date

24 April 1807 A3 3 Letter V
24 April 1807

A3 3

Letter V

Inadequate compensation

3. Appeal vice Advocation

2. Where a debt in the shape of a sum of money is the subject of the demand, the profit of the defendant, to be made by staving off payment, will encrease of course with the length of time during which it can be staved off - i.e. with the interest upon the principal sum constituting the debt: like profit, though perhaps not always equal profit, where the subject of the demand consists not in money, but in some specific thing or assemblage of things moveable. To countervail this profit to the defendant this loss to the plaintiff - is any satisfaction provided at the defendant's charge? Oh no:- upon the principle so fully above explained - the Magna Charta of learned Lords and Gentlemen the application of any such check to business is carefully and religiously avoided:- in the Court appealed from on entering the Appeal, a Bond to be given for debt and costs; yes: for debt and costs: but not for damages: not for the ademption of dishonest gain, not for the making up of undue loss, under any name, Scotch or English.
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  • Title: [24 April 1807 A5 5 Letter V]
    Description: 24 April 1807

    A5 5

    Letter V

    Inadequate compensation

    3. Appeal vice Advocation

    3. The analysis of this remedy is not yet compleat.

    A remedy against delay, it is in the like proportion a remedy against expence: observe then the application of it. It is not intended for any thing better than a makeshift. Against misdecision it is not regarded as affording a security equal to that which is afforded at present by the regular and established mode: if it were, that existing mode would be abrogated compleatly, and this new one compleatly substituted in the room of it. It being a principle of the technical system that the security against misdecision is in the direct ratio of delay, vexation and expence, this, like the institution of the Small Debt Courts, and every other institution that either affords or promises diminution of fabricated delay sacrifices (so it is understood) a portion of the security against delay, with those its et ceteras, for the purchase of a proportionable quantity of security against, or exemption from, inconvenience in those other shapes.

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  • Title: [24 April 1807 A2 (2)]
    Description: 24 April 1807

    A2

    (2)

    Letter V

    Inadequate compensation

    3. Appeal vice Advocation

    1. Of the present mode of recourse to the Court of Session in the way of Advocation or Suspension - or to speak shortly of the Bill-Chamber - the existence is admitted and assumed to be a grievance. It is against this greivance that the new mode of Appeal - Appeal as now from inferior Courts to Justiciary on the Circuit is proposed in the character of a relief. In the first place for argument sake so be it: for the present let this be admitted and assumed.

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    In the Tragedy of Tom Thumb, (I speak as an eye-witness) to make dispatch and clear the stage, while some of the dramatis personae are receiving into their bowels the fatal steel at the hands of their respective adversaries the rest are occupied in working it into their own. Upon the like diligence on the part of the tardy defendant, depend Your Lordship's learned Advisors (for by this time their name is legion) for the efficacy of their remedy.
  • Title: [24 April 1807 A6 (6) Letter]
    Description: 24 April 1807

    A6 (6)

    Letter V

    Inadequate compensation

    3. Appeal vice Advocation

    6 continued

    To the system thus described nothing worse can be objected than its being groundless: inconsistent it is not. Now then what is the policy pursued by the proposed measure? It refuses the remedy against delay where the price to be paid for it by diminution of the security against misdecision is less: it reserves the remedy for the cases in which the price thus paid for it is greater. It refuses the dispatch where the sum risked by it is no more than £50: it grants the dispatch, it applies this dangerous remedy when the sum risked is any thing above the £50: where the amount of the risk has no bounds.