★ Keep up to date with the latest news - subscribe to the Transcribe Bentham newsletter; Find a new page to transcribe in our list of Untranscribed Manuscripts
A thousand pardons I have to beg of you, my dear Sam, for this long silence; tho'
I have thus much to say in apology, that you yourself have been in some measure
the cause of it. Your first, however interesting, happen'd to be of such a nature as not
to require an answer, except as to the Law-case, of which presently. On the other hand,
your 2d required so much to be said to it, if I said any thing, that not willing to consider
it by halves, I put it off till I could muster up resolution to fill as much
paper as I foresaw would become necessary.
As to your Case — young gentleman — aw — hum — your case, I say, difficult
and important as it is, I have however that regard for you and your friends, that
nobody should be more ready to give you the information you desire, were it not
for two ancient and fundamental maxims, which men of our profession never lose
sight of. The one, which is for the use of our clients, is, that a Law opinion is to
be depended upon in exact proportion to the fee that is given for it; so that seeing there
was no fee (let me look once more — no — no fee at all given with your case,
the kindest thing I could do by you, was, instead of giving you an opinion, which
under such circumstances, even tho' mine, could not be depended upon, to give you
none at all. The other which is for our own use, is, "never to take promises for
payment. However, you may get a piece of paper between your finger and thumb,
(you understand me) against I come into your part of the world, and I shall then
you may be assured, Sir, be very ready to shew you any favour.
So much for the Counseller — now brother again — At the same time with
your 3d & last, came to hand a letter from Mr Mulford, which being partly on business,
I have been obliged to give the preference to in answering. We had scarce
left the poor Doctor, when he was attacked by that very same nasty disorder that we
all took so much pains to guard against — The Latin proverb "Occupat extremum Scabies" which is commonly render'd "the Devil" but on this occasion may be translated
"the Itch" takes the hindmost, i:e: him who is left behind, was verified in his
person - The 21st of last month, the day on which his letter is dated, was the very
first he says "of his venturing to set himself down for sound." To add to this, he
has another passage, which containing the history of your lost sheep, I shall
transcribe for your edification. — "Samuel found a coat & wastecoat wanting,
"but as you mentioned disposing of it before my Boy, he looked mighty grave
"at your departing without giving it him receiving it, as I thought: therefore in the name of
"Samuel I took the liberty of presenting them to him." So far the Doctor: the reflexions
upon this, I shall leave for you to make, to save the trouble of communicating
to you mine — I told him in answer, that "Sam would be very glad that
his rags had met with any body to whom the proved acceptable"; particularly as
it was young Trusty, who however, I believed, was one of the last persons to whom
we should have thought ourselves to have given them.
|
Identifier: | JB/537/263/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 537.
|
|||
|---|---|---|---|
|
1773-11-04 |
|||
|
537 |
|||
|
263 |
|||
|
001 |
|||
|
Correspondence |
|||
|
Jeremy Bentham |
|||