1820 July 24.

Rid yourselves of Ultramaria

Part II

Lett 3 Appeal unendurable

misdecision, as compared with right

decision: a prodigious advantage to the bad side of the cause whichever it

be;- to falsehood and deceit in their contest with truth and probity.

If witnesses are not permitted to be sent, even though

they be willing from the judicatory appealed from in Spanish America to the

judicatory appealed to in Spain, it withholds from the ultimate judicatory those

indispensable means, for securing the trustworthiness of evidence, which the

antecedent and subordinate judicatory had, or should have had, at its command:

namely, eventual interrogation and counter-interrogation, by word of mouth, in the face of a public audience:-

a species of unpaid judicatory, which, were it only for its own amusement, will be

employing, all the while, its inspecting vigilance, as a security against misconduct,

through improbity or negligence, on the part of the Judge.

If witnesses are permitted to be sent, but only on

condition of willingness on their part, it confines the

benefit of the evidence to that one, if there be but one, of the two sides, which is

able to defray the expence: and, even if they are sent on both sides, it opens the

door to corruption, to an indefinite amount, on both sides: to corruption, on

pretence of indemnity against expence, and loss of time, and thereby of the means of

maintenance: of maintenance - not merely such as shall be sufficient for subsistence,

but such as shall be proportioned to the rank of the witness in the scale of

opulence: prospect of increase included, where the opulence is in a course of

increase.

In this way, in so far as success depends upon witnesses, if the bad side of the

cause is the only side that can afford to send material, or the most material,

witnesses,- or if it can but send more witnesses than the other, - then, even without

need of corruption, may the bad side make sure of a triumph over the good side.

Such is the effect of Appeals, on the supposition that

witnesses are received along with it, but only on condition of their being voluntary ones: which is as much as to say, in some way or

other interested ones. Will the case be bettered, if they

may be forced? If there exists, any where, a power of forcing individuals, in the

character of witnesses, to repair from Spanish America to Spain, those by whom the

power is possessed, possess, in this way, a power of inflicting banishment, on any or all such individuals, as stand comprised within the

range of this same power of transmitting evidence.

In