date

27 Oct r 1807 L d Eldon's Bill
27 Oct r 1807

L d Eldon's Bill

'.11

assembled by President

My conclusion is that it was desired on one side, and settled[?] by the learned draughtsman on both ends, that nothing should be done.

But why then all this talk and bustle about enquiries and regulations? Why these commissions - these newly to be organised bodies of initiating legislators? The one commission proposed by the Lord President - that member so generally /liberally/ directed (by /on the part of/ the learned draughtsman) of the L d Chancellor?

When a commission is established - established at the proposition[?] of Administration by the authority of Parliament, it may be for either of two purposes - to cause the business to be concluded in Parliament, or to prevent it from being begun there.

In the present instance, without pretending to certainty /infallibility/, the opinion that appears to me the more probable is - that the latter (is the sort of termination that on both parts was looked to with most complacency,) was the real object of the learned exertions now bestowed, to which those /the present/ learned labours were really directed.

Nor on these terms /this supposition/ would those labours be either without their suitable object or without fruit. Beside the composing of the public mind in Scotland, which is an object in all plans and at all times highly desirable, here are two funds - two new funds created for the reward of merit: I mean not of merit displayed in the business thus brought /put/ for forms sake into action /into a train/ - that being by the supposition destined to receive /repose/ its question - but to merit antecedently displayed in whatsoever other shape: merit remaining to be discovered by the discerning /penetrating/ and judicious eyes to whom under his Majesty, name and auspices the charge of the discovery is proposed to be committed.
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  • Title: [27 Oct r 1807 L d Eldon's Bill]
    Description: 27 Oct r 1807

    L d Eldon's Bill

    '.11

    Assembled by President

    (│ │) (assembled by the Lord President) A singular provision this, if ever there was one, and not a little instructive, it will be curious enough to see what Parliament will say to it. The summons from the Lord President, no assembly, no Court, no Quorum, no any thing for this purpose. In this subordinate indeed but highly important legislature, out of 15 Co-ordinate members, one made King, with a Royal negative. King did I say? much more than King; at least three the King is in the supreme legislature of the three Kingdoms. He is sole Lord of the Articles: possessing a preliminary negative. He possesses not only /merely/ the power of stopping /rejecting/ any plan of amendment that has not his approbation, but the power of preventing it from being so much as mentioned. (Either the clause has this meaning, or it has none. On no other occasion but this has any such attempt been made). If the power of putting an end to unacceptable measures be open to argument, the power of not suffering them to begin is beyond dispute.

    Lord Chancellor's learned draughtsman to do him justice, it was /is/ not to /with/ him that the idea of setting /placing/ the crown upon the head of the Lord President was introduced. It was slipped in, in the corresponding section of the second of the two Bills framed by the learned Draughtsman of the Lord President: of these two Bills of which the care /regard/ to be taken of the dignity of that Right Honourable head of the College of Justice was the capital and most paramount object, not to say the only one.
  • Title: [27 Oct r 1807 L d Eldon's Bill]
    Description: 27 Oct r 1807

    L d Eldon's Bill

    '.11

    - assembled by President

    So much for the effect of those significant words, now as to the instruction that seems derived from them /they seem pregnant with/.

    Judging merely from what is public, if /were/ the question were put to me, what do you suppose, the Lord Presidents draughtsman means should be done, and if I were obliged to answer, my /the/ answer would be - nothing.

    Unless it be by encrease of salary, an operation to which nothing more than a few words without any such elaborateness of regulation would be necessary, in what shape can /could/ he be /any thing/ the better for any thing that could be done? Answer - in none. After or before or along with salary /the peculium/, what has he the greatest regard for /is it that sits nearest to his heart/? The answer has been given by himself (- his own case? his own necessary periodical repose: - that repose viz. of 6 months out of 12, which being acceptable to a person of exalted dignity and proportionable merit that he knows of, he concludes to be absolutely necessary to every other head or at least to every other which has learning in it /everything of jurisprudential learning to agitate and plague its periodical repose: - that periodical repose (6 months together out of the 12)/) "which the laborious functions, both of the Judges and Counsel, absolutely require."

    Supposing it now his intention /suppose it merely for arguments sake his intention/, that any such new body of regulations should be made which his draughtsman and what is more the Lord Chancellor's draughtsman he is determined it shall not be without a Court or Quorum assembled by the President, when would be the time for making them? Not the six months vacation nor any part of it: given to judicature, given to legislation, every hour misapplied in either way would be so much taken from that periodical repose which the laborious functions of the Judges, ... absolutely require. Still less from that only other remaining portion /half/ of the year, during which to such a degree are those learned persons fatigued and over-fatigued with the laborious functions so imposed upon them, as to require /the other/ 6 months to recover themselves.
  • Title: [28 Oct r 1807 L d Eldon's Bill]
    Description: 28 Oct r 1807

    L d Eldon's Bill

    '.14

    Interim possession

    To delineate the power in these general terms, was to give to it all the /the utmost/ latitude it was susceptible of: to state /stating/ just the object, the end in view to which the exercise of this power was directed, would have been to limit it /limited it/: the President's learned Draughtsman has given no intimation of any such end /said nothing about the end/.

    Be this as it may the clearest and most convenient order course[?] in point of order the clearest and most convenient course would have been, as above, to begin with stating the power meant to be conferred: this being done would have served as a guide to whatsoever should come to be provided touching the /any/ /on the subject of/ particular steps to be taken for the purpose of calling that power into exercise. This course he has not taken: but what he has done, and properly done in consideration of the general description that was immediately to be given of the power - is the giving a due generality to the description of the proceedings that were to be directed to that end: having with perfect propriety the adjustment of these details to the Court below by which the power was to be exercised.

    This generality this clear and apposite simplicity is as usual insufficient to the anxious and superintending eye of Lord Eldon's learned Draughtsman. Precision is the object at which in his own way he aims, and which so sure as he aims at it, so sure is he to miss, seizing and disseminating confusion and perplexity in the stead.