20 Dec r 1806

Evidence To L d Grenville

1 Proposition

Letter 1 st

As in the production of the evils /those necessary vices/ opposite to the ends of justice no exact calculation could be made, no exact adjustment of the quantity of abuses manufactured /created/ to the quantity of profit and undue ease for the sale of which it was manufactured /created/, it would sometimes happen that a quantity of superfluous abuse would be produced, such as might be cleared away without any diminuation in the advantage flowing from the aggregate mass into the lap of the man of law.

In Scotland, so it has happened /it seems,/ this overplay[?] of abuse has swelled to a degree of enormity which perhaps has not equal any where /to which no parallel perhaps any where, certainly not even in England /would try to be found./

This surplus it is altogether in /not out of/ the order of things that a lawyer should be found to propose the cutting off, if by the cutting it off he should in any shape be a gainer: it is not out of the order of things that in the extirpation of it the whole body of lawyers should be disposed to acquiesence[?], if in the consequences of the operation it should happen to them to see what howsoever could scarcely happen to them to see no danger of loss at all in any shape, or non but what found in the per contra prospect of advantage, an adequate counter-balance.