consequence. But in this uncertainty there is nothing by which the contrivance in question is distinguished from the other devices having the promotion of litigation for their end in view: none but what produce chance of a few, if any, that can be said to produce a certainty of it.

If before any litigation commenced, it be matter of notoriety to the plaintiff that the whole of the defendant's property has already been made to assume one or more of those shapes in which it is secured against justice, and if at the same time, from the badness of the defendant's character, it be clear to the plaintiff that the Defendant will in the event of a judgment in his favour be dishonest enought to profit by the invitation thus held out to him by the well paid guardian of the public morals, in such case the plaintiff, if well advised, will submitt to the denial of justice and not make affliction more afflicting by the expence and vexation of hopeless litigation.

But there are two cases in each of which litigation may take place and the chance which Judge and C o have thus given themselves converted into certainty.

1. Before litigation the swindler's property is not in any one of these shapes: but pending litigation he takes the opportunity of putting it into one or more of them. Here then comes the advantage of delay, factitious delay: the greater the quantity he can succeed in purchasing it of those who have it to sell, the more time he has for looking out for the most favourable opportunities, and going through the operations necessary in each case.