27 July 1806

Scotch Reform /Evidence

Lett Lawyers adverse

The substitution of salary to fees, is a practice so solidly grounded in principle, and so compleatly sanctioned by recent and universally approved precedents, that were this /expensive as it is were the expence/ the only difficulty neither opposition nor dissatisfaction could consistently be apprehended: but though this were surmounted, a great part of the opposing force remains unconquered, and perhaps unconquerable.

Unprecedented as it is, strange as accordingly it may well appear to our English eye, in Scotland, the reform which has the honour of Your Lordship's patronage, originated in /I perceive [...?] law-learned, in/ a judicial brain: in substance I see it proposed, and not proposed only but well advocated by the late Lord [...?], not one of the Judges of the Court of Session, in a pamphlet printed so long ago as in 1789. Even now, if I am rightly informed, it has for its prime [...?] and draughtsman another of the Judges of that locally [...?] as well as superior supreme Court.

In all this there is nothing out of nature. Ease is provided for /Repose is held out to/ for those to whom ease /repose/ may be desirable: sacrifice is not required of any. Additional Courts require additional Presidents: additional dignity requires additional emolument for its support. I speak not in the way of irony. It is a common place conclusion /argument/, sanctions well applied, sanctions ill applied, never conclusive, to infer public [...?] /mischief/ from individual accommodation. Your Lordship knows how to distinguish: I in my humble sphere do so too. Were my disapprobation of the plan ever so strong, I would leave it to any one else that pleased, to call it a job: if it /reform,/ had not this quality in common with jobs, would not be reconciliable either with policy or with justice.