date

Dec r 1806 Scotch Reform │ │ To L
Dec r 1806

Scotch Reform │ │ To L d Grenville

Facienda

II Inspector Gen l Appointment

II. As to the Mode of appointment - for the first time, by the Crown, especially if the choice should be to be made out of redundant population of the Lords /Court/ of Session, and the office should find any /on the part of any/ of their Lordships a disposition to accept of it.

- From thenceforward, by ballot in the Commons House of Parliament; with or without power of rejection, by the Upper House: no power of legislation /no share whatever in legislative power/ being attached to the office, nothing but a duty - and the function being of that inquisitorial cast which is understood to appertain in a more special[?] manner to the representatives of the people, a negative in the House of Peers seems scarcely accordant with the principal of the Constitution; and as no suggestion /proposition/ that may come to be suggested ny this Officer, can have any effect without the consent of that /the/ Upper House, such negative provision[?] seems moreover to be superfluous /a superfluity  Consult the lower Judicature and other cases of Baliol/.

In the natural order /course/ of things, notwithstanding the secrecy attendant on this mode of voting, and without /even were/ /though/ the independence of Parliament were as entire as any theorist could wish, a candidate proposed by the Minister of the day would not in general be in any great danger of seeing the preference given to another /a majority on the side of any competitor/. (Yet in several accounts the mode of appointment seems to claim preference) but the disrepute[?] that would possibility of finding his choice superseded /set aside/ by the suffrage of the House, and the disrepute that would naturally attach upon any such failure would be a memento /warning/ to the Minister to make choice of the person, whose reputation promised him the most effectual security against any such disgrace.
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