date

16 May 1807 Scotch Reform Letter
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.
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  • Title: [1 May 1807 Scotch Reform Letter]
    Description: 1 May 1807

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    Letter VI

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    Thus much as to my own plan.

    But now keeping[?] that entirely out of the question, I can not help regarding it as incumbent on me considering the task I have undertaken, to submitt to Your Lordship what has occurred to me in a comparison of the authoritative plans already on the carpet, and between /amongst/ which, by reason of the monopoly of authority in which they share, the competition is likely to be.

    Towards the learned Memorialists no marks of [...?] I need scarcely observe, are likely to be found. To their Lordships or at least of them I have a good deal more to say, which if what I said went for any thing, it would scarcely be pleasant for them to hear.

    But as to the main point - (the principal cause as they say at Westminster Hall -) comparing plan with plan, if any recommendation were worth any thing, I could not but entreat of Your Lordship, setting /turning/ aside from the [...?] which are not too abundant in it /spirit of insubordination which is but too strongly manifested in it/ to observe: how much better a title is presented by the [...?] [...?] and still more authoritative [...?] there was presented by its precursor / that which preceded it/ your Lordships learned Adviser and /or/ Reformer as I took the liberty to call /[...?] [...?]/ him to Your Lordship's patronage.
  • Title: [16 May 1807 Scotch Reform Letter]
    Description: 16 May 1807

    Scotch Reform

    Letter VI

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    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.
  • Title: [16 May 1807 Scotch Reform Letter]
    Description: 16 May 1807

    Scotch Reform

    Letter VI

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    V. Authoritative Plans

    As to the (remaining) Inner House, with the remaining 7 judges which the majority of the 15 propose to have in it, Your Lordship is already apprized of the considerations which represent it to my view as not better than a nuisance: one intermediate stage of judicature betwixt a lower judicature and the House of Lords, a Chamber of Review still, only comprized /though built out/ of the old materials without the addition of any new.

    your Lordship, as an Englishman can /could/ hardly regard it as a very serious deficiency. that between eight /8/ Chancellors all sitting upon a [...?] in so many different Courts there should be not intermediate Court of Appeal interposed between these Courts and the House of Lords. Between our Equity Courts and that highest seat of judicature, there is no such half-way house. In Chancery, in the Exchequer, does Equity make its progress /get forward/ at too quick a pace?

    But the [...?] lies not in England but in Scotland. And the majority of the learned Memorialists, with all their abhorrence for the proposed, new-fangled Court of review, insist on having one, so it be comprized of the old materials. Humour them, my Lord, if /that in/ your Lordship's judgement, the lieges join with them in their hearts /join with them/ in insisting upon it, and not otherwise.