093-290.xml

Title: [16 May 1807 Scotch Reform Letter]

Description: 16 May 1807

Scotch Reform

Letter VI

Letter VI

V. Authoritative Plans

The Plan of the Memorialising Judges /memorialists/ at least with the help of the [...?] I have ventured to propose, clears the House of Lords of all the malä fide Appeals 3/7 /4/7/ of the whole number, and the proposition not to speak of the absolute quantity, more likely to encrease than to decrease. At least it takes the right course towards the production of that effect: and with the help of more extensions which I have ventured to propose, and which I should not despair of seeing adopted by the learned Memorialists themselves, bids fair in my view of the matter for obtaining compleat success.

The plan of the 4 Non-Memorialists (for them I take the liberty of setting down as adherents to the plan of Your Lordships learned Adviser, requiring their silence as equivalent to consent). The plan of the Non-Memorialists contributes nothing whatever towards lessening the number: by encreasing the long delay obtainable, parallel to which runs the profit by delay, it is the contrary contributions indefinitely to the encrease of that branch of the grievance.

In the part of the majority of the Judges there is it is true, nothing that is naturally incompatible with the plan of the minority. Constituting an advantage on the part of the plan, it therefore constitutes not therefore a radical objective against the other. Yet some how or other, so it happened, it was rejected one of the other. As to the cause of the rejection, my suspicions are already before Your Lordship. - what foundation if any there may be for them in fact, rests with /lies in/ Your Lordship's knowledge.

093-295.xml

Title: [16 May 1807 Scotch Reform Letter]

Description: 16 May 1807

Scotch Reform

Letter VI

Letter VI

V. Authoritative Plans

Setting down the learned Memorialists in the catalogue of enemies - and in truth the state and temper of their address has entitled them to that appellation by too good a title, the title of their plan to acceptance might not to be, and therefore in Your Lordship's judgement will not be affected by it /their hostility/.

Was it ever so much better than it is, it is to Your Lordship in the first place, and in by much the largest proportion, that the gratitude of Scotland /the country/ for it will be due. While the House of Lords, amidst their still more important avocations, and at their wide distance from the source of grievance were silent /mute/ so were the learned Memorialists, whose daily exertions and non-exertions were the official causes of it. Your Lordship (The House at Your Lordship's instance) speaks, and at the sound of Your Lordship's voice /and as it were at the voice of an Angel/, the dead rise up and for the first time find (the) use (of their) lips as well as (of their) eyes.

The spirit of opposition it was that gave birth to the plan of the eleven: be it so: but the plan of the four had it any purer source?

Each plan is what it is: will it be made either better or worse, by the purity or impurity of the motive?

In support of the plan of the Non-Memorialists, among whom the learned gentleman /person/ who has hitherto been /on this occasion has been/ officiatiing in quality of Your Lordships learned Adviser may /might/ I suppose be found, there is an authority of /equal to/ four. Good: but on the other side, there is an authority of eleven: over and above whatever ballance of reason, if it /reason/ weigh any thing, may be seen lying in that scale.

To the authority of the 11 add the extra-authority attached to the station of L d President. His Lordship [...?]; and putting [...?] = π[?] the value of π[?], howsoever it might puzzle a mathematician to extract it will always be positive.

093-291.xml

Title: [16 May 1807 Scotch Reform Letter]

Description: 16 May 1807

Scotch Reform

Letter VI

Letter VI

V. Authoritative Plans

As to the bonä fide Appeals, the only /the 4/7/ Appeals heard, the only Appeals that draw upon the House of Lords for any part of its time, to the diminution of this portion of the whole mass of Appeals, the plan of the Majority, I admitt, contributes nothing. The more they [...?] I hear has been advanced by very high and very competent authority in relation to the plan of the Minority. My own expectations I must confess are not equally clear /simple/, not equally decisive. 1. Along with the learned Memorialists I see a certain proportion of those who would otherwise have been appellants to the House, stopped by exhaustion of purse or perseverance in the Chamber of Review: but as to those the effect produced is - not justice but denial of justice.

2. Another portion /proportion/, I can help regarding it as probable, would really be stopped, according to the expectations held out by Your Lordships learned Adviser, in the desirable and only desirable way, by satisfaction given to the [...?] party of the justice of the judgement pronounced against him or at least of the [...?] of any other more favourable from above /at a higher stage/.

On a former occasion I [...?] the consideration which gave birth to any opinion that this almost probable benefit produced in this way would not compensate for the certain inconvenience /bad effect/. This being said already need not here be said again. But what belongs to the present purpose is hat whatever benefit in this shaped was perceived by the learned Advisers plan at the expense of all that inconvenience is permitted[?], and with at least equal probability of accomplishment by the plan of the majority, without any of that inconvenience.