29 Dec r 1806

Scotch Reform

To L d Grenville

Omissa[?]

3. Pleadings

In Scotch procedure, in many cases, and those happily the most common, which as already observed are happily the most simple, forms, so far as the demand is concerned are in actual use, and those upon a plain beyond comparison less bad than the English ones: [...?] by the gratuitous [...?], they are clear of so much [...?] and nonsense. The 6 th volume, the recently published collection of M r. Bill with its highly [...?] arrangements and explanation affords /presents/ in this time of instruction a most valuable set of documents.

So far as demands /instruments of demand/ are concerned, and so far as the /[...?]/ coercive power of forms extends, these forms might be, under the proposed new system of pleading, be as doubtless they are under the existing System they are of considerable use to justice - And here my Lord is an occasion on which the art of printing, employed in a manner of which happily so many precedents are already to be found, might also have its use: I mean by furnishing the skeleton of these forms, with blanks to be filled up on such individual occasion by words designative /expressive/ of individualizing circumstances.

But, [...?...?] uniformity, in so far as uniformity would be found apposite, the effect and use of these printed forms, so far as they were applicable, would be pro tanto to supersede [...?]: but, for the same reason that printing in addition to writing does, printing that [...?] in lieu of writing does not, such the purposes of the [...?].