9 Dec r 1807

Scotch Reform

Letter V

§.4. Bonâ fide Appeals

If in any one instance the influence of any such sinister cause is really exercised with effect, that one instance will be sufficient to beget an indiscriminate number of others in which though no such cause has place, it will be suspected not only to have place but operate with efficacy.

By the interposition of an additional judicatory, in the same spot, to act within the same narrow circle, it does not seem capable of being shewn, how either the danger or the apprehension of it should experience any diminution.

The danger and thence the apprehension arises in part according to your own conception (it may be said to me) from the multitude of the seats in the at present supreme local judicatory: now according to the proposed plan, that multitude will suffer a reduction, and that reduction very considerable.

True: but to the advantage gained in this quarter, corresponds a disadvantage, and to a not inferior amount introduced in another. In the Court appealed to the multitude of the seats will be less than in the Court appealed from, it is at present: thence the check of responsibility will be drawn so much the tighter, and partialities will not feel themselves so much at their ease.

True: but so large will the multitude of seats still be that the check of the responsibility, such as it is, will in point of strength still fall far short of that of individual responsibility, while the Court appealed from, losing its numbers, will lose the influence attached to the consideration of numbers.