29 Dec r 1806

Scotch Reform

To L d Grenville

Omissa

3. Pleadings

not desperadum?] ... de Republicus.

3. There remains the forming /causing to be/ de novo one[?] certain[?] set of pleadings adapted to this purpose: a set of pleadings covering [...?] forms, practicable forms, the whole of the ground occupied /covered/ by the civil branch of law.

But in this task, difficult as it may seem /appear/ to be so[?] involved, virtually unnecessarily though perhaps at first sight not percepticibly /very apparently/, included, a task which at first sight may appear much /still/ more formidable: I mean that of framing in [...?] an equally extensive and correspondent mass of that to which, in constradistinction[?] to the law of procedure employed to give effect to it, I have, by necessity/under the spear[?], given for my own use at least the name of substantive law.

An [...?] /A compleat/ body of Civil law: and to be framed now a days - framed by a legislative article[?] cannot without debate upon debate, carry through so much as an Act for establishing a stand of Hackney Coaches in Bond Street:

My Lord, the attention bestowed upon objects is frequently when the great and lasting interests of a nation are considered, rather in the inverse than the direct rate of their importance: but should I fail of satisfying Your Lordship /[...?]/of the practicability, I have little apprehension of not being able to satisfy your Lordship of the necessity of it: always understood supposing /assuming/ the introduction of [...?] Jury Trial in civil /such/ cases into Scotland to be necessary. Comparing the Irish Union Bill to the Bond Street Hackney Coach Bill, had attention been to attention, as importance was to importance, how many more [...?] would have been classed, before that solution of continuity had been healed.

But should I feel