2[?] Jan y 1806

A.1.+

Facienda

Outline

To qualify it for the administration of justice on the natural system the judicial establishment is already and still in possession of an essential feature, which the English one had, but for ages has been deprived of: a system of Courts spread over the whole kingdom, each of them with a geographical field of jurisdiction generally of such moderate extent as to suit the pursuit[?] or personal appearance: viz. not so great but that the suitor whose abode is furthest distant from the seat of judicature, may by travelling early and late pay his attendance there without sleeping out of his own house: I speak of the Sheriff's Courts The existing system of Sheriff's Courts, my Lord is the system I have in view.

Here then the main difficulty - and that which in England would form an objection truly formidable, is already overcome: what may be considered as the building, and more than the shell of the building is already in existence: what remains to be done is no more than fitting up: fitting up in the modern stile /taste/, which is but the primaeval stile /taste/ restored.

For these 35 years at least my Lord have I been envying Scotland her Sheriff's Courts: looking back with regret not certainly[?] over many other accounts, but most sincerely on this[?] - at those times when in England every shire contained its Sheriff's Court, with the Sheriff and Bishop sitting in it.

In the 30 th Report of the Committee on Finance A o 1798 (App A.7) I observe a list of Sheriff's Depute 27 in number in some of the instances the senior person named as Sheriff of two Shires: this therefore I presume to be the number of Sheriff's Courts.