12 Jan y 1807

Facienda

IV. Inquirenda

Fees &c.

Thus much for England: - let us see now what obedience was paid to the authority of the Inquisitorial branch of the Legislature on the farther side of the Tweed.

In reply to the question concerning Judges fees, the Clerk to the Court of Session, by order of their whole Lordships returns Nulla bona - No benefits have we or any of us in that shape.

My Lord the fact is and was /was and is/ false: the falsity of it is notorious: it stands recorded in their Acts of Sederunt /it was known to every body and printed/. It is copied into their books of practice.

Why say thus, and thus in the teeth of truth - that they /they the Judges/ derived no benefit from fees? Was the question asked of them? No. But it was matter of notoriety, and matter of universal scandal and complaint - even among those who shared in the profit of it - that in that Court - in the Technical Courts into which it decomposes[?] itself in the first instance - denial of justice knows no bounds: and having it to say - at least I hope they had it to say without any direct lie without any such violation of the laws of sincerity as could directly and properly in strict propriety of speech come under the denomination of a lie that whatsoever might be the magnitude of the abuse, they in their own person did not derive any benefit from it, so they /it was/ said accordingly.