date

[...?] March 1808 Letter V
[...?] March 1808

Letter V

'. 9* Powers[?] to Session. Sittings in Rotation.

'. 5. "And that such duties in the [...?] House and Bill Chamber shall be performed by the Ordinary Judge on such Rotation either of Years, Sessions, Months, Weeks or other Rotation as shall seem most expedient for the dispatch of business and avoiding of expence."

In speaking of this [...?] ends of justice I have already had occasion to bring /point/ to view the care that seems to have been taken to prevent them from taking so wide a range and occupying in the full of legislation a larger division than it was [...?] convenient to interest [...?] with. On a clear [...?] /nearer[?] inspection/, the little /small [...?] of/ authority and influence with which an appearance they were convicted seems /at first sight they appeared/ reduced to nothing, or what is next to it.

Avoidance of expence? how was that object capable of being affected, one way or the other /on a good way or a bad one/, by any rotation that could be established in regard to the time of sitting in these single seated judicatures? no otherwise, as far as I can see, than[?] is as far as encrease of expence is liable to have[?] encrease of delay for its cause encrease of delay: a connection which, though /howsoever/ real is not among the objects which I should have expected to have seen attracting the notice of the learned author any such plan as that which [...?] before me /of the present Bill/.

+See Talk of Delay.
Similar Items
  • Title: [28 March 1808 Letter V Powers]
    Description: 28 March 1808

    Letter V

    Powers to Session

    Rotation

    To the noble and learned Lord Chancellor under whose name the Bill comes forth, to the Lord Chancellor at any rate, howsoever it may have been in the /regard/ case of the penner of the Bill, the determination of the Lord President with the determination of two others out of the 15 Judges for its support, was fully known, for with all [...?] solemnity and in [...?] there are four[?], it had been notified: and it is [...?] that notice thus repeatedly given that this one of the ends of justice would continue to be as it has been hitherto trodden under foot, that the author of the Bill does as much as in [...?] has to enable and empower those declared [...?] to persevere in such their declared contempt of this end of justice.

    If it were still possible that the sort of regard [...?] by the penner of the Bill for the end of justice in question could remain subject to doubt two words - inserted as it were in the exuberance of grace and favour and lest the determination to persevere /the adherence given to the determination of persevering/ in the contempt of this end of justice should not be strict enough - two words, the word "Years" and the word "Sessions", would be sufficient to clear away all doubts ever in the mind[?] the most [...?] /abundant/ in that sort of produce. Weeks of repose, yes: even months of repose, let ever that [...?] be allowed to be necessary, to recruit[?] a man after the fatigue of lolling upon cushions. But "Sessions"? portions of [...?] of four months length - "Sessions" - ""Years" too and those too in the plural number? - what shall we say of the sort of regard there[?] manifested for the ends of justice?
  • Title: [28 March 1808 Letter V Power]
    Description: 28 March 1808

    Letter V

    Power to Session

    Rotation

    Time for relaxation being, though physically speaking impossible to be allowed in the one case, capable of being allowed without difficulty in the other, it was in this instance, /and it should seem with unimpeachable propriety/ allowed accordingly: allowed with as small an expenditure of public money as could have been allotted to the purpose: to each judicatory /above //beyond// the constantly necessary [...?]/ one [...?] Judge, and but one.

    In the Act for the establishment of these judicatories /by which these judicatories/ I behold with delight and exaltation an /one/ instance in which the ends of justice , in general and dispatch of business, [...?] avoidance of delay in particular were the objects to which the [...?] of the legislator was really and without grimace directed. If any one will help me to [...?] hypothesis, by which, without running into palpable contradiction, it may be in my power to attribute /ascribe/ the same view and [...?] to the learned penner of the Bill, my sincere thanks shall /are/ be at his service. I could not which[?] manufacturing factitious delay by wholesale and devising measures for fastening it like a millstone [...?] in a manner never to be detached, about the neck of justice. Seeing one object compleatly accomplished by one man, by measures placably and undeniably directed to that end /and manifestly adequate to it/, I can not /know not how to/ say of any other man, nay though he were a Lord Chancellor /the head of the law/ and an Archbishop of Canterbury in one, that I believe his views to have been directed to the same end, perceiving /seeing/ at the same time less measures taking a direction exactly opposite.
  • Title: [24 Jan y 1808 On L d Eldons Bill]
    Description: 24 Jan y 1808

    On L d Eldons Bill

    IV. Sign Manual Commiss

    That it will not answer in any considerable degree the purpose which the interest of the people /the ends of justice/ to the quality[?] /character/ of suitors require to be answered may be affirmed with equal confidence.

    The sort of work [...?] were it a compleat system of procedure covering /at the same time/ in [...?] what to[?] whole of the field of judicature and the whole collection[?] /entire assemblings/ of the judicatures that are at work upon it, were[?] then it would be imperfect and in such sort imperfect as to be incapable of answering to any considerable degree of perfection its /professedly[?]/ intended purpose. But it does no such thing: for if the existing sorts /shapes/ of judicatures existing and habitually at work in Scotland it omitts more than it includes.

    Those which it includes are of national Courts the Court of Session: of local Courts the Sheriff's Courts.

    Those which it omitts are - of national courts, the Court of Justiciary[?], the Court of [...?], the powerful[?] Commission Court and the principal Admiralty Court:- of local Courts, the Courts of Justices of the Peace sitting in Sessions General or Special, the Borough Courts, the [...?] of Guilds Courts, the Borough Courts, and happily the Small debt Courts, the local Commissionary Courts, and the local Admiralty Courts.