date

11 Feb y 1807 Letter IV Resolut
11 Feb y 1807

Letter IV

Resolut 6.7.8.9

Juries

3. Denial of justice

Assuming the value of justice to be the same in one district as in another, if the whole number of inhabitants in England and Wales had Courts of Conscience to resort to the number of causes of 40' value and under in this would bear the same proportion to the number of inhabitants districts which have not the benefit of the Courts of Conscience as those which have.

Say there are 2,193,299 + 73,670 = 2,266,969 the number of inhabitants in the districts to which civil justice is granted to any extent is to 193,429 = 200,029 annual number of cases that may be supposed to be actually decided in these districts, so is 6,607,011 │ the number of inhabitants to whom it is not granted to this extent to the number of causes of that description that would have had place in these same years had justice to this extent been granted to them

193,429 x 6,607,011  │ │ = 583,338

Which gives the number of instances in which in the course of a year, in England and Wales denial of justice takes place, so far as concerns causes of debt to a value of under 40'.

Lawyer - But the Westminster Hall Courts being open for causes down to any the smallest value, and 1' being no uncommon quantum for the amount of damages given by a verdict, an allowance must be made on that score, and a deduction made from your number of 583,338 denials of justice on the causes under 40'.

Non Lawyer. If the whole number of the causes of all values tried or from these Courts Sittings and Assizes included viz. 3 or 4,000 or so were to be comprized in the deduction it would be hardly worth regarding. But as often as a verdict for not more than 40' is obtained in any of these Courts, though the result is not strictly speaking denial of justice, it is a great worse[?]: it is depredation, and to a great amount on pretence of justice. The Plff[?] supposing him to turn a verdict for 40' and with costs, pays for that verdict no costs out of pocket and not allowed something which is never so little as 40' but rises to ,5, ,10, ,20 an so on without any certain limit: which the defendant procure for the Plff this means ,3, ,7, ,17 or ,17 + χ │ defendant is made to pay a sum of which, (as above) ,60 is the minimum, maximum without limit.
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  • Title: [11 Feb y 1807 Letter IV Resolut]
    Description: 11 Feb y 1807

    Letter IV

    Resolut 6.7.8.9

    of expence in the article but a pest[?] [...?]

    III Denial of Justice.

    To Estimate the price paid for the benefits of Jury-trial in the article of denial of justice - (for jury trial considered as all along in the character of a substitute to Natural procedure,-) the only course I know of /the most appropriate course seems to be/, is to what part of the population the benefit of the Courts of Conscience for the moving of debts under 40', has been extended, and to what part it has not been extended: with the number of causes of that description annually decided in these parts of the country to which justice in that shape is not denied. assuming what is beyond doubt, that for a debt under that sum, not to speak of debts above that sum to a scarce ascertainable extent, Jury trial in the ordinary Courts affords no remedy: costs out of pocket in case of success amounting to 2,3,4,5; or two times the sum, and so on without any certain limit.

    1 N' o of Inhabitants in Birmingham [...?]

    A o 180 as per Parliamentary Elections .......... 73,670

    2 N o of causes per day in the Court of Conscience

    there[?] (Hutton p. │ │) 130, per day: i.e.

    per week, the Court sitting once a week:

    viz. on Friday: thence per year (A o 1787)

    130 x 52: say making allowance for Good Friday

    &c x 50 = 6,600

    3 Other Districts having Courts of Conscience,

    as per[?] bills of the Arts for that erection,

    42 │: N o of Inhabitants in those Districts

    taken together .............................. 2,193,299

    4 As 73,670 - the number of inhabitants in the

    Birmingham District is to 6,600 the number of

    causes (under 40') so may 2,193,299 the number

    /aggregate/ of inhabitants in the other Court

    of Conscience Districts be supposed to be the

    annual aggregate number of causes of the same

    value actually decided in all those Courts taken

    together

    6,600 x 2,193,299  73,670 = 193,429
  • Title: [11 Feb y 1807 Letter IV Resolut]
    Description: 11 Feb y 1807

    Letter IV

    Resolut. 6.7.8.9

    Juries

    Denial of Justice

    Out of a population of , , , number of families at 5 each not receiving and income of so much as ,60 a year according to M r Colquhoun in his Treatise on Indigence

    A o 1807 p. ................................................... D o of persons at 5 to a family 5,675,146

    According to D r Ben[?]

