093-127.xml

Title: [4 Jan y 1807 Scotch Reform │ │ To]

Description: 4 Jan y 1807

Scotch Reform │ │ To L d Grenville

Facienda

Causes mostly short

1. Question of law least important because least[?] frequent[?]

2. Technical forms[?] conduce[?] nothing to its being well judged of[?]

3. [...?] the only thing that can lessen the frequency of misdecision on this ground is not [...?] to but repaired[?]

By way of facilitating /To facilitate/ Your Lordships estimate of the real value of all this solemn plausibility /plausibility and all this sophistry - I would beg leave to submitt to Your Lordship three very simple propositions.

1. That with respect to the aggregate conduciveness /degree of subservience on the point/ /quantity of service rendered by/ of the system of procedure to the aggregate of the ends of justice accuracy of decision on the question /ground/ of law is compared with degree of ambivalence[?] to the other ends of justice - compared even with accuracy of decision in relation the question of fact, if [...?] inferior importance.

The proof of this proportion is extremely simple. It consists in the vast superiority of number on the part of the cases whose[?] in which action (the individual instances) in which no question of law or can take place, compared with the number of instances in which it does take place.

This exemption from controversy - this indisputability (it may be worth Your Lordships notice) is owing - not to any excellence on this part of that shapeless portion of the body of the laws which is of their own making (all that part which in so far as it is susceptible of existence exists in the shape of jurisprudential law ( jargonicé[?] Common Law in one of the five senses of it) but in this that the cases in most frequent occurrence (common actions of debt and common actions of assault) are of so very frequent occurrence - the same state of things so perpetually repeating itself, that on these subjects it has not been in the power of all their astutia to prevent the rule of action from setting into a tolerable state of fixity.

093-126.xml

Title: [4 Jan y 1807 Scotch Reform │ │ To]

Description: 4 Jan y 1807

Scotch Reform │ │ To L d Grenville

Facienda

Causes mostly short

If questioned on this head I speak mostly from conjecture for certainly they are not much in the habit of being thus questioned - it is I imagine, not so much /decidedly/ upon the point /on the ground/ of fact that this supposed superiority of security against misdecision would be placed by them, as upon the point /ground/ of law. It is on this account that, their prejudices harmonizing in this as in so many other[?] things with their interests, it is among their habits to ascribe /attribute/ an exaggerated degree of importance to the question of law, to the danger of error in respect of it /to all descriptions bearing relation to it/, and consequently to whatever degree of security many be capable of being given /created/ against misdecision in relation to it /on that ground/.

Hence all that parade of solemnity of argument, multiplicity / multiplication/ of Judges for this special purpose, and care /pains/ taken to reserve for it the cognizance ultimate[?] or even exclusive of select heads, such as would in vain be looked for any where but in the metropolis, heads stocked with the richest treasures of learning, and wisdom that are any where to be found treasures the fruit of nothing less than the most incessant and long-continued habits of exercise /labour/ and meditation.

093-124.xml

Title: [4 Jan y 1807 Scotch Reform │ │ To]

Description: 4 Jan y 1807

Scotch Reform │ │ To L d Grenville

Facienda

Causes mostly short

together with its kindred devices, Asylums local /topographical/ and chronological the chicaneries about /relative/ to notion[?].

In these instances and by the operation of all these several devices - not to search on /carry on the research/ in quest of others - it is the direct operation and continual exercise of the technical system to give birth to misdecision, so far from contributing any thing /in any way/ to increase /afford/ the security against an /the/ evil thus opposite to the direct end of justice.

In what other mode or shape or degree, if in any, it is in the nature of the technical system to afford any security that is not afforded by the natural, it will not with the defenders of the technical, should it when once attached on the ground of utility and justice ever be able to find /discover/ any, - it rests with them, my Lord, to shew: I for my part can see none.

But admitting, for the purpose of the argument, that ways and means, in and by which the technical system affords against misdecision securities not afforded by the natural, are to be found /really assignable/, the object to /for/ which on this occasion I meant more particularly to beg /wished more particularly to direct/ Your Lordship's attention, is - the extremely narrow limits, comparatively speaking, within which it is /would be/ in the nature of such supposed securities to operate: and in this respect, how little if any thing can be gained to justice by the actual predominance of the technical system - how little if any thing could be lost - how little, if any thing can /would/ rationally be to be apprehended, from the predominance of the natural system - nay even from its predominance - from the /even/ exclusive prevalence, of the natural.