15 Jan y 1807

On the question of law though it be seen at once that the number of degrees or stages of jurisdiction, including degrees or stages of appeal (which are always one less in number than the stages of jurisdiction) can not be, at least that they /or at any rate that it/ ought not to be unlimited, still the question recurrs - what ought to be the precise number?

The answer seems not difficult to find /pretty decidedly /precisely/ determined by the preceding considerations /foregoing observations/.

1. For maintenance of constitutional supremacy no other arrangement can be so promptly or surely effectual, as that which gives the appeal immediately from the /each/ primary Court to the superior Court: establishing thereby but two degrees or stages of jurisdiction, but one degree or stage of appeal.

2. By the same most simple of all arrangements, uniformity of decision, consistency and determinateness of the rule of action, thence certainty and cognoscibility are most effectually provided for.

3. So likewise with least[?] delay, vexation and expense to all descriptions of persons in whatsoever way particularly concerned, suitors, witnesses, judges, ministerial[?] officers of justice.