date

10 Feb y 1807 Letter IV Resolut
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
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    Description: 7 Feb y 1807

    Letter IV

    Resolut. 6.7.8.9

    Juries

    1. delay

    1. First as to delay. Let us observe /compare/ the quantities of it, absolute and thence proportional on a cause of the civil class[?] carried on in the way of natural procedure, and in a cause carried on in the way of technical procedure in that form, in which Jury trial in the first instance bears a part.

    1. First as to delay. In some cases, whatever be the species /mode/ of procedure, quantity of delay necessary absolutely without limit /At present/ /The testimony of a/ A necessary witness is unobtainable and who shall say when it will be obtainable. But this /This however,/ is but one cause out of a number /multitude/. In the Table.

    But leaving without notice, because without remedy, extraordinary cases which do not admitt of remedy, but let us turn /look/, my Lord, to the ordinary state of things.

    To the cases which are of most frequent occurrence to those cases, it is, surely, that a system of practical arrangements ought be to be adopted with most care. Cases /Causes/ in comparison of which all others put together would be found (but if I err it is in your Lordship's power to know) would be found to compose a very small minority: in[?] case[?] of debts, taking the word not narrowed by technicalists, but in the extent given to it in the language of the people debt thus interpreted, cases of debt saving[?] exceptions to a small extent, within /constitute, and that [...?] the business of/ the jurisdiction of the Courts of Conscience.

    Between appearance and judgment in a Court of Conscience ( as per Mr. Hutton p. │ │) duration of a cause

    Minimum - minutes (per │ │) Maximum (p. │ │ ) Hours 2: - Minutes 120

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    "p" of causes 130, to sure fractions say only 120 │

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    makes per cause minutes............................ 5
  • Title: [13 Feb y 1807 Inserendum[?]?]
    Description: 13 Feb y 1807

    Inserendum[?]?

    Letter IV

    Montesquieu

    This /[...?]/ is the price put upon justice, therefore it is the proper price: Such is the argument: - corollary therefore there neither is nor can be any such thing in extortion in the world.

    In the way of direct assertion, there are many things that even a lawyer will not be ashamed to say: for instance in the way of insinuation there is nothing /what is there that/ he will not say? ││ I am sorry to add - or almost any man, who has a point to maintain, and feels himself hard pressed.

    In the shape of delay vexation and expense, (open the door to insinuation) there is no mass of injustice so enormous, that may not in that [...?] meet with its defence /find a good defence/. ││ Accordingly it has been borrowed by Blackstone for the defence of English injustice: borrowed up by the Lord President of the Scotch College of justice for the defence of Scotch injustice in the same way it may be handed from branch to branch, and be[?] never the worse for wear, after defending go round the world, defend injustice every where.

    In Turkey, causes decided and no delay manufactured: proof sufficient to Montesquieu and his pupils, that in Turkey neither property nor reputation nor life experience any regard. Little enough, but too probably: - But would they experience any more if long vacations were introduced there instead of /take place there of/ long [...?] sittings di dia in diem[?], would they experience any more? But suppose that in Turkey sittings di dia diem[?], were to open, and let in long vacations? would this mend the matter? To Christians, to Jews, to Turks themselves, would property and so forth be the more secure?

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    In Turkey, suitors /though/ in a civil suit, are made to feel the cudgel: Perhaps so; and what then? My Lord President! Speak my good Lord! Is Scotland Turkey? In Scotland, the noble men and gentlemen [...?...?] in the Commission of the Peace, are they Bastions[?]? The Small Debt Courts, which are so good for ,5, so bad for ,5,1: these courts of unpolluted justice, are they so many cudgelling irons?
  • Title: [10 Feb y 1807 Letter IV Resolut]
    Description: 10 Feb y 1807

    Letter IV

    Resolut. 6.7.8.9

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    3. denial of justice

    Lawyer. - But, should any such Utopian plan as your late plan what a horrible answer[?] to the mass of litigation!

    Then Lawyer [...?] and softly, my Lord [...?] [...?] Bone verbum quaeso. The mischief of litigation consists in the delay, vexation and expence: the delay, [...?] would be as nothing; the expence would be as nothing: and the vexation would be in proportion to the delay and the expence.

    It is in your [...?] Alfride cum focci Romali, not in my Utopia, that litigation is a grievance. What there is of grievance in it, is of your own making:- cease to make it, and there will be none.