25 March 1808

Letter V

Ends of Justice

What then shall we say? These more and more deeply seated evils, shall these too as well as the more prominent ones to which they give existence and support, be understood each of them to /intitled to/ place upon the list of the ends of justice, the good which corresponds to it and to which it stands opposed?

If so, then would the abolition of that /the immense factitious/ mass of factious (complication) delay, vexation and expence be intitled to a place among the ends /upon the list/ of justice not only on its own account /by a direct title/ but moreover inasmuch as by the production of non-demand, desistment from demand, non-defence, and desistment from defence and frequently even of misdecision, it produces, for the accommodation of /wrongdoers/ the opulent wrongdoer and his protector and partner in iniquity the fee-fed Judge, the ruin of the innocent and injured on both sides of the cause.

If so, then would the rendering it possible for men to be acquainted with /have knowledge of/ those rules of action which every year they are strengthened by some, and ruined by hundreds and by thousands for not conforming to in a word the converting /conversion/ of jurisprudential law into statutory, and giving to that statutory law a form rendering it accessible to and comprehensible by the minds /understanding/ to which it is addressed -

If so, then would the annihilation of the matter of corruption flowing in the shape of fees, into the pocket of the Judge a[?] in possession or in reversion[?] - directly, or through this and that carefully covered underground channel - possess an undisputed place among the ends of justice!