date

26 Dec r 1806 Scotch Reform To L d
26 Dec r 1806

Scotch Reform To L d Grenville

5 (8

Resolut. 13

Interlocution Unapplicable

In truth, so far as abundant[?] design is concerned, if it were worth thinking of /about/, the case that I should expect to find verified, as far as designs can be verified it is that upon this part of the plan very little reflection was /had been/ expanded. There was a source of appeals frequently and notoriously vexatious: here was a grievance: here had been a habit of complaint: let us put an end to it at once: appeals against Interlocutory judgments have been a notorious engine of chicanery[?]: let us hear no more of them. No professional interest directing /proceeding/ here: but under the spear of necessity, a sudden sacrifice made of professional interest to the public voice.

At the same time should a distant glance /prospect/ of confusion rising in the back ground have accompanied the sacrifice, the wonder would not be great: Among /So/ then where position gauves them an interest in abuse, when the clamour fr reform becomes too hard /at length for resistance/ to endure /admitt of/ resistance any longer, the prospect of seeing it /+rendered abortive by want of skill and appropriate experience/ miscarry remains /affords/ the natural comfort and the only hope:- then, have it your own way, and take the consequence.

Thus when the indignation of the people had rendered it no longer practicable to dispose of their fate in a jargon that did not contain a single word in it which they could so much as fancy themselves to understand, the lawyers set about translating it, word for word without choice or exception, [...?] indulging themselves in those expectation the open manifestation of which the simplicity of Blackstone in his simplicity, was not able to [...?]. You could have it in English - now what are you the better for it? What you expected /looked for/ was information: what you have got is nonsense.
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  • Title: [26 Dec r 1806 Scotch Reform To L d]
    Description: 26 Dec r 1806

    Scotch Reform To L d Grenville

    (9

    Resolut. 13

    Interlocution Unapplicable

    Nor is it at all out of nature, that a provision which has afforded /presented/ so many demands for exception to a weak /so naturally weak an/ eye, habituated to survey the field in a comercial[?] point of view, should have afforded none at all to a much stronger an eye, habituated /accustomed/ to regard it /the same expanse[?]/ in no other than a professional point of view. Had it been a point to argue as between Plaintiff and Defendant, and the fee proportionate, the existing absence of grounds of exception might have been replaced by an opulence /exuberance/ the in comparison of which the cases here submitted to your Lordship for the mere purposes of exemplification would have shrunk into insignificance.
  • Title: [26 Dec r 1806 Scotch Reform To L d]
    Description: 26 Dec r 1806

    Scotch Reform To L d Grenville 7

    Resolut. 13

    Interlocution Unapplicable

    And do you then entertain Sir[?] /for[?], really see any reason for entertaining/, any such suspension[?] as that of a design /wish/ on the part of the framer of the claims[?] to enable the local judicature to work itself into an independency of /as against/ the authority of Parliament?

    Not I indeed in good truth, my Lord, not the smallest: nothing could be more out of nature /nor any thing like/. Viewed in the [...?] appeals are subservient /conducive/ not adverse and in the [...?] of the fee gathering system to what, I know all [...?] found it impossible to avoid seeing[?] to be the ends of judicature.

    It is only on this and that individual occasion, when particular partialities or other similar [...?] have claimed to come in and operate, it is only in this way that I see any danger of any purposed[?] framed upon the authority of Parliament.

    But it is the effect only /alone/, and not the design that is worth thinking of: and whether under the clause in question the effect I mean that of a gradual subscription[?] of the practice of the local /subordinate/ Court from under the controul of the superordinate be not a probable result, is what I beg leave to submitt to your Lordships judgment as a question /point/ not unworthy of regard.
  • Title: [[...?] Dec r 1806 Scotch Reform To]
    Description: [...?] Dec r 1806

    Scotch Reform To L d Grenville +

    Resolut. 13

    Interlocut. Unapplicable

    Resolut 13. No appeal to Lords against Interlocutors

    Resolution 13. That no Appeal to this House be competant against Interlocutors Judgments.

    That, taking them in the [...?], Appeals from Scotch Interlocutory Judgments of this description are a comon source of abuse - a very /highly/ efficient, and, I believe /if I understand aught/, highly /much/ worked instrument in the hand of a malâ fide suitor, especially a malâ fide defendant, I can easily conceive. I am ready to believe without difficulty. But the exclusion is without exception /has no exception/: and if to /in/ this unlimited extent /amplitude/ it was to be carried into effect without inconvenience, it would be for some reason by which /upon the strength/ it might be excluded perhaps with no less /not much/ propriety to all Judgments, to all which is as much as to say, to all Appeals.

    Great is the extent covered by the cases in which the hinge on which the cause turns is not the final judgment, but an /some/ interlocutory one. The appeal (it may be said) may in that case wait: and thus in its effects embrace interlocutory and final judgment together. Good in some cases: not so in others. By An interlocutor for example, such or such an article of evidence (say testimonial evidence) is excluded: upon the evidence thus excluded rests /turns/ the fate of the cause: The side in which the evidence would have

    been produced being the Plaintiff's, for want of it Judgment final Judgment is given for the Defendant: then comes the Appeal, in which with the final judgment the interlocutor which gave rise to it is complained of at the same time. What in this case can[?] the House do? [...?]