date

10 Feb y 1807 Letter IV Resolut
10 Feb y 1807

Letter IV

Resolut .6.7.8.9

Juries

1. Delay

Here there are 5 undisputed causes for every one disputed one even supposing all /that/ all that are set down for trial are /come to be/ disputed. But of these set down for trial a very considerable proportion have really in them no matter of dispute: the real object of the defence that is of the demonstration made of defence being neither more nor less than the purchase of that delay ( say about 6 months) which Judge and C o have to sell.

This proportion I should expect to find at least half. as 1 to 1.

Supposing it correct, this calculation or conjecture would give for every disputed cause eleven undisputed ones: but for even numbers say the undisputed causes are to the disputed but as 10 to 1.
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  • Title: [10 Feb y 1807 Letter IV Resolut]
    Description: 10 Feb y 1807

    Letter IV

    Resolut. 6.7.8.9

    Juries

    1. Delay

    To this /Objection/ it may be objected, that when it happens to a cause to undergo adjournal, which can not be for /to/ a less distant day than the morrow, here comes instead of the 5 minutes as many as there are in the 24 hours.

    True: but per contra, neither would neglect be properly bestowed, upon a large proportion /[...?] of/ borne by undisputed to disputed causes

    Here, in the example taken as above from natural system, as administered in a Court of Conscience, the attempt to disengage /disentangle/ the number of the one from that of the other would require neither[?] too much supposition as well as calculation.

    But, (what is better, /will be found still more apposite) let us take an example directly from technical procedure, as administered under the Jury system an example afforded us by the House of Commons Committee, whose Report bears date 2 d April 1792 in the subject of imprisonment for debts.

    Baillable writs (p. 19) at that time annually

    issued in

    In Middlesex 9500; in London 3,055: 12,000

    together 12,555, say to sure fractions ............

    This it is true gives but a part of the whole number of actions commenced: but let it be taken for the whole. (Actual arrests made under these writs 5,500.)

    At this period the number of cases tried or set down for trial within the same jurisdictions was assuredly[?] for that of 2000: from the result of the best enquiries that I have hitherto been able to make I should suppose short even of 1,000: I mean at that time: for they have undergone /received/ a prodigious increase.

    but say ..................................... 2,000
  • Title: [10 Feb y 1807 Letter IV Resolut]
    Description: 10 Feb y 1807

    Letter IV

    Resolut. 6.7.8.9

    Juries

    1 Delay

    And now my Lord, I will venture to submit to your Lordship a few points of impression as not altogether unworthy of Your Lordships notice. /I am/ Sorry I am that in most of them I have nothing better to offer than so many vague approximations. Had my power been equal to my will many and many years ago they would all of them have been reduced to certainty

    1. Delay quantities of it absolute , and thence[?] proportional as between a cause carried on in the way of natural procedure, and technical procedure in civil causes in that in that form in /of/ which Jury trial [...?] [...?] [...?]

    Ah but, says some learned Lord or Gentleman you are confounding great with small. You are supposing the greatest cause, so it be but a cause of debt, to require no more time to do justice to it than one of your minimum[?] causes, di quibus lex non curat.

    My Lord, if on the putting causes of all [...?] together thus in hotchpot, there be really any error, I will venture to set it down among the errors which to the present purpose are not worth regarding. But if this be again error upon error,

    Your
  • Title: [11 Feb y 1807 Letter IV Resolut]
    Description: 11 Feb y 1807

    Letter IV

    Resolut. 6.7.8.9

    Juries

    1 Delay

    Taking up my pen in despair /a fit of desperation/ as the preacher took up his book[?], I set down at once six months for the average /thus explained/ minimum length of a suit[?] at Common Law with Jury trial in the belly of it: six months thus being in round numbers the nearest to the quantity by which I should expect to find it expressed. Should I have hit the right nail on this head as he did, when by a pagan miracle the foam of the horse gushed out of it, so much the better. But my Lord feeling the argument strong enough to bear the disadvantage in all allowances and having as the French say, margin enough instead of the 6 months, I will be content with 3 months making days 182, hours 4368 months ........262,080

    But, if an undisputed cause in a Court of Conscience, the length as above stated above may be set down, and after large and unfavourable allowances at 5 months - say minutes - 5

    262,080 minutes as to 5, as 52,416 to 6 - here[?] then, for the expence of the support, the nominal[?] support given to the law by the logical conjugate of the word law viz: the word lawyers, as have in 9 causes out of every 10 in the article of delay alone, for one natural and necessary particle 52,416 factitious and unnecessary ones.

    Meantime /But/, my Lord, after the allowance thus made ex majori cantilâ[?] , and for the purpose of the argument, I protest against the being considered by Your Lordships learned Scotch Reformers or by any learned gentlemen on either side of the Tweed as being estopped[?] from expressing the ordinary length of a suit by the quantity of 6 months, or 12 months, or even 24 months, for my Lord if the least quantity of a grievance be worth notice neither are the middle nor the greatest quantities altogether undeserving of it.