The Poor Man's Plight

by Ethan Nelson

What can a parable tell us about Pastorius’s conception of law and morality?

While Francis Daniel Pastorius’ Beehive contains a wealth of information about books, emblems, authors, and quotes, one of the most interesting and singular passages in the commonplace book is a short story called “The Tithe - Teacher Plaintiff & the Poor Man Defendant.” Clearly, Pastorius thought the story was important and worth transcribing: there are no other short stories in the Beehive and Pastorius included ample commentary of his own in the margins. The story is a fable about a poor man who is summoned to court because he allegedly did not pay tithes to a priest. However, at every point in the process of going to trial the poor man is stymied by greedy attorneys, blatantly corrupt judges, and nebulous legal rules and customs. The story follows a recurring pattern where the poor man attempts to navigate the legal system on his own, but is repeatedly thwarted and robbed at every juncture. First, he tries to appear in court himself, since the writ he received commands him to appear in his own person. But little does the poor man know that he must hire a lawyer to act as his own person. When he voices complaints, the lawyers warn him that he must follow the rules or face a “contempt” and go to prison. Nor can the poor man write his own legal documents; he must pay the attorneys eight pence a sheet. When the poor man asks why the lawyers’ work is worth more than his own, they claim that an obscure custom of the court gives them the right to charge obscene prices. This is a persistent theme throughout the piece: the poor man is not only prevented from doing his legal work on his own, but he is also consistently prohibited from knowing the tenuous laws that are used to disenfranchise him.

Unfortunately, the saturnine parable does not end well for the poor man:

In few words there’s the poor mans fate; the poor
man pays for all, and suffers for all, and the
Lawyers go away with all, and the poor man must
stand by, and see himself rob’d of his Birthright.

Thus the story has a surprisingly relevant and perspicacious message about individual autonomy, justice, and the right to a fair trial. The poor man knows he is entitled to represent himself in court and prepare his own legal defense; he even uses Scripture, the Magna Carta, and English laws to argue for his rights (although it is curious how a manual laborer in the seventeenth century acquired such an impressive knowledge of legal precedents). However, his eloquent arguments receive little attention, and the poor man is forced to go along with the arbitrary and corrupt rules of the court:

Nevertheless the poor man being Overruled & dri:
ven to put his cause into a Counsels hand, then be:
tween the Councel & the Judges they can make
the poor mans Cause look how they please, and the
poor man shall have no more Law, but just so much
as they’re pleased to measure him out

The author of the story then implores the reader to question why the labor of attorneys should be any different from the labor of carpenters, for example. One would be justified in demanding a refund from a carpenter for shoddy workmanship. But if an attorney fails to provide a fair trial for his client, the attorney faces no repercussions and does not even have to return the defendant’s money:

Then if the poor mans cause be cast, if it be
matter of Imprisonment, the poor man must go
to prison, & neither Attorney nor Councel will
go for him thither, nor give him his money again.

This refutation of the corrupt legal system only reinforces the parable’s moral message of defending the rights and autonomy of the individual. It is no coincidence that Pastorius, with his extensive legal training and his sympathy towards religious dissidents such as the Quakers, thought that the fable was worth transcribing. The ideals of individual liberty and skepticism of arbitrary authority espoused by the fable also seem to anticipate the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, although it was written over a century before the founding of the United States.

The fable does not appear to have been written by Pastorius himself; the initials “P.M.” concluding the piece can be attributed to Paul Moon. The original story by Moon can further be traced to the book “An Instruction to Judges and Lawyers” published in 1657 by George Fox, a religious dissident and an early founder of the Religious Society of Friends, later to be known as the Quakers. However, Pastorius includes extensive commentary on the story which is interesting for several reasons. First, it allows us to see Pastorius in his element as a lawyer. Some of Pastorius’ commentary is specifically about the legal details of the story, for example:

To Com[m]and one to appear in his own person, & when he
appears not to take it for an appearance, is contrary to
the Law Jam. 2:12. So Speak, and So Do. G. Fox Instr.

Even though Pastorius received extensive legal training in Germany and Europe before emigrating to Philadelphia, the Beehive is not a legal document and there is scant formal legal writing in it, although the systematicity and detail of the work betrays the discipline he acquired through a formal education in law.

Second, the story and the commentary demonstrate the religious and moral aspects of Pastorius’s worldview. It is interesting to note that the story is transcribed from a volume by one of the leading Quakers. Pastorius was very sympathetic to the teachings of the Quakers; some scholars contend that he even converted to the Quaker religion. Pastorius’s deep religious convictions are apparent in his commentary, as it displays not merely a legal analysis, but also moral arguments and justifications for legal positions. For example, Pastorius notes the moral conundrum the poor man faces and ultimately the tension between the profit-centered legal system and Christian ethics:

Here the poor man must break Christs Com[m]and, and deny
himself to be a Christian, and become like them, a Swearer.

From his inclusion of the story in the Beehive, and his own commentary that reinforces the moral message of the fable, it seems clear that Pastorius conceives of law as derivative of a more fundamental moral and religious framework; the parable as a whole could be viewed as a repudiation of laws and legal systems that lack any moral grounds or principles.

N. B. For a transcription of the story, please click here.