11 Feb y 1807

Letter IV

Resolut. 6.7.8.9

Juries

1 Delay

Taking up my pen in despair /a fit of desperation/ as the preacher took up his book[?], I set down at once six months for the average /thus explained/ minimum length of a suit[?] at Common Law with Jury trial in the belly of it: six months thus being in round numbers the nearest to the quantity by which I should expect to find it expressed. Should I have hit the right nail on this head as he did, when by a pagan miracle the foam of the horse gushed out of it, so much the better. But my Lord feeling the argument strong enough to bear the disadvantage in all allowances and having as the French say, margin enough instead of the 6 months, I will be content with 3 months making days 182, hours 4368 months ........262,080

But, if an undisputed cause in a Court of Conscience, the length as above stated above may be set down, and after large and unfavourable allowances at 5 months - say minutes - 5

262,080 minutes as to 5, as 52,416 to 6 - here[?] then, for the expence of the support, the nominal[?] support given to the law by the logical conjugate of the word law viz: the word lawyers, as have in 9 causes out of every 10 in the article of delay alone, for one natural and necessary particle 52,416 factitious and unnecessary ones.

Meantime /But/, my Lord, after the allowance thus made ex majori cantilâ[?] , and for the purpose of the argument, I protest against the being considered by Your Lordships learned Scotch Reformers or by any learned gentlemen on either side of the Tweed as being estopped[?] from expressing the ordinary length of a suit by the quantity of 6 months, or 12 months, or even 24 months, for my Lord if the least quantity of a grievance be worth notice neither are the middle nor the greatest quantities altogether undeserving of it.