11 Feb y 1807

Letter IV

Resolut 6.7.8.9

Juries

3. Denial of justice

Assuming the value of justice to be the same in one district as in another, if the whole number of inhabitants in England and Wales had Courts of Conscience to resort to the number of causes of 40' value and under in this would bear the same proportion to the number of inhabitants districts which have not the benefit of the Courts of Conscience as those which have.

Say there are 2,193,299 + 73,670 = 2,266,969 the number of inhabitants in the districts to which civil justice is granted to any extent is to 193,429 = 200,029 annual number of cases that may be supposed to be actually decided in these districts, so is 6,607,011 │ the number of inhabitants to whom it is not granted to this extent to the number of causes of that description that would have had place in these same years had justice to this extent been granted to them

193,429 x 6,607,011  │ │ = 583,338

Which gives the number of instances in which in the course of a year, in England and Wales denial of justice takes place, so far as concerns causes of debt to a value of under 40'.

Lawyer - But the Westminster Hall Courts being open for causes down to any the smallest value, and 1' being no uncommon quantum for the amount of damages given by a verdict, an allowance must be made on that score, and a deduction made from your number of 583,338 denials of justice on the causes under 40'.

Non Lawyer. If the whole number of the causes of all values tried or from these Courts Sittings and Assizes included viz. 3 or 4,000 or so were to be comprized in the deduction it would be hardly worth regarding. But as often as a verdict for not more than 40' is obtained in any of these Courts, though the result is not strictly speaking denial of justice, it is a great worse[?]: it is depredation, and to a great amount on pretence of justice. The Plff[?] supposing him to turn a verdict for 40' and with costs, pays for that verdict no costs out of pocket and not allowed something which is never so little as 40' but rises to ,5, ,10, ,20 an so on without any certain limit: which the defendant procure for the Plff this means ,3, ,7, ,17 or ,17 + χ │ defendant is made to pay a sum of which, (as above) ,60 is the minimum, maximum without limit.