Advising a Friend against going to Law.

Dear Sir,

I amsorry to hear, that the Difference between you and Mr. Archer is at last likely to be brought to a Law-suit. I wish you’d take it into your serious Consideration before you begin, because it will hardly be in your Power to end it, when you please. For you immediately put the Matter out of your own Hands, into the Hands of those whose Interest it is to protract the Suit from Term to Term, and who will as absolutely prescribe to you in it, as your Physician in a dangerous Illness.

The Law, my good Friend, I look upon, more than any one thing, as the proper Punishment of an over-hasty and perverse Spirit, as it is a Punishment that follows an Act of a Man's own seeking and chusing. You will not consent perhaps now to submit the Matter in Dispute to Reference; but let me tell you, that after you have expended large Sums of Money, and squandered away a deal of Time in Attendance on your Lawyers, and Preparations for Hearings, one Term after another, you will probably be of another Mind, and be glad Seven Years hence to leave it to that Arbitration which now you refuse. He is happy who is wise by other Mens Misfortunes, says the common Adage: And why, when you have heard from all your Acquaintance, who have try’d the Experiment, what a grievous Thing the Law is, will you, notwithstanding, pay for that Wisdom, which you may have at the Cost of others?

The Representation thatwas once hung up as a Sign in the Rolls Liberty, on one Side, of a Man all in Rags wringing his Hands, with a Label importing, That he had lost his Suit; and on the other, a Man that had not a Rag left, but stark naked, capering and triumphing, That he had carry’d his Cause , was a fine Emblem of going to Law, and the infatuating Madness of a litigious Spirit.