date

2 Jan y 1806 Facienda IV. Inquirenda
2 Jan y 1806

Facienda

IV. Inquirenda

Fees

Net[?] the[?] return of these fees which [...?] in benefit

In regard to those Officers stiled private Clerks of the respective Judges in their capacity of Ordinary Lords to the question by whom are they appointed I find not any where any express answer: viz: neither in any of the Returns made to the Committee on Finance, nor in any of the Books of practice. Your Lordship I am inclined to think will not regard in any such express statement as necessary to inform us in whose hands the appointment actually is vested │ │ the indication given by the word " private" seems sufficiently conclusive /to leave little if any doubt │ │ is not that the known destination attached /annexed/ to the word private when applied to a Clerk a Secretary to any person in high office?

Taking for granted that these private Clerks are appointed by their respective masters, I should be curious to hear it explained, by order of their whole Lordships, how it is that the constituting of an officer by whom all those fees in all the great variety and infinite repetition of occasions are to be received, constitutes no benefit to any /one/ of these honourable masters? whether on the appointment of any such Clerk it is out of the power of any one of these honourable masters to make any terms with him, to raise for example to a higher destination any portion of these /such/ his fees: whether on the supposition that no such fee ever rests in /passes on into/ any other pocket than that of the Clerk by whom it was received, whether in this case the power of appointing a Son, a Brother or a Nephew to receive without deduction all this mass of fees be incapable of being refused with propriety to the Chapter of " benefits".
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  • Title: [Jan y 1807 Facienda IV. Inquirenda]
    Description: Jan y 1807

    Facienda

    IV. Inquirenda

    Fees &c.

    1). Parliament strong enough to compel adequate returns?

    In submitting to Your Lordship the propriety and use of these proposed exercises of constitutional authority over subordinate Courts for the purposes of public justice I would at the same time beg of Your Lordship to consider well whether in Your Lordships Honourable House - whether in either or both Houses of Parliament - whether in both Houses with his Majesty at their head there be in effect /in reality/ any such efficient power as is adequate /equal/ to the task of inquiring from the quarter /nominal subordinates/ in question effective and adequate obedience. (whether the 4 th estate comprized of the lawyers)

    That the power of the, Commons was not equal to the task is a fact that stands upon record. I mean in the Reports made by the Committee of Finance.

    An account of fees being called for (fees received by Judges of different ranks and denominations - L d Kenyon growled and delayed - L d Loughborough growled and stood out longer - the Master of the Rolls of that day - Sir Pepper[?] Arden - since then sank into the grave and from thence into the gulph of oblivion under the title of Lord Alvarley Sir Pepper Arden secure in the support of /safe under the way[?]/ a Minister who knew so well when it was and when it was not safe to stand out - refused to give any account: and no account is given. The Masters in Chancery, as of in division, gave in what shall I say? Not no account at all: but the same sort of account that the fraudulent Bankrupt Perrot was hanged for: They gave in part /a fragment/ of an account: they would have given in the rest but they were in the power of their Clerks - all of them to a man in the [...?] of their Clerks, and their Clerks to a man would give no account - saying they had kept none.
  • Title: [Jan y 1806 Facienda IV. Inquirenda]
    Description: Jan y 1806

    Facienda

    IV. Inquirenda

    Fees

    My Lord on this head I observe a sort of contradiction which I am inclined to think will not be found altogether undeserving of your Lordship's notice.

    In the Report concerning the High Court of Session in Scotland (30 th Report of Committee in Finance Appendix A.1) dated at Edinburgh 10 th April 1798 signed "by order of the Court John Pringle one of the Principal Clerks of Session, I find a round assertion in the following words "Neither the President nor the other Judges have any Enducements, Perquisites or Benefits whatsoever, excepting their Salaries".

    In M r Russel's practice of the Court of Session 2 d edit. A o 1768 I find other words

    In the book of practice attributed to M r Larne[?] edit. A o 17 I find the same proposition in the same words │ │

    In the Appendix to the last mentioned book entitled A Table of Fees payable to the Clerks and Officers of the Court of Session I find in p. 382, 383 a list of "Fees payable to the Clerks of the Ordinary Lords". It /This list/ is taken from an Act of Sederunt dated the 1 st of August 1789. On turning to this Act of Sederunt I observe an Introduction in which after stating that a memorial had been presented praying augmentation of these fees for certain reasons neither memorial nor reasons given, the Lords enact and ordain that "the fees of the Clerks of the Ordinary Lords shall be paid agreable to the following Table. Then comes a list of 11 occasions in which fees are declared to be payable to these Clerks: in 7 of the instances the fee is 3': in one, 5' in two 6': in one 10'.6
  • Title: [Jan y 1806 Facienda IV. Inquirenda]
    Description: Jan y 1806

    Facienda

    IV. Inquirenda

    Fees

    On this subject, how entire soever may be the unanimity of all others, I do not see, I must confess, how it is possible there should not be a sort of system in that highest and most select of all Committees, in whose resolves depends the destiny of so many notions. The /My/ Lord Chief Justice, successor of the noble and learned Lord whose son is in possession of what in 1798 was ,1 │ │ and now in 1807 is probably at least ,2,000 poured into his lap by one of these no-benefits │ │ successor[?] again of the same noble and learned Lord who out of a (Clerkship yielding to the possessor a nominal income of ,1.8. │ │ was in the habit of) an income of ,18 a year received by the Clerk of the Errors saw the [...?] propriety of converting ,17 │ │ to a so much nobler use, the same Guardian of the public morals /official [...?] [...?]/ who in his own learned and noble person observed in 180 the obligation he was under of vesting in the conjoint hands of two most trustworthy persons the ,5 │ │ annuity of 1798 with its subsequent increments the fruit of another of these no-benefits in this most learned and most competent will of course by congenial sympathy, with a problem[?] no less acute than that of their whole Lordships, feel the real nullity of those apparent benefits: while the first Lord of the Treasury who not professing to be a keeper of the public morals nor of any thing more valuable than the public purse has seen /but seeing/ in all no-benefits extracted from the public in the shape of fees a source /perennial fountain/ of corruption and oppression has so lately occupied himself in drying up the much less copious source of these [...?] that till t'other day carried its /continued to cause/ infection through the Custom house