date

Jan y 1807 Omitt or Postpone 5
Jan y 1807

Omitt or Postpone 5

1 Proposition

Letter IV

Resolut. 6,7,8,9

Jury

Lawyers fond of Juries

I have stated as plainly as was in my power the causes of my own attachment to the mode of Jury judicature: the causes of that attachment, and therein the limits set to it. I will now by your Lordship's indulgence which I state with equal plainness /simplicity/, the causes of that attachment which learned Lords and gentlemen are never tired of manufacturing[?] towards it.

Thus it is, my Lord, that so far as learned Lords and gentlemen are concerned the causes of their attachment to this [...?] of English liberty, are comprizable[?] in the two words profit and ease: so far as these two agreeable circumstances or either of them accompany it, so far does their attachment /passion/ cleave to it: where both desert it, that is when[?] is rival made[?] possessed of the same charms presents itself, Jury trial shelf without any complaint on their part, is laid upon the shelf.

The competition (your Lordship sees) is between Jury trial in the first instance, and Natural Procedure, with Jury trial, if necessary afterwards.

I know[?] then[?] /First/ as to profit - Jury trial in the first instance, no suit without its profits: and these, as every body knows - not small ones. Natural Procedure in the first instnace, in a vast majority of the number of individual suits, no lawyer's profit at all, at least none for Advocates, then and there, the deman perhaps for the assistance of an Attorney given by a part of a day's attendance; but in the majority of individual instances, not even that.
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    This much /So far/ as to their passion, now for their indifference. In the narrow description of causes to which natural procedure has been confined[?] - when no factitious delay; vexation or expence has place - where /in which/ consequently lawyer's profit is not to be found - in cases when by the unfed[?] wisdom and probity and intelligence of the Country, or of some peculiarly fortunate time[?] pure and real justice is administered -then is that the [...?] zeal and constitutional jealousy of a Blackston[?] is alarmed, at the encroachments thus duly made upon the [...?] of liberty. of Blackston, and after him, and on the strength of his authority, of some pure and watchful sport or sports of the same class in one or both Houses.

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    /+ though with a King's Bench over their heads to control and plague and threaten them/.
  • Title: [May 1807 Scotch Reform Letter]
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    From Letter IV

    Resolut .6.7.8.9

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    But (says Your Lordship), if Jury trial even in its present form and stage, is not adequate to its ends, what is it that makes every body so fond of it? Here Sir, is experience, here is universal suffrage - what man would give [...?]? And again as to that natural system which you are so fond of, how comes it that no one but yourself has any where said a word in favour of it?

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    (As to learned Lords and Gentlemen, before I state what in Jury trial the properties are that do contribute to their fondness for it, it may clear the way to state what these are that do not contribute to it.)