date

9 Oct 1807 Lord Delegates After
9 Oct 1807

Lord Delegates

After Ch. │ │ Advantages

Ch. │ │ Hale's Plan

Art. 4 & 7. ( Tryers of Petitions). At present, this denomination having fallen into compleat oblivion, the revivals of it would not promise to /scarcely at this time of the day/ contribute very considerably to recommend the efficient parts of the plan to the favour of Parliament or people.

Even at the time when proposed by Lord Hale, it being already in that state or thereabouts, the utility of this part of the plan seemed not very different from what it would be at present as above. But the sort of business proposed in art. 7. to be grafted on it, I speak of the factitious complication, is not quite so convenient. On the occasion of each such Appeal or Writ of Error there was to be not only a Petition presented (a sort of instrument in which for every useful purpose a mighty few words, and those except the signature /the signature excepted/, consigned to a printed form, expence 1 d or 2 d would be sufficient, but each such Petition was to have a parcel of gibberish in the form of law-french[?] and always the same parcel scribbled upon the back of it: and for the making of this scribble, a number of officers under the technical name of Quorum of Petitions were to perform /after performing/ the office of a slit in a door, to make a shew of attendance on the King and his Council, whereupon the King and his Council that is some Clerk or other while the Council if really sitting were attending to nothing or to something else, were to make a shew of considering when there was nothing to be considered. I say nothing to be considered: for all this solemnity /operation/ was avowedly mere[?] motion[?] of course. On the part of the officers [...?] denominated by the proposed appellation of Receivers of Petitions, there was something to be considered: for it was to be considered to the cognizance of what authority the cognizance of the Petition in question belonged: and an answer accordingly was to be endorsed upon the back of it.
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    Description: 9 Oct r 1807

    Lords Delegates

    After Ch. │ │ Advantages

    But here by the supposition what authority the cognizance of the Petition belonged /belongs/ to, is already by the supposition, fore-determined and foreknown: so that of all this formality /solemnity/ the use of it had any, would have been to pick mens pockets, first and for that purpose, imposing upon their understandings.

    Lord Hale was in truth one of the best, if not the very best, of lawyers: But his Lordship was a lawyer, and as such, enamoured of formalities particularly /in?/ of useless ones, and not averse to fees.
  • Title: [19 Oct r 1807 Lords Delegates]
    Description: 19 Oct r 1807

    Lords Delegates

    Letter VII

    Letter VII Eldon's Bill

    Along with the Bill which, under /in/ I know not what hand comes endorsed to me with the words L

    d

    Eldon's, come two others endorsed respectively in the same hand. L d President's Bill and L d President's 2 d Bill, both without any other date endorsed than the year, neither of them having any intimation of an Order for printing (made by) the House.

    Comparing the Lord Chancellor's Bill such henceforward I shall venture to call it with the two Bills of the Lord President, I find to so considerable an extent a coincidence, as shews the Lord Presidents plan to have been taken as a basis by the Lord Chancellor.

    In my last Letter which was honestly written before this /the present one/, written indeed in the main several months before any one of these three Bills came into my hands, I was exulting at the auspicious coincidence in so many essential points between the ideas of the learned Lord at the head of Scottish Law, and those of the adventurous and unlearned as well as untitled individual who has not the honour to be /no such honour as that of being/ at the head or so much as the tail of any thing that ever went by the name of law.

    (Taking up his Lordship's two Bills for the purpose of the present Letter (I have at the outset the mortification to find alas! find at the outset all that exaltation at an end.) at the very first glance all that exultation stops, and the repose of despondency takes its place.

    (Great however as is my concern, my disappointment is not equal to it.)
  • Title: [9 Oct r 1807 Lords Delegates]
    Description: 9 Oct r 1807

    Lords Delegates

    After Ch. Advantage

    Ch. L d Hale's Plan

    Lord Hales Plan is in these words /to this effect, and marks/: for the purpose of reference they are here broken down into articles.

    Art. 1. That for receiving reference of "petition for reversals[?] of decrees[?] and for examining of judgments in writs of error, a select number of the most judicious Lords, spiritual and temporal, and that not in too excessive a number, be appointed.

    Art. 2. "Together with the Judges"... except "the judges of that Court, out of which the Record is removed."

    Art. 3. That these be not " present", unless "occasion require to hear the reasons of their judgments: as in error addition out of the Exchequer Chamber before the Treasurer and Chancellor."

    Art. 4. That, (in pursuance of a formality even then already antiquated) the collective name of Tryers of petitions be given to the judicatory so composed.

    Art. 5. That they be all "commissionated under the Great Seal for that purpose."

    Art. 6. That "because it may not be determined in that session, then a special commission to the Tryers, where of some of the quorum to examine and determine.

    Art. 7. To the above is added a quantity of complication pregnant with useless or sinecure offices, and of course with their fees, and for no other declared purpose than the removal of the aforesaid already antiquated formalities.