10 May 1807

Scotch Reform

Letter VI

Letter VI

III. Review Chamber

That whatsoever be the number of Chambers into which the existing Court comes to be divided, they shall not sit any two of them the same day. And accordingly that their anxiety may be the surer of finding itself relieved /its relief/, a discovery is made that any such arrangement as that of a simultaneous sitting on the part of two or more of such Chambers is a physical impossibility: an impossibility discovered by the same penetrating eye that discovered that a mode of judging most excellent for ,5, was incapable of being applied to ,5:1 s.

It is on this impossibility it is that is grounded the inescapable bar to the institution of the /division into/ three Chambers, as proposed by the Bill instead of the two, the numbers proposed by those learned Memorialists. This impossibility that three Courts of co-ordinate authority can sit in or near the same edifice at the same time for further proof of which see the 4 Courts continually sitting at the same time in Westminster Hall being [...?] in a parenthesis, the consequence is undeniable /undisputable/ beyond dispute/ As they can only sit alternately, a considerably greater quantity of business will not be done by these Chambers than by two - at least not in a degree sufficient to counterballance the inconvenience (where are they?) which will arise from the greater number of Chambers + As the said three Chambers can "only sit alternately", "this inconvenience (art. 4) and confusion" (what inconvenience what confusion?) "will be increased and all method and regularity in the arrangement of the Rolls, and in considering the business of the Courts, much impeded."

This is so my Lord and without dispute, what in Scotland are the real and what are not the real ends of judicature, and in England may not the same right be seen, and with equal clearness, spite of all disguises?

+ They propose 5 at [...?] viz Outer Houses

+1 "and indeed (art.8) can only sit alternately)

+2 an impossibility, which under the impossibility of finding proof for it, not to say colour of proof, is for shortness likewise for-granted: