date

8 Jan y 1807 Facienda Causes
8 Jan y 1807

Facienda

Causes mostly short

A bill being [...?] for, for giving to some district in England the possibility of justice for small debts

More than once, my Lord, have I had the pain of seeing a lawyer stand up and oppose the Bill - more than once it would be found (I fear) with success - because forsooth because the Commissioners of a Court of Requests are not Jurymen, and without Juries there is no justice. The hypocrits /[...?]/, and what is worse, the undetected hypocrites - knowing all the while, as well as he knew his own existence - that for the majority say /not to say/ rather the whole number of the causes that could now find their way to these Courts of Natural and uncorrupted and [...?] judicature, in the regular mode - that is with Juries there is not so much as the possibility of justice: unless it is justice for every man who has ,2 owing to him, to be made to pay ,7[?] for recovering it.

This circumstance that enables them to practice, and always with success and with a deplorably /deplorable degree of/ unearned success this barbarous imposture is this: viz: that over and above the blind and indiscriminate prejudice about Juries the circumstances in which security against misdecision depends or is supposed to depend lie open to observation without calculation or inquiry: but whereas the quantum of delay, vexation and expense, together with the force by which these evils tend to produce the further evil of failure of justice, depends upon matters /facts/ of detail, requiring scrutinies and calculations which a lawyer never chooses to make or at least to speak of and which any other man is /feels himself/ unable to make.
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  • Title: [29 July 1806 Scotch Reform]
    Description: 29 July 1806

    Scotch Reform

    Facienda

    Jury

    5. No Jury at first

    6. Jury on Appeal

    5. No Jury in the first instance except in particular cases - and those chiefly criminal ones: capital and next to capital.

    6. Appeal to Jury in all cases, except particular exceptions and except where the appeal being on matter of law goes to the Metropolitan Court sitting without a Jury.

    These two provisions being /in/ intimately connected, are brought to view together.

    The life of the constitution depends upon Juries: but it is not in the way of [...?], but only in the way of medicine that they are /so much as really/ of use. Duped by lawyers, Englishmen and through them Scotchmen have been led to consider the institution rather as an end itself /being itself and end/, than as a means to an end. Trial by Jury is Trial with Lawyers.

    In[?] the passion for Juries the nature of the great majority of causes is compleatly overlooked and the interests of the great majority of people are /as/ compleatly sacrificed. In a Court of Conscience the parties once met in Court a cause occupies upon an average no more than a few minutes. Demand, denial defence investigation of the matters of fact are all gone through at the same time. But before the matter can be or at least ever has been brought before a Jury, a deal of unnecessary time and labour a deal of unnecessary expense has been consumed. Compleatly unable to bear the expense of Trial by Jury, the Great majority of the people have been as compleatly excluded from the benefit of Justice. But the object of judicature having /ever[?] hitherto/ been plunder not justice, those alone who possess plunderable matter in sufficient quantity, have ever been considered as having any claim to justice.
  • Title: [4 Jan y 1807 Scotch Reform To L d]
    Description: 4 Jan y 1807

    Scotch Reform To L d Grenville

    Facienda

    Juries why on appeal only

    In causes not criminal (the only sort of causes here in question) Juries whether by possibility they could or could not be in practice, never are employed /called in/ except in an advanced stage of the cause, after a course of pleadings has been gone through, and other formalities performed in abundance. The consequence is that with the help of vacations and other unabridgeable intervals of factitious delay, be the actions of the demand ever so simple and the justice of it ever so indisputable, you can not obtain in the principal and most abundant scale of business the effect of it in so short a time as six months or twelve months.

    Fill up with judicature these artificial gaps /receptacles/ of delay you might indeed * make a prodigious reduction of the quantity of factitious delay vexation and expense, and still make your use of Juries.

    Still however you could never carry /apply/ the use of that institution to all causes in the first instance, without producing a large mass of factitious delay, vexation and expense, without any addition made to the security against misdecision even in the view, taken of the security by those whose attachment to it is most passionate.
  • Title: [[168-183v] 23 December 1806]
    Description: [168-183v]

    23 December 1806

    Letter V

    Review [...?]

    A circumstance that enables me to speak the terms distinctly on this subject, is that, on this side of the Tweed, we are already in possession of a Chamber of Review /this same strong-hold/, and have been so for ages /been out of mind/. It is called the Exchequer Chamber my Lord. A Bird's eye view /(and the bird a cage[?]) was found that bird an eagle/ has been given of it (Your Lordship may perhaps remember,) in the 27th Report of the Committee on Review[?]

    A circumstance that makes me to speak on this same subject /the subject of this/ states the more distinctly, is - that a particular examplification of the case of it happens to be just now under my eye

    Seen in round numbers /in question, dispute shown is more/ ,1,000.

    Time of the next continuance in the Exchequer Chamber, also in round numbers, but much beneath the mark One year

    Costs of keeping it there, including Plaintiff's costs when paid, also, in round numbers, also beneath the mark ,20

    Net[?] profit to the Defendant at 5 per Cent, had he not been in trade ,30

    But he has the advantage of being in trade under which circumstance, Mr. Ren[?] /the Right Honourable Calculation when mentioned[?]/[...?] and/ would have to [...?] [...?] of undertaking his skill in financial calculations, if I set down the rate of profit at less than 14 per cent gross profit at less than ,120, net profit deducting [...?], at [...?] ,120

    The Attorney for the Plaintiff, then taking the [...?] for the cause that Court being to his knowledge, a [...?] such practice, Defendent having suffered judgement to go by default, lifted up his hands and eyes at the thoughts /in [...?]/ that so much impropriety should exist in the brain[?] of an Attorney. His surprize had there been any ground for it, (would /might/ have directed, with somewhat less impropriety to a much higher quarter /mark/, A man [...?] than is the contrary practice above that on any part would have excited any such motive as that of surprize[?].

    /For further particulars should they be needed, Your Lordship may be pleased to inquire of L.[?] Ellenborough. That noble and learned Judge can inform Your Lordship to a penny how much more than if Lord Thurlow[?] [...?] the Chief Justice of the Kings Bench makes by this part of his profit upon malâ fide causes.