21 March 1808

on L d Eldon's Bill

Letter V

'.6. Instructions

'.6. Instructions

I come now to submitt to your Lordship a few explanations relative to the Instructions which, as above observed, I should, had it been my lot to have held /had any such honour[?] as that of holding/ the pen for the Learned and Noble Lord /fallen into any such humble hands/, have been disposed to have inserted in the proposed law, for the guidance of the different sets of functionaries, to whom by the supposition, authority for the formation of a code of judicial procedure (including certain arrangements relative to the state of the judicial establishment) was to be committed.

Between reasons and instructions - reasons, considered as being to be assigned by the legislator in chief in justification and explanation of have made or prepared to be made directly by his own hand - instructions considered as documents[?] to be inserted in the text of laws[?] of his own framing, as above, but designed for the guidance of a set of functionaries /subordinates/ to whom authority for the framing of proposed laws destined eventually to receive /subject to corrections/ his sanction and that any to become laws[?], the connection[?] is obviously a most intimate one.

Between the considerations which recommend the insertion of reasons into the text of the law /in the one case/, and those which recommend the insertion of instructions into the text of the law in the other case, the connection will of course be in a correspondent degree intimate.