10 Oct r 1807

Lords Delegates

after Ch. │ │ advantages

Ch. │ │ L d Hales Plan

2. as to the composition of the Court. On L d Hales plan the Judges eight of them not[] all of them to have voices i.e. votes, and all his care to prevent those eight voices from being drowned in "too excessive a number" of Lords' voices. On the plan of Edward the third's Parliament no Judge is to have a voice. The Judges indeed of both Benches are to be taken into consultation by the committee along with the Chancellor, Treasurer and such others of the King's Council as they shall choose to hear; but it is by the Committee alone that every thing is to be done.

The confidence of the learned Judge was in his learned brethren Edward the 3, a vigourous King then in the vigour of his age, Edward the third and his Parliament had no such confidence. They were (all) merciless fee-gatherers: manufacturers of delay for sale. for the delay, to which it was the object of this law to provide a remedy, were recognised as being their work. They were all faithless to both King and people: for though, as is observed there was not one of them that at his entrance into office had not taken his oath of fidelity to both yet such was their propensity to forget /disregard/ it, that one of the things which the Committee was to do, was to administer it to them anew. In the statute they are called servants /called Members/ les Ministres: but who are these unfaithful servants? Treasurer and Privy Seal excepted, they are all Judges, and they are all the Judges: all the Lawyer-Judges, all to a man, by whatsoever names denominated.