19 May 1808

I. Reasons

Ch.V. Advantages

§.│ │ Jury trial extended

In a few instances (say an Admiralty cause) the Jury judicatory might not be so proper:- but in none could there be less demand for regular instruments of demand & defence.

Various causes concurred in taking out of the jurisdiction of the ordinary, and placing under the jurisdiction of so many classes of extraordinary judicatories, so many different portions of the field of law: one of these dismembered compartments was gradually conquered by the Courts called Equity Courts: another by the Courts called Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Courts: another again by the Courts called Admiralty Courts.

9. In the ordinary judicatories (the Common Law Courts) the question of fact was in all ordinary cases submitted to the cognizance of a Jury, and the system of procedure employed was consequently that in which the use of Jury trial is an essential feature.

10. In no one of these extraordinary judicatories was the question of fact submitted to any such cognizance. In the instance of these several classes of judicatories the system of procedure was borrowed for the most part from that which had grown up under the Roman system of law, under which no such judicatory as that of which a Jury constitutes an essential part has place.