21 Oct 1807

L d Eldon's Bill

Splitting sections, at least with the machine invented and employed by our legislator, is not, any more than splitting of logs, an operation unattended with labour: and the proof of it is that before the business is completed /Quorum is declared/, the force of the workman /operator/ fails him, and the promised Quorum remains undeclared.

Where lay the difficulty? Is it that the settlement of a Quorum was /is/ in its own nature too arduous an exploit /operation/ even for that noble and learned hand by which all other noble hands are led? If so, what other noble, what less-learned hand will attempt it. But no: - when a Quorum was to be settled for the whole Senate so easy was it /the operation/ found, that each time it was settled in a porch[?] it was a sort of thing that a man might settle as he ran /a mere parenthesis was sufficient for it/. When the business /task/ of settling a Quorum for a whole Senate runs off so /thus/ lightly, shall the exertions /efforts/ of our Hercules /Solon/ /Lycurgus/ be baffled by a mere half-senate? by the half of it the same Senate, which, till this inauspicious moment, had been so trustable?

Fortunately for Scotland, the quorum-creative force /strength/ of our /her/ Solon revives, like a Giant refreshed at the like section, and then and there where a Quorum for the adjustment of naterum possession is to be established, the Presiding Judge /the Presiding Judge wheresoever it may happen to him to sit, whether at the head of the division or elsewhere, may even though he be standing the whole time/, with any those of the other Judges of the Division, total number four, is pitched upon as constituting the sufficient number without difficulty.

But how much more fortunately, had the revival taken place a few sections earlier, and when the adjustment of Quorums was the order of the day!