date

17 Jan y 1807 Two degrees of jurisdiction
17 Jan y 1807

Two degrees of jurisdiction being thus found sufficient in England, how is it that three can be necessary in Scotland? For this reason my Lord. /My Lord the reason has been already indicated./ We in England have been unfortunate enough to lose our local jurisdiction - our County Courts: the Metropolitan Courts have swallowed them up /succeeded in swallowing them up //devouring them// compleatly leaving nothing but an empty husk/. Brethren in Scotland have been fortunate enough to preserve theirs, their[?] Metropolitan Courts, though they have so long been gnawing[?] and nibbling at them, have not so far succeeded as to [...?] them altogether. To give reality to the pretence of bringing /false and barbarous pretence of having brought/ home justice to our own doors, would require the restitution of our County Courts (with a logical jurisdiction as extension as that of all the existing Metropolitan Courts all put together). In our ladder of jurisdiction having lost its first and lowest round, it has but two instead of the three it ought to have: Scotland having preserved, though in a weak and imperfect state the round[?] which England has lost thence[?] it is and thence[?] only that to Scotland one more round is necessary than England is possessed of.

On the other hand /But/ /Meantime/ our jurisdiction of these degrees /stages/without the County Courts and with a King's Bench concerned in between the Common Pleas and the House of Lords or an Exchequer Chamber between the King's Bench and the House of Lords, where shall we find the model of it? In a ladder of /on/ three rounds, but the lowest round broke to pieces /rotten/ and between the two highest a third stuck /thrust/ in, but in so awkward a manner, that in straining and striving to square in his foot upon it the odds[?] is that besides gulling[?] his foot a man tumbles to the ground.
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