date

[...?] Feb 1808 on L d Eldons Bill
[...?] Feb 1808

on L d Eldons Bill

II. Appeals

Lords time

Thus much as to the influence of the proposed regulations upon the administration of justice, so far as concerns the national judicatory. But the expectations of the authors look higher and take a much wider range. If these "regulations were adopted", (says the Lord President with his ten learned Co-Memorialists) ["]we are persuaded, that the number of appeals would soon cease to be a grievance to the subject, or burthen to the House of Lords." +

The first inferior part of the design.

Melioration of the judicial establishment and the system of procedure provided for the execution of; striking off the unsatisfiable surplus of the demand made by Appeals upon the time of the House of Lords:-

If the view herein given of the subject be just, the first of these effects seems capable of being in a certain degree produced by the proposed regulations.

But what is curious enough is that excepting what concerns the judicial establishment, I mean so far as the system of procedure and that alone is concerned, whatsoever melioration may be the result will be the work of fortune, not having formed any distinct part of the object of the learned authors.

+ art. 49[?]
Similar Items
  • Title: [1 Feb 1808 on L d Eldon's Bill]
    Description: 1 Feb 1808

    on L d Eldon's Bill

    Lords time

    The superior object of the two in urgency as well as dignity - that which has for its theatre the House of Lords ingrossed their attention, and was all the while the only object aimed at. "If these regulations" (says the Lord President with his ten learned Co-Memorialists) "if these regulations" (speaking [of] a set of regulations the same in principle with those of which I have been endeavouring to give a view) "were adopted, we are persuaded, that the number of Appeals" (meaning Appeals to the House of Lords) "would soon cease to be a grievance to the subject, or a burthen to the House of Lords." +

    A good effect which they never aimed at producing, it may happen to them to produce: but in respect of this sole object of their endeavours - at any rate the only declared object, Your Lordship if my humble view of the matter be not altogether incorrect, will see that they have compleatly failed.

    Malâ fide Appeals and bonâ fide Appeals - under one or other of their divisions may the whole number (as elsewhere observed) be comprized.

    Of the number of malâ fide Appeals the regulations in question will assuredly strike off a part: they will as certainly leave another part unexcluded. The proposition between the two parts will depend in each Session upon accidental circumstances; upon the circumstances of each individual cause: upon the amount of capital or principal at stake, the sources of profit at the command of the respective parties, the length of delay [...?] by the Appeal, and the money that must be paid, in the shape of costs, for the purchase of it.

    + Memor. art. 49.
  • Title: [7[?] Feb y 1808 on L d Eldons Bill]
    Description: 7[?] Feb y 1808

    on L d Eldons Bill

    Lord's time

    Pursuing for the moment, and like[?] the [...?] course for descending into particulars, the same strain of general allegation, I venture on to submitt another proposition I am prepared to prove, that in the plan taken for administering this shame[?] relief the learned Reformer has trusted[?] over and over again upon the priviledges of the House of Lords.

    Your Lordship will scarcely I believe suppose that in my view of the mischief ended[?] there it would form any very serious obligation to the measure. But my Lord in the privileges I have in view as in the prerogative of the Crown, a valuable part of the inheritance of the people: and whatsoever sacrifice Your Lordship's generosity may have reconciled you to the making in this shape, I a poor Commoner[?], can not give my consent to that being[?] made.

    So far as concerns the reduction of this disastrous burthen, the means provided in and by the Bill bearing the name of the noble and learned head of British law are confined to those proposed by the learned Memorialists: for that part of the mischief which is composed of the growing influx, a remedy altogether inoperative proposed: for that part which is composed of the already accumulated, nothing whatever proposed to be made in the character of a remedy.

    It is now some time since a plan designed to cover the burthen to the whole of its extent, avowed and not avowed actual and probable, including both these parts, was addressed and humbly to the noble and learned Lords, as well as to Your Lordship, and every other Lord of Parliament.
  • Title: [18 Feb y 1808 on L d Eldons Bill]
    Description: 18 Feb y 1808

    on L d Eldons Bill

    Letter V

    II. Eldons & J.B.'s course

    in a state fit to receive the touch of the legislators sceptre

    As to extent, the powers /field/ of subordinate legislation would hardly have gone /stretched/ beyond that of the regulations proposed to receive an immediate sanction from the authority of Parliament: and accordingly in respect of their object and their nature those powers would have been confined to the giving by means of regulations of detail, effect and execution to such general principles and rules as could not at this distance from the scene of action be put into a shape compleatly fitted for practice without the aid of such regulations of an expository nature as the judicial authority would alone be competent to frame /to the framing of/ in terminis: not seeing any sufficient reason why, out of /beyond/ that line, the initiative authority should swell into definitive power in the instance of these judicial hands, any more than in the instance of those of a set of Commissioners selected for the exercise of an authority directed expressly to the purpose of legislation.

    Under the same or a separate head would have come in the last place, such powers, if any, as ex majors[?] cantata[?], it might have appeared advisable to invest them with, for suspending the execution of this or that one of the number /set/ of regulations proposed to be established instanter by the immediate authority of Parliament.

    The need and demand for these powers would of course depend on the subject matter and nature of such proposed Parliamentary regulations.

    But any rate the object they would be directed to and confined to /limited by/ - would be the prevention of irreparable damage: meaning such irreparable damage, if any, as might result from the execution of the regulations so established by the immediate authority of Parliament.