[094-295v]

21 Feb y 1807

Even M r. Hutchinson, and his Right Honourable Corrector of the press, the Lord President, admitt, (p.xiv.116) that the mode of procedure, peculiar to the Courts of Natural Procedure - parties present, no mendacity - because unless wantonly granted, is "most excellent" for a debt of £5: (p. 116, 120, 123.) and of course for a debt of £50, if incurred at 10 different times. The same learned gentlemen are indeed equally clear, that the self-same mode of procedure is stark naught for a debt of £5:1 (p.129.) When once it is risen above £5, then comes the necessity of a determination on the part of the Judge not to see or hear the parties, coupled with a determination to read or pretend to read lawyers scribble heaped up in volumes printed with the benefit of the mendacity-licence. But how this should be they have not told us: nor ever will tell us. Look, my Lord, at the distinction and see whether it be in the nature of things to afford a ground for it.

The quantity of learning, necessary for the division of such civil causes as are not Small-Debt causes, shall for the purpose of the argument be as great as is to be found in any one head. But what is it that should hinder the maximum of learning from being applied in the one mode more than in the other?

Is it that the hatred of learning for truth as well as its hatred for the sight of the people to whom it professes to administer justice, is so unsurmountable, and at the same time its appetite for written falsehood so unwise[?], that unless writing be heaped upon writings without truth or end, learning finds itself choked with passion, and incapable of exercising its powers?