date

24[?] Dec r 1806 Scotch Reform To
24[?] Dec r 1806

Scotch Reform To L d Grenville

2

Resolution 5

Pleading

Here there is a regulation established by an Act of Siderent[?] established already in 1787: now in 1806 comes a proposition for establishing the same thing over again by Act of Parliament.

Here is /stands/ a [...?] fragment with reflections, and not much less so with doubts.

The regulation has it been acted upon? then why in a system of reform introduce and re-enact the regulation, and this alone, to the exclusion of so many hundreds of others that also have been acted upon these few times alone out of the contents of a vast folio volume.

Has it been consigned to neglect? - Then what security will the proposed re-enactment afford of itself against the regulations sharing the same fate a second time as it did the first.

Is it that their Lordships were in the habit of making regulations, and [...?], without repeating them, or saying in point a syllable about them, making them in practice as waste paper? Yes, my Lord, they are. Practice swarms[?] with instances: to collect them all would be too heavy /severe/ a task: but to prove it to your Lordship that what is here said is not without ground, a few references in the margin are subjoined: and even were these all, the points they include /embrace/ are such as can not but present themselves as swarms[?] in every days practice.
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  • Title: [24 Dec r 1806 Scotch Reform To L d]
    Description: 24 Dec r 1806

    Scotch Reform To L d Grenville

    3

    Resolution 5

    Pleading

    A regulation enacted and presented[?] /given to the public as binding/, and thereupon in practice complied with or infringed, as suits the purpose of the perons or the time: a game called in plain English, playing fast and loose. Here then is one of these double Translations of which in the character of one of the engines[?] of the technical system I have already had occasion to speak. engines under that ingenious system, so convenient to the authors; so admirably adjusted to the ends of judicature.

    Your Lordship may perhaps remember /recollect/ the time when the species[?] of duplicity was in the case of the Earl Indiscompany[?], made matter of importation: but technical judicature being a suit into which the eye of Parliament, especially at so great a distance, can so seldom endure to pry, that this and worse here continued for ages in the state of every days practice.
  • Title: [26 Dec r 1806 Scotch Reform To L d]
    Description: 26 Dec r 1806

    Scotch Reform To L d Grenville

     [...?]? 5

    Resolut. 13

    Interloct: Unapplicable

    What is the jurisdiction if the House of Lords good for, what is any system of control in the judicial establishment in the upper regions good for, if it be not good against prohibitions in the lower? What are even Juries good for, on any other supposition than that of a perpetual probability of partialities among /on the part of/ Judges. Without any partiality, or at least without any partiality that can be traced, English Judges, the Judges of all the superior Courts have established themselves in the daily practice /habit/ of acting in point blank contradiction /[...?]/ to the plain and positive directions of Acts of Parliament /peculiarly declared and [...?] apprehendible will of the legislature/. the whole judicial process[?], acting under the same roof in strict and /as well as/ habitual opposition to the legislature. On the part of the Judges of the Court of Session, partialities have all along been not only in theory /+as I have already had occasion to observe/ probable, but in fact matters of notoriety and general complaint. Examples /Instances/ in which they have been in the habit of acting in contrariety to their own [...?] regulations, are abundant: examples /instances //cases/ of their acting in equal contrariety to Acts of Parliament are not without examples. /+/ Under the influence of those partialities is it natural that any difficulties should be found, of eluding /in the/ the controuling[?] power of the branch of the legislature when under favour of the distraction here proposed to be set up it will be in their power to do so upon such easy terms?
  • Title: [24 Dec r 1806 Scotch Reform]
    Description: 24 Dec r 1806

    Scotch Reform

    To L d Grenville

    Omissa

    Letter IV

    After so much as has been said of the proposed manufactury /workshop/ of delay, it may serve almost superfluous to say any thing of the machinery proposed to be employed in it. a Printing-press is mentioned as a part of it. Thus we have /Here is/ an improvement upon the exchequer Chamber, an improvement in the Scotch taste. In the Exchequer Chamber we have /sit/ 8 Judges: in the Chamber of Review the maximum can be but 10: can it be in the power of 2 to make so great a difference? - But perhaps the printing is for the benefit of trade. The benefit of /to/ trade is at least as clear as the use to Justice. To trade the benefit will be at least as clear as to Justice.

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