date

8 Feb y 1808 IV days of Sitting
8 Feb y 1808

IV days of Sitting

What is seen by seven out of the 15 Judges to be thus impossible, is by the Faculty of Advocates seen to be not only possible, but proper:- a thing which "ought" to be done.

Modes of vision thus different - and within the same walls, call for explanation and admitt of it.

Over and above the interest of learned Judges the interest of repose - there is another interest concerned in the business - the interest of the most current and fully employed individuals in the codes of Advocates - the joint interest of the overgrown utility and opulence /the love of favour[?] and opulence/. All the harmony of an illustrious[?] a lock[?] will not enable a man to exist in two places at the same time. Divide the two judicatories into two, you rob each one of these luminaries of half his business.

In these monopolizers[?] of farm and failure the learned and honourable [...?] of repose behold /on this occasion/ their natural [...?]. Ask any of /Demand of/ them whether it be possible for two judicatories to sit /be sitting/ within the same walls at the same time. Their answer, already given by the [...?] of Your Lordships learned reformer - they answer - it is almost superfluous to say, will /would/ is in the negative.
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  • Title: [8 Feb y 1808 Power Se IV. Days]
    Description: 8 Feb y 1808

    Power Se

    IV. Days of sitting

    No: the arrangement will not do /[...?]/. the ends of justice, the interest of the lowest[?] [...?], yes: but not the interest, at the repose of these honourable and learned Ministers and Guardians of Justice. Having near half the year pure holyday time binds two holidays out of every seven in working time, so far from giving up any part of their repose /applying to the business more of their time than at present/, their plan is - not to apply to the business more than half the time they apply to it at present. The Chambers /two judicatories/ if two, are to sit alternately; in each of them, the Judges sitting half the time they apply to at present.

    A security[?] to the evenday[?] labours under a [...?] of that protean[?] article: and thus is the occasion they lay hold of for doubling the quantity consumed in [...?].

    The form in which this determination is expressed is not less observation-worthy than the substance.

    To a declaration of any sort, of art of the will be it an art of the understanding [...?], order, assertion, the indirect form the form of assumption /implicit parenthetical/ gives a degree of force of which the direct form is incapable. Impossibility moreover oppozes[?] to any proposition a bar in impasses[?] /against/ of which the direct[?] form of reasoning is as a straw against a stone wall. To give force to the expression of will here exhibited /brought out/, lock[?] these [...?] powers are employed /called on/. That, as the Chambers are only to sit, and indeed can only sit alternately (say the learned memorialists in their fourth article) and then came their [...?] and conclusions.
  • Title: [8 Feb y 1808 IV. Day of Sitting]
    Description: 8 Feb y 1808

    IV. Day of Sitting

    The determination /decision/ of the Court of Session, I mean of the clever art of its 15 Judges is - that the Chambers meaning what the Bill calls the divisions of the Court, these[?] Chambers whether there be two or three of them shall "only sit alternately".

    What is the grand grievance? /One main grievance //At the head of the list of grievances stands this -// that the decisions of the Court of Session are years in arrear, and that it is in a way[?] to measure[?] /the arrear there seems no bounds to its probable measure[?]/.

    Such being the grievance nothing can be more obvious, more effectual /infallible/ than the remedy. Instead of one judiciary, establish two, both sitting at the same time: each having but half the business to do in the same quantity of time, the quantity of time applied to the business will be the double of that it is at present. Of one judicatory the number of which are determined not to preserve the repose [...?] for almost [...?] end two months together, the quantity of time allowed as not sufficient for the business /the quantity/ which calls for it: but it is not so far from sufficient but that double the quantity of time would be compleatly so - since[?] then the numbers of the one judicatory will not give up any part of the time dedicated to repose, establish two judicatories, both /each/ sitting at the same time with those[?] on which the one judicatory sits at present. By this means the quantity of time applied to the business will be exactly doubled.
  • Title: [[094-373v] 4 April 1808 Letter]
    Description: [094-373v]

    4 April 1808

    Letter V

    Ch. 3

    By this fixation a sort of compromise was made, and the two opposite interests, those of the Judges, and those of the lieges - [...?] and God - for sale[?] in the religion of the Court of Session is the ends of precedence, served at the same time. Among the ends of judicature, if indeed there were ever any others, judicial repose, occupied in the order of precedence as settled by the Lord President and the art of his fourteen Colleagues, at any rate the first [...?]. According to the composition of the Right Honourable and learned Lord /Memorial art. 50/ division of the Inner House into two judicatories would by necessary consequence have governed the quantity of this greatest of public benefits /judicial blessings/. For though in England, viz. in Westminster Hall, where judicial convenience is not altogether disregarded, three judicatories having cognizance of the same courses, do continue to sit all along[?] on the same days, yet at Edinburgh, there was a something /in the [...?] perhaps/, that rendered such simultaneousity[?] impossible. Memorial arts 4 "At the Chambers are only to sit, and indeed can only sit alternately. If at the Scottish Bar which is said not to afford more than about ,3,000 a year for its busiest and most illustrious members, there were any whose quantity of business would be subjected to reduction, by the division of the Inner House into two, and the law of nature which forbids two bodies to exist a at the same time in the same place, the impossibility of such simultaneosity would naturally in that other set of illustrious eyes present itself in a equally strong light. Happily for the lieges, making the whole learned Faculty together, the [...?] of the greater number of its members are not so compleatly filled with business that the division in question would have the effect of causing any considerable part of that business to overflow and escape. Accordingly what in the eyes of the great majority of the judges was physically impossible, was in the eyes of the still greater majority of the Faculty of Advocates indispensably necessary. /Resolution 2?/