11 Feb y 1807

Letter IV

Resolut. 6.7.8.9

Juries

Denial of Justice

Out of a population of , , , number of families at 5 each not receiving and income of so much as ,60 a year according to M r Colquhoun in his Treatise on Indigence

A o 1807 p. ................................................... D o of persons at 5 to a family 5,675,146

According to D r Ben[?]

Families

Persons

In the above calculations I am as fully aware as any one need or can be that a variety of little[?] omissions and other inaccuracies capable /susceptible/ of correction would be to be found: omissions, such as those which regard the local Courts in the City of London and other parts of the Kingdom in which the procedure is by Jury trial and not in the mode of the Courts of Conscience: expense, vastly greater than in the Courts of Conscience, not quite so great as in the Westminster Hall Courts.

On the other hand no calculation is here attempted to be made because no calculation even of the locust[?] sort can possibly be made of the number of causes /demands/ under 40' value which not being causes /demands or the [...?]/ of debt, can not be brought forward in the Courts of Conscience; nor yet of the number of such civil demands on all scores taken together as rising to a value above 40', and finding no relief in the Courts of Conscience, because their jurisdiction extends not to that height in the scale of value, nor in the Metropolitan Jury-trial Courts because the costs out of pocket in case of success would surpass the value of the money or other benefit received, are therefore in effect /without destitute of relief and justice altogether/ so circumstanced as to be destitute of relief altogether, and to subject the party injured either to denial of justice, or to a still severer pressure. None of these omissions or other inaccuracies, of which though conscious of their existence I waive[?] the mention altogether, making any difference, in respect of the practical conclusion, I am confident of making in these heads a much better title to your Lordships indulgence by silence, than by corrections or elucidations which it would be in my power to furnish /give/.