date

24 April 1807 Lawyers judged
24 April 1807

Lawyers judged

Letter 2

The first point /proposition/ that presents itself is - that in the instance of neither of the contending parties is the good of the people in their character of suitors, the ruling object. In reality and at bottom, it could not reasonably be expected that with either of them it should have an object in any degree: but as to its being the prime an predominant object, this is not in the instance of either of them so much as professed.

First as to the learned Memorialists, the Judges. Of /To/ the interests of the people to the ends of justice - as the proper and prime standards of reference /rectitude/, no reference next to no notice/ any where. Reference by words too vague to afford instruction /answer any good purpose, in the way of list[?] check or guidance instruction, check or guidance, yes in Art. 2. The proposed division pronounced unnecessary and inexpedient. │ │ [...?]

In Art. 14. the expediency in general stated as doubtful: if carried to the extent proposed, consequences calamitous.

In Art. 20. In Jury-trial, if instituted /applied/ to causes commenced in inferior Courts pronounced inexpedient, dangerous, impracticable.

In Art. 38. Something which they understood to have been proposed to be done viz.: by Parliament, is remonstrated against as " illegal" and " unjust". An act of Parliament illegal! and this from Judges!

Unjust, perhaps so: you must go to some one else, if you wish to see it proved that Parliament can make justice, can turn injustice into justice - can make justice. But does not Parliament make law? or do those Judges propose to take to themselves a monopoly of the manufacture?

words expressive of nothing but the heat raised /exited/ in the mode[?] of the penner and his associates/
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    What are the predominant - the professedly predominant considerations? the considerations that stand /put[?]/ foremost not in the learned hearts only but in the paper in which they are portrayed?

    1. The personal interests of the author of the address - the Judges the personal interests of the whole body or of the leading Member or Members: the personal interests in respect of power, consideration, and above all in respect of ease.

    2. The Union - the perverted letter of the Union - with its precursor /the other dead letter/ the claim of right.

    First as to personal interests.

    1. Art. 7. Parcelling out the jurisdiction of the President, as proposed by the proposed division into 2 or 3 Chambers is pronounced subversive of the President's right. How of his right? and wherein consists the mischief and the injury to which the Right Honourable is so acutely sensible? Chambers 2 or 3, with Judges in them all together 15 in number as at present, or some lesser number, will he not still rank above all of them? Yes: but when he is no more, his successor in the 1 st Chamber will not rank it is apprehended so high as the learned persons whosoever they may be, to whom it may happen to find themselves in the situation of Presidents of the 2 d and 3 d Chambers. Tremendous /Momentous/ objection! but is it not in the power of Parliament to remove it. Why vamp up /put forward into/ this character of an objection, a consideration which whatever were the importance of it could have no claim to attention in any other character than that of an amendment?

    Art. 8. Thereupon it is, that in the next ensuing article the office the office of President as it now stands is flatly pronounced "unabolishable and indivisible: like the great Commonwealth that so lately we saw crushed to atoms, one and indivisible. "Indivisible?" what by his Majesty in Parliament? The negative, the very idea of which though not to be exercised but with the advise of a set of responsible and cross-examination ministers, can not enter the royal mind without pain, has it been made over to the presiding member, or to all the members put together of a Bench of Judges?

    For the imaginary rights and unconjecturable feelings of his unknown successor, how tender /acute/ and tender the sympathy of the Right Honourable Judge! how trifling /light/, when weighed against it in the ballance are all public considerations /the ends of justice/!
  • Title: [Sheet partly in JB’s hand, partly in Colls]
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    1821 Aug. 31. B §. 2

    J.B. to Toreno

    1 o & 2 o

    Letter VI

    §. 3 Conditions

    {6} 8

    4

    Wishing to put the matter upon the most simple footing possible, in the character of conditions I will not dog this consent of mine with any further propositions. Merely in the character of a suggestion which perhaps may be thought not altogether undeserving of notice I will venture to trouble you with what follows.

    Suppose a declaration be made that, for the description of offences and punishments, so far as it extends, it /this/ shall be the only legal rule of action, and object of reference, to the exclusion of every other, but in particular of the Roman law. The Roman law, like every other system of the sort of law called Unwritten or Common Law, composed as it is partly of what is real, partly of what is imaginary, is a chaos which has infinity for its attribute. The proposed Code has at any rate the merit of being a finite quantity: add to it an infinite quantity, the sum is infinite. To render it exactly fitted for the purpose, a declaration for this abrogatory purpose might require some modifications: but the present is no place for them. To preserve a source of uncertainty so delightfully inexhaustible, will, under every system of Codification, have been an object of prime anxiety to the tribe /class/ who profit by it: they have succeeded even in the case of Bonaparte’s Code. Schools for the study of that law are still, I have been assured, kept up in France. To match them, schools should be set up for instruction in the art of torturing.

    As little will I attempt to give any such quality /character/ /effect/ as that of a condition to the proposition so abundantly insisted upon as that notwithstanding all the bars opposed by the care for the existence of the Constitution and the care for the liberty of the press, the door to the Spanish mind may be left open to every man who with a proposed Code or any part of one should be ambitious to render Service to your nation in that shape: open to all, and therefore even to mine: open to every such Code, and of course to every observation /remarks/ which every /any/ man may be inclined to make public in relation to any and every such Code. But on this head I have to say something more with which I shall /hope to/ conclude.
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    Description: 29 April 1807

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    Art. 50. In the concluding article (Art. 50) the predominant regard for personal ease is neither dissembled, nor covered /vouchsafed to be/ so much as with a veil of common decency. Penetrated /Filled/ with /Full of/ the importance of this object not so much as a suspicion that the relative importance of it could subtend any lesser[?] angle in the eye of the people or of Parliament, could find places in those learned minds:

    Enacted (they say) by the Bill that the Chambers (in number three) shall continue to sit (to sit alternately says the Bill) to sit in vacation from day to day, till the cases before them are exhausted. "With such a regulation" (it is observed) "the present system, without any change at all, would be equally effectual": but such regulation (it is added) "is totally inconsistent with that periodical repose, which the labourious fractions, both of the Judges and Counsel, absolutely require."

    A periodical repose, necessary and to what amount? to the amount of half a year /six of the 12 months/ or the whole, 3 months at a time /at two periods of 3 months each/. This over and above every seventh day, that consecrated[?] day ordained by religion, and, in the case of other functions far otherwise and more intensly[?] laborious than the function of sitting upon a cussion to dispose of the fate of one's fellow-creatures, regarded by all Christians as sufficient and by non Christians as even more than sufficient to every good purpose. One fourteenth part indeed of that portion of holy day time indeed occupied (that nothing may be left unnoticed) one fourteenth part of the above[?] idle time of each learned Lords, as such times[?] as can be best addressed to aggregate convenience, bestowed upon the Bill-Chamber.