1 Feb y 1807

12? 13?

Letter II

Had the effect /efficacy/ of the principle of competition in the character of a security for good judicature been so great as seems to have been supposed /as from general theory one might be led to expect/, the multitude of these Representations /applications/, of which were a /any/ single one would be regarded as an abuse in English judicature, might at any rate /at the least/ have been kept down within moderate bounds.

And so possibly it might: but in the fee-gathering principle - a principle which Adam Smith after the discovery made of the trusting[?] hecktoring[?] and bantering principle as a distinct principle from the [...?] of money forget to add to it - in the fee-gathering principle, my Lord, the noble principle of competition found unhappily a rival /competitor/ too powerful for it to withstand. With /Along/ each and every of these Representation the agent of /learned representative of/ the representing party, presents to the learned Lord Clerk, that is to the learned Master himself, a fee of 3 d: not to mention fees attached to other instruments without numbers, each having its fee /each with its fee attached/, and attached to the Instruments of Representation, as so many casual or necessary appendages. /A o 1798/ All in one view these learned persons [...?] /insisted/ upon it by the mouth /pen/ of the power of all these fees put together, whatever may be their number to constitute a " benefit". Taking this for a criticism pronounced, and by Judges of undoubted competence, on a point of language, on the present occasion I confine myself to the begging of your Lordship's attention to the efficacy of money, even when the receipt of it is no benefit, in the character of a multiplier, to that of the principle of competition in the character of a reducer[?], of the number of these so much worse than witless instruments, in the purity[?] of Scotch law anguage denominated Representations.