date

10 Feb y 1807 Letter IV Resolut
10 Feb y 1807

Letter IV

Resolut. 6.7.8.9

Juries

3. denial of justice

Lawyer. - But, should any such Utopian plan as your late plan what a horrible answer[?] to the mass of litigation!

Then Lawyer [...?] and softly, my Lord [...?] [...?] Bone verbum quaeso. The mischief of litigation consists in the delay, vexation and expence: the delay, [...?] would be as nothing; the expence would be as nothing: and the vexation would be in proportion to the delay and the expence.

It is in your [...?] Alfride cum focci Romali, not in my Utopia, that litigation is a grievance. What there is of grievance in it, is of your own making:- cease to make it, and there will be none.
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  • Title: [10 Feb y 1807 Letter IV Resolut]
    Description: 10 Feb y 1807

    Letter IV

    Resolut. 6.7.8.9

    Juries

    1 Delay

    And now my Lord, I will venture to submit to your Lordship a few points of impression as not altogether unworthy of Your Lordships notice. /I am/ Sorry I am that in most of them I have nothing better to offer than so many vague approximations. Had my power been equal to my will many and many years ago they would all of them have been reduced to certainty

    1. Delay quantities of it absolute , and thence[?] proportional as between a cause carried on in the way of natural procedure, and technical procedure in civil causes in that in that form in /of/ which Jury trial [...?] [...?] [...?]

    Ah but, says some learned Lord or Gentleman you are confounding great with small. You are supposing the greatest cause, so it be but a cause of debt, to require no more time to do justice to it than one of your minimum[?] causes, di quibus lex non curat.

    My Lord, if on the putting causes of all [...?] together thus in hotchpot, there be really any error, I will venture to set it down among the errors which to the present purpose are not worth regarding. But if this be again error upon error,

    Your
  • Title: [13 Feb y 1807 Inserendum[?]?]
    Description: 13 Feb y 1807

    Inserendum[?]?

    Letter IV

    Resolut. 6.7.8.9

    Juries

    My Lord, in /on/ some other place /ground/ I may have occasion to beg Your Lordship's attention to the exaggerated importance given /attributed/ /ascribed/ of course /as it could not but be/ under the technical system, to the mischief of misdecision, in comparsion of that of denial of justice: (I mention it now per memoriâ). The cause, I mean the final cause, lies not very deep. By the solemnities[?] performed under the notion of security against misdecision solemnities composed of delay vexation and expense - solemn and repeated[?] arguments - numbers[?] of a [...?] length of consideration, quantity of consultation - judge and C o are gainers not only in pocket, but in that which feeds and guards the pocket, reputation: which by the denial made of justice to the body of the people, wretches that can't pay for it - Judge is a gainer - gainer in point of case Judge and C o no losers.

    Of the denial of justice /On the other hand/, the less is said the better: accordingly nothing is ever said of it.
  • Title: [11 Feb y 1807 Letter IV Resolut]
    Description: 11 Feb y 1807

    Letter IV

    Resolut. 6.7.8.9

    Juries

    1 Delay

    Taking up my pen in despair /a fit of desperation/ as the preacher took up his book[?], I set down at once six months for the average /thus explained/ minimum length of a suit[?] at Common Law with Jury trial in the belly of it: six months thus being in round numbers the nearest to the quantity by which I should expect to find it expressed. Should I have hit the right nail on this head as he did, when by a pagan miracle the foam of the horse gushed out of it, so much the better. But my Lord feeling the argument strong enough to bear the disadvantage in all allowances and having as the French say, margin enough instead of the 6 months, I will be content with 3 months making days 182, hours 4368 months ........262,080

    But, if an undisputed cause in a Court of Conscience, the length as above stated above may be set down, and after large and unfavourable allowances at 5 months - say minutes - 5

    262,080 minutes as to 5, as 52,416 to 6 - here[?] then, for the expence of the support, the nominal[?] support given to the law by the logical conjugate of the word law viz: the word lawyers, as have in 9 causes out of every 10 in the article of delay alone, for one natural and necessary particle 52,416 factitious and unnecessary ones.

    Meantime /But/, my Lord, after the allowance thus made ex majori cantilâ[?] , and for the purpose of the argument, I protest against the being considered by Your Lordships learned Scotch Reformers or by any learned gentlemen on either side of the Tweed as being estopped[?] from expressing the ordinary length of a suit by the quantity of 6 months, or 12 months, or even 24 months, for my Lord if the least quantity of a grievance be worth notice neither are the middle nor the greatest quantities altogether undeserving of it.