PRIVATE

10 June 1807

(1) (4)

VI. 3. [...?...?]

In the section which forms the 2 d paragraph on the 28 pages of the Bill the ground of the provision there made is to me so incomprehensible that, for a solution to the difficulty I can not help suspecting the omission of such a word as not. Instead of a Bill of Suspension or a Bill of Advocation presented to the Court of Session as at present, what is provided is that in the case therein mentioned, the proceeding, though still before the Court of Session, may be by way of Appeal, "after the mode and form by which Decrees of Inferior Courts are brought under Review by the Lords of Justiciary on the Circuits" viz. in virtue of the Statute 20 Geo.2.c.43. By that Statute the mode of proceeding, it is declared but without further explanation, shall be "in a summary way" and in respect of the value of the subject matter of the suit, the faculty of Appeal is limited to the cases where it does not exceed £12 sterling.

Here, if the clause is to be understood without the word not which I suppose to have been accidentally omitted the description of the case in which the Appeal is to be allowed stands thus - "where the subject matter of such dispute shall exceed in value the sum of Fifty pound sterling." My notion is that it should have been " shall [not] exceed."

Not that I can conceive any good reason - any reason which to me would appear a good one why the value allowed to be the subject matter of the appeal should receive any limitation.