27 Feb y 1807

(4

Letter V

Resolut. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

In respect of these five provisions taken together, such my Lord in few words, such I must confess is the point of view in which they have presented themselves to my eye.

1. That as to Resolution 10 th substituting, or professing to substitute, Appeal to Advocation and Suspension, so far is it from being likely to contribute in any considerable degree to its professed end, defalcation from delay, that it leaves the mischief in by far the most extensive and formidable quarter of it exempt from all disturbance. The operation of it is confined, as if with tender sollicitude, to bonâ fide causes, having malâ fide suitors, on both sides of the cause in the undisturbed possession of whatever advantage it finds them in possession of.

2. That as to Resolution the 14 th being the provision which concerns costs, whereas the nature of things, affords against delay a remedy striking at the root of the evil, applying the absolute quantity as effectually as to the relative, and to suits and suitors of every description, the remedy thus employed is one that goes no further than pruning the evil, leaving the greater part of it untouched, viz: that part which has for its authors the malâ fide class of suitors.

3. That as to Resolutions the 11 th and 12 th, interposing in every case between the supreme local and the supreme imperial judicature an additional local degree under the name of a Court of Review, its tendency to reduce the relative quantity of delay exclusively aimed at is not so strong as would have been the tendency of that unemployed remedy by which whatever reduction had been effected would have been absolute as well as relative.