20 May 1807

A3

Letter V

VIII. Appeal list mutilated

I. Deficiencies

But the English part of the account ( let alone the Irish) presents a very different picture. Upon the same level with the one Court at Edinburgh (taking the Inner House of the Court of Session for that one Court) stand in London no fewer than four Courts in Westminster Hall alone: viz. the Chancery, the King's Bench (in its capacity of a Court of original or primary jurisdiction) the Common Pleas, and the Exchequer.

In the case of the Scotch Appeals whether you call for the Appeals to the House of Lords, meaning from Scotland, or for the Appeals from Scotland simply, it makes no difference: you have one and the same list in both cases.

Very different is the case with the English Appeals. Call for the Appeals to the House of Lords from Westminster Hall, you get the Appeals called Appeals presented to the House of Lords, and moreover, unless you suffer things to be hidden from you by names, You get the Appeals called Writs of Error, returnable, (as the word now is) to the same supreme seat of appellate judicature.

Call for the Appeals from the four Westminster Hall Courts above mentioned, you get it is true the same Appeals as those mentioned in the last sentence. But moreover along with these you get the cloud of others brought to view under the last head. You get the Appeals presented under the name of Writs of Error, to the three intermediate Courts of appellate jurisdiction, already depicted under the aforesaid last head of the English Courts of Review.