date

7 Jan y 1807 Omissa? Opinions
7 Jan y 1807

Omissa?

Opinions undivulged?

Codification?

No, my Lord, you who care, as far as any one man can, and farther - I call upon you in the name of the whole people of Scotland - their hearts I hope will not their heads I am sure will /can/ discover are - I call upon you - Give us our duties: give us our Rules that we may have them: give us our laws that we may obey them. The will is ours already: give us what alone[?] we ask , if the Minister of the Commons - of the Lords of the Sovereign - if any man - the possibility of [...?]. Rights we ask for more, against law: rights we see now, but through the medium of our duties: give us our duties, and then and not till then we shall know and have our rights.
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  • Title: [7 Jan y 1807 Omissa Opinions]
    Description: 7 Jan y 1807

    Omissa

    Opinions undivulged

    Judges have neither fees to receive nor power to exercise /abuse/. [...?] of the people state this repository of state [...?] /substitute for law/, or at least a part of it, and divulged it. The moment it was known it would to answer the purpose of those who had made it. they made[?] another in its stead[?].

    Find out with despotism, the people became clamorous for laws. The cry then was not, as with us give us our rights - but give us our duties. Render it possible for us to know them, render obedience possible to us. A demand so seditious in its principle, was [...?] of course as long as possible: but at last, instances[?] being in vain, laws, such as they were, such as the light of the time /age/ could produce was made.
  • Title: [7 Jan y 1808 Omissa Opinions]
    Description: 7 Jan y 1808

    Omissa

    Opinions undivulged

    These are the materials the very best materials of which it is possible for jurisprudential law to be composed: These are the materials of which in England that species of law, shewn[?] and spurious as it is, is actually composed. Were they better than they are, dear enough in England we pay for it. Paying still dearer so much dearer for it even than we, our brethren in Scotland, have not they too a just /right/ claim to have it of the /these best materials? If they have, my Lord, it is one of those rights so numerous in both countries, for which care is /has been/ taken that there shall be no remedy.

    Supposing /Let us Suppose //say/ that in England what has sometimes been aimed at had succeeded, viz. that those least bad of the bad materials of jurisprudential law had been kept in darkness so affectively as the rule of action was among the original /primeaval/ Judges of antient Rome: the dicta of Judges forbidden to be divulged:- be not too hasty, my Lord: reject not the supposition as extravagant: what is actual is possible.

    The next best I should say had bad materials, materials at any rate very bad in comparison of those /these/ would be the arguments of Advocates: [...?] lawyers each of them, speaking /pouring out/ collateral regard to truth [...?] be[?] /to/ his conception bad [...?] for answering his purpose: heap of [...?] the substance of it capable of being condensed /composed/ into half a dozen or a dozen propositions - general propositions such as /each of which/ coming from the mouth of a Judge, would be capable of passing for a dictum, and being made productive of the same effect.
  • Title: [7 Jan y 1807 Omissa Opinions]
    Description: 7 Jan y 1807

    Omissa

    Opinions undivulged

    At this moment, Your Lordship may perhaps feel more or less curiosity /it may perhaps have presented itself to Your Lordship as a matter of curiosity/, I must confess I did, to know /learn/ the cause of this deficiency: for every thing we see, if we /one/ did but know it has its sufficient. Cooks so many indeed, but so skilful, broth so bad, what spoilt it? did not they know how to make better.

    M r. Bill, at this moment I do not know whether the gentlemen to whom we are so much indebted for his lecture on jurisprudential formularies[?] or some other of the same name, got a [...?] into the kitchen at his cost.

    Noting the deficiency, to look upon him to supply it. No monopoly proclaimed, no prohibition promulgated, he too published a history of decisions: and in his history were to be found the words not only of those whose words make argument, but of those whose words make law. M r. Bill convinced; convinced [...?...?], whosoever [...?] were. M r. Bill, whether it were the same gentleman to whom it had fallen already or fell afterwards to give lectures, then received one. Decisions if you please; arguments of Advocates, if you please: but as to reasonings and dicta of their Lordships, these are all secrets: if you go on publishing, we begin suspending. Look to the [...?] published by authority: there is your moral: copy that and welcome.

    M r. Bill's object being to supply deficiencies /fill up blanks/, and not to copy them, there of course his publication ended.