date

17 Feb y 1808 on L d Eldon's Bill
17 Feb y 1808

on L d Eldon's Bill

Letter VI

Omissa & Facienda

1. No reporting

I. Directions for the encouragement of malâ fide wrongdoers against (good out-door parlance[?] and agents) in the character of malâ fide defendants of all six sorts.

II. Directions for the more effectual encouragement of malâ fide wrongdoers in the character of solvent defendants combating for ultimate success through indigence on the other side - See below directions concerning malâ fide Plaintiffs.

III. Directions for the encouragement of malâ fide wrongdoers in the character of solvent defendants combating for intermediate profit, arising out of delay, and proportioned to the length of it. or Particular directions concerning defendants combating for intermediate profit.

IV. Directions for /Particular directions concerning/ the more special[?] encouragement of malâ fide wrongdoers in the character of insolvent defendants combating for the intermediate faculty of embezzlement or destitution or wilful damage in gratification of enmity.

V. Directions for /Particular Directions concerning/ the more efficient encouragement of defendants solvent or insolvent combatting for ultimate success through casualties /delays by means of [...?] destructive[?]/.

VI. Particular Directions concerning defendants combating for gratification of enmity - See below Directions concerning malâ fide Plaintiffs.

VII. Particular Directions concerning solvent Defendants taking the benefit of an insolvency licence.

In one instance /case/, and that a very exclusive one, composing the whole business of the Bill Chamber, extraordinary difficulty /difficulty/ is in a book of practice+ stated as the signal looked to by the Lord Ordinary for [...?] a cause out of his hands without decision instead of deciding in it, [...?] for reporting instead of advising. "All Bills are advised by the Lord Ordinary in the first instance, unless his Lordship thinks there is difficulty in which case he reports the same to the Court, verbally at the foot of the Table, and pronounces such interlocution[?] [...?], as is warranted by the opinions [...?] delivered[?]."

The course they take for getting the better of /mastering/ extraordinary difficulties is truly curious. Where there is no difficulty, the case receives it decision from a single Judge, who has been keeping all the documents in his hands any number of months at pleasure, with the faculty of recurring to them any number of times and for any length of time at his leisure. When difficulty calls for proportionable examination and meditation[?], it is to be got rid of by a crowd of Judges huddled together each of them taking his conception of the case from what he can pack up from vivâ voce statement of the learned Reporter who stares[?] [...?] in [...?] in the station of a secture[?] rather than a Judge, expects in /looks[?] to/ the termination of the conference for the faculty of extracting himself from a situation thus irksome and incongruous.

/To cover incapacity, and escaper from responsibility - yes: but is this the way to conquer difficulty, and do justice to the cause?/

+Board 265, 279.
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