date

Jan y 1807 To III. Facienda
Jan y 1807

To III. Facienda

From I. Proposal

Letter IV

Juries

L d Presid

But, Sir, all this while this plan of yours about decision without a Jury in the first instance and with a Jury in the 2 d instance, is bottomed on what you call Natural Procedure, such a they go by /act under/ in the Small Debt Courts: which the Lord President is quite clear, though it may serve well enough for any thing below ,5, is not fit for a farthing above ,5, and you are for employing it for any sum, though it were ,50,000.

Yes, my Lord, the Right Honourable Judge has indeed drawn a very distinct line, the grounds of which, as I have already had occasion to submitt to Your Lordship, remain still to be discovered; and should the discovery ever be made it is not a small premium, I will venture to say, that will obtain it /have obtained it/.

A very distinct line his Lordship has indeed drawn as between cause and cause: and in so doing a line not much distinct between man and man.

In the causes below ,5, he has beholden, (beholden /descried/ form that high place /elevated station/ in the Inner House which his Lordship fills.) descried as from the ball or the cross in the life of S t Pauls[?] a man might descry prisoners in the shape of men crawling up and down /backwards and forwards/ in Cheapside. the causes of that division of mankind who go by various names /who are denominated by a variety of aliases[?]/ such as the mob, alias the vulgar, alias the scum of the earth, alias the canaille, alias the people, alias poor devils, Gullice, pauvrer[?] deaths[?], who can't pay their fees /who have not wherewithal to pay fees/. These are the class /sort/ of people who don't deserve justice or at least equity, have no right to justice at least to equity, and to whom it has accordingly for centuries been a settled point, that it is "beneath the dignity of a Court of Equity to serve out that double-refined /[...?]/ and bettermost /purer/ sort of justice.
Similar Items
  • Title: [23 March 1808 What encouragement]
    Description: 23 March 1808

    What encouragement /thanks/ could I hope for /a man look to/, at the hands of Sir William Grant (for I speak not here of the Master of the Rolls) at the hands of the Right Honourable and Learned Member for or of his Right Honourable [...?] /for I speak not here of the Master of the Rolls/, the scourge of Jacobinism, in whose conception Jacobinism consists in calling upon any of those /those children of ruin[?]/ who inherit the worth[?] or those who purchase any part of it to give back any of those jewels of gold or silver of whom the Egyptians their creditors have been spoiled[?]: and according to whose joint reading /well concerted[?]/ the /main[?]/ end of justice is not fulfilment but justice itself disfulfilment of the engagements [...?] by government: not justice itself [...?] and raw justice, but its quintessence, but an improved substitute failure of justice.

    What encouragement could I hope for /a man look to/, at the hands of the Master of the Rolls, (for now I am come to the Master of the Rolls,) is it those of his nobles and learned late superordinate /the high-priest of the Religeo[?] Juriconsults whose Shillimate[?] is in the Jury-box/, by whose concurrent learning and authority, lest[?] that bettermost /refined/ sort of Justice called Equity should not yet be stated high enough above the reach of the scum of the earth of which the great majority of the community /people/ is composed, nor the patronage attached to the Keeper-ship /custody/ of those sacred parchments rich enough, enriched the Statue de[?] tallager[?] non concidendo[?] with that practical comment, which for want of a sham Jury to put a gloss upon it, seemed in the eyes of a Noble and Learned successor so necessary to be reprobated /spit upon, more [...?]/, and not the less and necessary fit to be preserved for use.
  • Title: [14 Jan y 1807 Facienda Outline]
    Description: 14 Jan y 1807

    Facienda

    Outline

    Jury

    Lawyers - Cause of their fondness for Jury Trial.

    I have already had occasion to present to your Lordship's notice the case of the 8 special Jury causes - the whole stock of Special Jury causes in that Court for that day - all incapable, or at least pronounced incapable, of having justice done to them by any thing that is called /goes by the name of/ a Jury - even the bettermost sort of Jury called a Special one. Does /Will/ Your Lordship suppose that /that it is in the power of/ a failure of this sort - any number of failures of this sort to detract /subtract/ any thing /make any abatement/ from the /forming of the/ passion of which this mode of judicature is the object in so many learned bosoms? - No /Alas!/ my lord: they influence it. Had the suitors received the justice they so dearly paid for, learned Gentlemen would have had to earn their fees: so much waste of breath and time: his Lordship would have had to wait so much the longer for his dinner. Accordingly if what is and on this head in the report /Newspaper/ pure[?] innovation, the (and what is manifest is that eulogium not censure was intended /the law of it/) the satisfaction excited in a noble and learned bosom by the turn thus taken by all these causes, was not so much as dissembled: Candour, (it is an observation /an incident/ it has frequently happened to me /which it has frequently been my lot/ to mention to observe) candour is the virtue which an incident of this sort never fails to add in the bosoms of learned gentlemen to all their other virtues: of this virtue they as regularly receive the reward in the shape of praise attached to it by the learned Judge: and in the particular /individual/ occasion here in question the reward so well merited /we are told/ was not with holden. What if the fees had been earnt? My Lord, besides so much breath and so much time, all this praise, praise from so high a quarter praise always the more valuable from the height of the quarter /source/ from whence it issues, would have been lost.
  • Title: [12 Jan y 1807 Facienda IV.]
    Description: 12 Jan y 1807

    Facienda

    IV. Inquirenda

    Fees &c.

    The Bankrupt Perrit had his reasons: the Masters in Chancery /dispensers of Equity/ had theirs. In their mutilated[?] account, the highest mass of real emolument is set down at , │ │ the lowest, at , │ │. Was this the whole? By /From/ those who would not answer lightly, and whose name, were it proper for me to mention it would command your Lordships instant confidence, I am assured /hear a negative/. Meantime what is public is this. By the recent Act a half-pay is secured to those Judges when retiring on super-annuation: and this half-pay is ,1,500.