date

[094-341v] 23 Dec r 1806 Scotch
[094-341v]

23 Dec r 1806

Scotch Reform To L d Grenville

Is it for the beauty[?] of the ends in which the /of collecting the/ evidence is collected, that learned gentlemen are so fond of this mode /scheme/ of judicature? Ask M r. Hutchinson, my Lord; ask his supremely learned [...?] and corrector of the proofs the Right Honourable the Lord President. For excess[?] value ,5, good: for in short so Parliament would have it, and there is no[?] help for it. For [...?] value ,5, [...?], bad: for, God be thanked, Parliament has stopped at ,5.

Look[?] sharp[?] after the Bishop of Norwich and his Clergy: and Edward [...?] to his [...?] in the statute of [...?...?]. The meaning was said Lord Coke[?] to whom any things meaning was so much better known thanks to the King[?] himself the meaning[?] was look[?] sharp[?] after all the Clergy: As to the Bishop of Norwich, he is[?] given[?] only as a sample of them[?]: they are all alike.

Look sharp after the lawyers, my Lord: what[?] /as/ in Bishop of Norwich and his Clergy were supposed to be in /with/ regard to the rest of the English Clergy, so are the Right Honourable the Lord President and his M r. Hutchinson are with regard to the rest of the lawyers /rest, [...?] and remainder of that for of the long robe/: they are all alike, if there is any difference. Individuals vary: Ranks and classes are what their position[?] marks[?] them.
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  • Title: [[094-295v] 21 Feb y 1807 Even]
    Description: [094-295v]

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    Even M r. Hutchinson, and his Right Honourable Corrector of the press, the Lord President, admitt, (p.xiv.116) that the mode of procedure, peculiar to the Courts of Natural Procedure - parties present, no mendacity - because unless wantonly granted, is "most excellent" for a debt of £5: (p. 116, 120, 123.) and of course for a debt of £50, if incurred at 10 different times. The same learned gentlemen are indeed equally clear, that the self-same mode of procedure is stark naught for a debt of £5:1 (p.129.) When once it is risen above £5, then comes the necessity of a determination on the part of the Judge not to see or hear the parties, coupled with a determination to read or pretend to read lawyers scribble heaped up in volumes printed with the benefit of the mendacity-licence. But how this should be they have not told us: nor ever will tell us. Look, my Lord, at the distinction and see whether it be in the nature of things to afford a ground for it.

    The quantity of learning, necessary for the division of such civil causes as are not Small-Debt causes, shall for the purpose of the argument be as great as is to be found in any one head. But what is it that should hinder the maximum of learning from being applied in the one mode more than in the other?

    Is it that the hatred of learning for truth as well as its hatred for the sight of the people to whom it professes to administer justice, is so unsurmountable, and at the same time its appetite for written falsehood so unwise[?], that unless writing be heaped upon writings without truth or end, learning finds itself choked with passion, and incapable of exercising its powers?
  • Title: [14 Apr. 1808 But, not to confuse ourselves]
    Description: 14 Apr. 1808

    But, not to confuse ourselves to presumptive repose, let us see what is to be seen in the way /shape/ of actual repose, repose proved by written evidence, or matter of fact equally notorious. Correcting of books is not absolute repose, any more than writing them. But what is quite sufficient, it is relative to repose, relation being had to /the test of/ judicature. Any thing in short is repose in which a man finds relief from that which in his vocabulary stands under the name of labour: tennis, an exercise which requires a man to be in two distant places at the same instant, tennis is repose to one of Your Lordship's noble friends /affords no less repose than poetry does/.

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  • Title: [[094-147v] 3 Feb y 1807 Profession]
    Description: [094-147v]

    3 Feb y 1807

    Profession[?]

    Letter V

    Resolut. 1:2.3.4

    What I am aware of all this while, my Lord - and truly the objection is a formidable one is a diction on this subject by dr Hutchinson, backed and sanctioned by no less an authority than this-[?] Right Honourable and learned corrector of the Press (as he assures us in the last sentence of his preface) the Lord President. Admitting (such is their candour) that for recovering a debt of ,5 nothing can be better than the system of Natural Procedure, viz. as exemplified in the practice of a Small Debt Court, yet for recovering a single shilling above the ,5, is is stark naught; admirable for recovering half a dozen debts of ,4 each, contracted by the same defendant with the same Plaintiff at different times, stark naught for a debt of ,8 contracted by the same Defendant with the same Plaintiff all at once. The authority is high, and as such, I bow to it, But as to reasons, should it happen to Your Lordship, after measuring the height of the authority, to conceive it in the power of any thing in the shape of a reason to be of any[?] the smallest use, I must beg leave to refer Your Lordship to "the Right Honourable Judge" his learned collaborator: for my own part, I must confess myself altogether unable to obey Your Lordship's command for any such purpose, though my life depended upon it.