    Families

    Persons

    In the above calculations I am as fully aware as any one need or can be that a variety of little[?] omissions and other inaccuracies capable /susceptible/ of correction would be to be found: omissions, such as those which regard the local Courts in the City of London and other parts of the Kingdom in which the procedure is by Jury trial and not in the mode of the Courts of Conscience: expense, vastly greater than in the Courts of Conscience, not quite so great as in the Westminster Hall Courts.

    On the other hand no calculation is here attempted to be made because no calculation even of the locust[?] sort can possibly be made of the number of causes /demands/ under 40' value which not being causes /demands or the [...?]/ of debt, can not be brought forward in the Courts of Conscience; nor yet of the number of such civil demands on all scores taken together as rising to a value above 40', and finding no relief in the Courts of Conscience, because their jurisdiction extends not to that height in the scale of value, nor in the Metropolitan Jury-trial Courts because the costs out of pocket in case of success would surpass the value of the money or other benefit received, are therefore in effect /without destitute of relief and justice altogether/ so circumstanced as to be destitute of relief altogether, and to subject the party injured either to denial of justice, or to a still severer pressure. None of these omissions or other inaccuracies, of which though conscious of their existence I waive[?] the mention altogether, making any difference, in respect of the practical conclusion, I am confident of making in these heads a much better title to your Lordships indulgence by silence, than by corrections or elucidations which it would be in my power to furnish /give/.
  • Title: [13 Feb y 1807 + C To III. Facienda]
    Description: 13 Feb y 1807

    + C

    To III. Facienda

    Trial[?] Letter IV

    Resolut. 6.7.8.9

    Juries

    And now my Lord, that, in this single article - denial of justice - the price paid by the people for the services rendered /supposed to be rendered/ to them by I know not what support supposed to be given to I know not what by these retainers[?] of justice, may be the more clearly understood, I venture to submitt to Your Lordship a concluding proposition which is this -

    Supposing the decisions now given in the way of technical procedure to be all /uniformly/ right - supposing that under natural procedure if substituted to technical they would be all wrong <...> at the same time. Protesting that in the technical system there are causes of misdecision to a great extent, and under the natural none at all - yet for argument sake I will suppose that the decisions habitually given at present in the way of technical procedure are all right - and that had they been given in the way of natural procedure they would have been all wrong - erroneous in the highest morally possible degree: assuming on the other hand, at the same time, what the 43 English Courts of Conscience Debts so well entitle me to assume for England, and the Small Debt Court Act (to G.3.6 with the Certificate of the Lord President and Mr Hutchinson in its favour for Scotland, viz: that to the extent of its jurisdiction in the two kingdoms natural procedure does at present fulfill the ends of justice /even under this extravagantly/. This being the supposition unfavourable as it is, and to the degree of stark absurdity, still any proposition is -, that the benefit, resulting from the substitution of the natural system to the technical, would be clear and incontestable.

    Vexation and expense out of the question, denial of justice is neither more nor less than misdecision to the prejudice of the plaintiff's side: a debt of 40' being due to me, if, for want of a Court in which I can recover it without paying more than 40', I give it up, here my loss is 40': if by an unjust decision of any such Court it were refused to me, still my loss, exclusive of the vexation and expense as above[?] would be the 40' and no more. But the number of cases in a year in which misdecision could take place, supposing all the causes now decided in the technical mode were decided and misdecided in the natural mode, would as above not exceed 4000: whereas upon the demands under 40' above, the number of cases in which denial of justice takes place runs as high as 583,338.