8 Jan y 1807

Facienda

Causes mostly short

5. That the main causes of misdecision in the point of law is the non-existence of any real law bearing on the point: that the only remedy to the non-existence of such rule of action is to make one: an operation easy to be performed by the legislator, and to which these three technical remedies do not any of them contribute any thing.

6. That as to so much of the evil of misdecision on the question of law as regards its tendency to produce its like in other causes - which is beyond comparison the greatest part /largest portion/ of it, it is in the power of the legislator to put a stop to it at any time. The true remedy therefore (whether the offer of a compleat body of laws be adopted or not) consists in arrangements taken for the promptly, and periodically and regularly presenting to the notice of the legislature all the decisions that have any thing new in them on the point of law: an institution on the subject of which I shall have occasion to address Your Lordship in a subsequent letter.