date

30 Dec r 1806 Scotch Reform │ │ To
30 Dec r 1806

Scotch Reform │ │ To L d Grenville

Facienda

3 Pleading

Codification

Thus again as to learning - Our Shoemaker, were he to take to Law-making, would have a pretty many things to learn, there is no making a doubt of it. But as to unlearning, what would he have to unlearn? - why nothing at all my Lord.

And these two preeminently and to appearance appositely[?] learned personages what would they have to unlearn does Your Lordship ask, to qualify them for making laws directly to the ends of justice. Oh, my Lord, surely Your Lordship will not [...?] at least put any such question to me at least if your Lordship can have found so much patience for me, as to have to glance at the Appendix. My Lord, in one word they would have all those decrees to unlearn, those engines of the technical system to unlearn the use of, which they are so expert in: nullification, Fiction, Jargon, Receipt of evidence in bad shapes, grant of mendacity licences refusal to have or see parties, judicature on mechanical principles, sale of delay and so forth.
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  • Title: [30 Dec r 1806 Scotch Reform │ │ To]
    Description: 30 Dec r 1806

    Scotch Reform │ │ To L d Grenville

    III Facienda

    3 Pleading

    Codification

    Another thing I have to say on his behalf (give me leave to whisper it in your ear, my Lord) is that he would come cheap: which in times as such as we live in, speaking with great submission, Bonaparte drawing upon us so hard, and so much merit to reward, especially if that merit which is above labour is a consideration not to be neglected.

    There is one thing /perquisite/ to be sure which I doubt the nature of the case would render it not altogether practicable to keep him out of: and that is the credit of having done the work whatever it may be, which it might happen to him to have done. For to be sure he would never set about it in the way of commission, without some person whom he /employer whom a man/ could depend on, Your Lordship for example (with respect be it spoken) even to speak to him about it; and then, when he were set to work, he would have to ask questions of this and that and t'other person, to know how things were, and how they went on at present, whereby they would all see what he was about - then would be ready for it.

    This perquisite therefore, I doubt it would be necessary to say nothing about, but to look another way, and let him put /while he was putting/ it in his pocket. But as to any more, my Lord, I would be bound for his not troubling you; nay that he would not accept of it, if you would give it him. To Your Lordship this may seem a sort of oddity; and so to be sure in some respects it is: but there he has reasons of his own. I know he has - which don't apply to other people: and when a man's actions[?] are innocent ones, and don't hurt any body but himself, nor himself neither, with submission, my Lord, I don't very well see what harm there would be in indulging him in them.

    In the case of improvement, what I have known done, and with good success, is to give the trouble and the odium to the author, and the credit to some higher and consequently more deserving hand. In the present instance so well-approved a division would I doubt be hardly practicable, but the objection, how serious so ever, would I should hope, not be absolutely a fatal one.
  • Title: [24[?] Dec r 1806 Scotch Reform To]
    Description: 24[?] Dec r 1806

    Scotch Reform To L d Grenville

    2

    Resolution 5

    Pleading

    Here there is a regulation established by an Act of Siderent[?] established already in 1787: now in 1806 comes a proposition for establishing the same thing over again by Act of Parliament.

    Here is /stands/ a [...?] fragment with reflections, and not much less so with doubts.

    The regulation has it been acted upon? then why in a system of reform introduce and re-enact the regulation, and this alone, to the exclusion of so many hundreds of others that also have been acted upon these few times alone out of the contents of a vast folio volume.

    Has it been consigned to neglect? - Then what security will the proposed re-enactment afford of itself against the regulations sharing the same fate a second time as it did the first.

    Is it that their Lordships were in the habit of making regulations, and [...?], without repeating them, or saying in point a syllable about them, making them in practice as waste paper? Yes, my Lord, they are. Practice swarms[?] with instances: to collect them all would be too heavy /severe/ a task: but to prove it to your Lordship that what is here said is not without ground, a few references in the margin are subjoined: and even were these all, the points they include /embrace/ are such as can not but present themselves as swarms[?] in every days practice.
  • Title: [[094-338v] 10 Oct 1806 Scotch]
    Description: [094-338v]

    10 Oct 1806

    Scotch Reform To L d G

    [...?] I would be glad to know what [...?] is the habit of Your[?] [...?] put a shop to the [...?] of a principle by that of an admitted all that may may be lost?

    On this occasion /subject/, what Lord Ellenborough would say to Your Lordship, or may have said, is more than what I would not undertake to say to Your Lordship, for any price /consideration/. But what in the situation of L d Ellenborough /[...?]/ L d [...?] or his [...?] would say /have said/ to Your Lordship, and what is more what he /the noble and learned but imaginary //[...?]// person[?]/ would say to himself, I will state with the utmost precision, and without the smallest resource to difficulty.

    To himself he would say - /are we/ [...?] law I /we/ /To the Cabinet - [...?] the Lord Chief Justice would say - [...?]/ drawing from this source the ,4437 a year mentioned by the Committee of Finance in 1798, binds[?] the /along with/ so much more which it is so unnecessary to mention.

    To Your Lordship he would say - The danger of [...?...?] my lord - is such - and so on for any number of minutes[?] or [...?]: but, for the whole of the rest, [...?] and remainder are & may be employed as a most advantageous substitute.