date

5 Jan y 1807 Scotch Reform To L d
5 Jan y 1807

Scotch Reform To L d Grenville

Facienda

Jury why on appeal only

Having confessed to your Lordship my notions concerning the abuse as well as the use of the institution, as applied in the case of a country to /in/ which it is not yet in use, I will now tell your Lordship what it is makes lawyers so much in love with Juries: English lawyers to whom they are so familiar /their [...?]// they are such old acquaintances/, Scotch lawyers to whom they are new /so [...?] and so/.

My Lord, trial by Juries is trial with lawyers. Trial in the existing Courts of Natural Procedure, trial under their limited jurisdiction is in almost every instance, in the most unlimited field of jurisdiction it could be in nine or more instances out of ten, trial without lawyers.

In this as in all other predilections, there is an object of jealousy and aversion expressed /declared/ or implied. Now then my Lord what is the object /counter// rival/, the object to be depreciated in this case? is it Equity? Ah, no my Lord: for some hundred years /ages past/ at least, no English lawyer has ever under valued Equity. The best that Juries can give is but Common Law: and Equity blooming maid! ever smiling Equity! how is so much sweeter /richer/ and more delicate! Why? because much as Common law affords, Equity affords more work still for lawyers

So, my Lord: it is that odious thing natural procedure under the name of summary, that is the real object of that irreconciable /inextinguishable/ hatred, which learned gentlemen can never cease to feel, nor venture explicitly to avow. Why? because from the soil in Natural procedure factitious delay, vexation and expense are unknown /banished/. No work for the lawyer /any more than for the lawyer/: /learned gentlemen may cry till they are hoarse, who has need of one?/ nothing going forward from which profit /any thing beyond limit/ can be extracted.
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    But (says Your Lordship), if Jury trial even in its present form and stage, is not adequate to its ends, what is it that makes every body so fond of it? Here Sir, is experience, here is universal suffrage - what man would give [...?]? And again as to that natural system which you are so fond of, how comes it that no one but yourself has any where said a word in favour of it?

    My Lord different descriptions of men, according to their different situations are swayed by different considerations -

    I will first submitt to Your Lordship why lawyers are /(what are not, as well as what are, the considerations that render lawyers/ so fond of Jury trial in the present mode - next why non lawyers are /how it is that non-lawyers came to be so fond of it/ and this[?], is at the same time how it happens that we hear nothing from either quarter in favour of the natural mode.

    (As to learned Lords and Gentlemen, before I state what in Jury trial the properties are that do contribute to their fondness for it, it may clear the way to state what these are that do not contribute to it.)
  • Title: [Jan y 1807 Omitt or Postpone 5]
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    I have stated as plainly as was in my power the causes of my own attachment to the mode of Jury judicature: the causes of that attachment, and therein the limits set to it. I will now by your Lordship's indulgence which I state with equal plainness /simplicity/, the causes of that attachment which learned Lords and gentlemen are never tired of manufacturing[?] towards it.

    Thus it is, my Lord, that so far as learned Lords and gentlemen are concerned the causes of their attachment to this [...?] of English liberty, are comprizable[?] in the two words profit and ease: so far as these two agreeable circumstances or either of them accompany it, so far does their attachment /passion/ cleave to it: where both desert it, that is when[?] is rival made[?] possessed of the same charms presents itself, Jury trial shelf without any complaint on their part, is laid upon the shelf.

    The competition (your Lordship sees) is between Jury trial in the first instance, and Natural Procedure, with Jury trial, if necessary afterwards.

    I know[?] then[?] /First/ as to profit - Jury trial in the first instance, no suit without its profits: and these, as every body knows - not small ones. Natural Procedure in the first instnace, in a vast majority of the number of individual suits, no lawyer's profit at all, at least none for Advocates, then and there, the deman perhaps for the assistance of an Attorney given by a part of a day's attendance; but in the majority of individual instances, not even that.
  • Title: [Jan y 1807 Scotch Reform To L d Grenville]
    Description: Jan y 1807

    Scotch Reform To L d Grenville

    Facienda

    Juries why on appeal only

    But how is this, (I think I hear your Lordship saying) how is this, Sir, Juries in your place according to you on Appeal only, and never in the first instance - You an Englishman, and so much behind[?] English, and even as now it appears Scotch lawyers, in your attachment to that grand /so fundamental a/ security for English liberties?

    My Lord, with your Lordship's leave though I flatter myself with the thought of having been already in no inconsiderable degree anticipated by Your Lordship's discernment, I will state to Your Lordship very distinctly why my notion of the proper use of Juries has these limits, and why on the part of lawyers, Scotch as well as English the fondness for Juries has no such limits.

    The ends of justice, my Lord, these and no others are the ultimate objects to which my attention is universally /throughout/ directed: to any others, how dear so ever to me, no otherwise than a means conduces to that end. So far as they appear to me thus conducive, so far my attachment cleaves to them: no sooner do they appear to me to cease being conducive to these ends, then there my attachment leaves them.