date

4 Feb y 1807 Letter IV Juries
4 Feb y 1807

Letter IV

Juries

L d Presid

By way of answer /In answer/, my Lord, I beg here to submitt the following considerations -

1. That these low people, for whom in the opinion of the head distributor of Scottish justice

Right Honourable President Judge Natural Procedure is good enough constitute /compose/ the vast majority of the great faiths[?] or whom the King of Scotland his Majesty is so fond under the name of lovats[?] and who were so true to him, under the name of leiges a denomination under which neither the Right Honourable President nor his Grace Lord Justice General disdain to be comprized. Nor /But/ then, it being admitted to be good enough for so vast a majority it rests with Right Honourable President to to shew /inform/ us, why it may not even serve for the remainder
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  • Title: [4 Feb y 1807 Letter IV Juries]
    Description: 4 Feb y 1807

    Letter IV

    Juries

    L d President

    3. Retracting my admissions (for they were made my Lord for no other purpose than to shew how clear the cases be which be even under such disadvantages) I will venture further, and [...?] /aver/ that there is no one point in which so far as concerns security against misdecision the technical system under any of its modifications - Scotch, English, Roman - temporal or spiritual, Common Law or Equity - can be shewn to possess, as against the natural any advantage.

    But this proposition being of the negative cast, and thereby more greatly insusceptible of proof, after having thus delivered it silence is all that on my part can for the present can on my part follow. There rests the invitation: it rests with the Right Honourable President and corrector of the press if any time can be spared from the two accumulated offices to answer to a call from so obscure /to bestow upon so obscure/ a quarter, if on this head I am wrong to transfer his correction powers from the Scottish Press to one who makes so indifferent /insignificant/ a use as I am making of the English one.
  • Title: [Feb y 1807 Letter I Juries]
    Description: Feb y 1807

    Letter I

    Juries

    L d President

    Admitting both these propositions - (and the Right Honourable President will not refuse me the praise of being not altogether illiberal[?] in my admissions) still with humble submission I contend that so far as the ends of justice in the aggregate are fit to be pursued to the prejudice of the fee -harvest the substitution of natural procedure to technical would afford a clear and prodigious benefit.

    Go on with the proof.
  • Title: [4 Feb y 1807 Letter IV Juries]
    Description: 4 Feb y 1807

    Letter IV

    Juries

    L d Presid t

    2. For the purpose of the argument I will admitt two things. One is that the technical justice the sort of justice which /in the administration of which/ the Right Honourable President bears so distinguished a part - this technical justice, high priced as it is, dilatory, vexatious and expensive without which it could not be so good as it is is so good so perfect, that of all the causes /decisions/ that are determined /pronounced/ according to /by/ it from year's end to year's end, those which are reserved in the House of Lords (about half of these that are [...?] from) being, as his Lordship pleases included or not included, there is not one that is not right, and in every point imaginable as pure from the charge of mis-decision as possible. And to this position /proposition/ at any rate, I shall not, I flatter myself find any objection on his Lordship's part.

    Another /The other/ is that of all these causes there is not one that, were it to be d in respect of security against misdecision on natural Justice in question is so bad, that of all the causes decided on such perfection under technical justice /procedure/, there is not one that would not be decided as badly as it was /is/ possible for a cause to be decided, under Natural procedure.