In the spring of 1778, Jeremy Bentham, along with his younger brother, Samuel, embarked on a campaign to attract the patronage of Catherine of Russia. As part of this effort, the elder Bentham had occasion to compose a lengthy account of his labors during the past three years. A Fragment on Government and the View of the Hard Labour Bill had already been published, and considerable progress had been made on his treatises on offenses and punishments. Bentham mentioned several other projects and singled out for special recommendation his “plan of a Digest”:

In the letter Bentham was particularly concerned to stress the cosmopolitan potential of his Digest. But his own reference to A Fragment on Government and the dating of the work indicate that he was describing the project which developed out of his critique of common law. Further evidence suggests that he was actively engaged in producing such a Digest during the mid-1770s.