date

29 Dec r 1806 Scotch Reform
29 Dec r 1806

Scotch Reform

To L d Grenville

Omissa

Representations

And who are these tyros in judicature, these perpetual novices, who in the eyes of the learned founders of the system no experience can qualify for /enable to/ for pronouncing a judgment that shall be fit for being abided by?... My Lord, they are themselves, each and every one of themselves. And these are the men by whom whatsoever is done in the whole country in the name of justice was to be perpetually /at any time /received[?]/, modified, "advocated, suspended."

In[?] how everything in jurisprudence is governed by name and usage /always [...?] fit bad usage/, and how alone Utility and Reason have ever been to /found themselves on/ this ground. Call a man a Juryman, let him [...?] have set his foot in a court before, he becomes infallible: whatsoever else may be allowed to change his opinion for him, he himself never is. Call him a Lord of Session, calling the Lord of session at the same time, a Lord Ordinary, he never knows his own mind for two days together: he is incapable of forming the /any/ opinion that is fit to g for one: and this is what men get by buying in a stock of what by courtesy and misnomer is called learning:- by compleating or doubling[?] the vigenta[?] annuum[?] lunabratanis[?]. But the shuttings[?] give plainness and clearness to these as well as to all other[...?...?].
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    In short there is but one description of cases though that a most important one, in which Jurors are any thing better than a nuisance and that is where Judges [...?] to the are not fit to be trusted. These cases are not altogether wanting but happily the extent of them is but /comparatively/ small. They may be tolerably well included in this description cases where there is or is apt to be a conflict of interests or affections between government and people or between the lower and the higher orders. Political libels and cases of Treason and Sedition afford the principal examples. Over and over again Judges would have destroyed the constitution and with it the liberty of the people had it not been for Juries. I am unable to conceive a probable state of things in which they would not. If a libel I know no other definition I mean under existing law than that of a writing disagreable to those who have to judge of it.
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