8 Jan y 1807

Scotch Reform │ │ To L d Grenville

Facienda

Causes mostly short

Better remedy by legislative interference in case of disputership[?].

What makes /constitutes/ the superior importance of the question of law is - (it may be said) and naturally will be said that in one cause determined on this ground misdecision may draw after it misdecision in any number of other causes /the repetition of the like mischief/ - viz: of causes in which the decision was[?] /rests/ upon the same point.

That to a certain extent the superiority is real, is not to be doubted /disputed/: but if it be made use of as a justification for the exclusive attention to this one end of justice to the neglect of all those others it admitts of │ │ answers - viz:

1. That in so far as when produced by the system of procedure itself which they are to the amount of at least ninety parts out of a hundred - the evils of delay, vexation and expense, are beyond the reach of men.

2. That in so far as they have place, they produce, with irresistible efficiency, failure of justice which is tantamount to misdecision to the prejudice of the plaintiff's side.

3. That in a variety of ways already mentioned, they are productive of misdecision to the prejudice of both sides.

4. That, whatsoever may be the virtue of the remedies provided by the natural system (viz: multiplicity of judges, central[?] station of the Court in which /those Judges/ sit those Judges in the Metropolis, (the centre of intelligence) and multiplied repetition of argumentations delivered before.) it is not in the nature of them when all added together, to whatever height each of them be carried, to take any thing from the efficacy of the causes of misdecision abovementioned: that on the contrary the further they are pushed, in the greater degree are they all productive of those same causes: the more arguments the more delay vexation and expense: the more Judges, the more delay in the formation and delivery of their opinions, and consequently in the formation of their decision grounded on them: and of the operation[?] of drawing a cause from its original station to the metropolis delay vexation and expense [...?] with the distance, are the inseparable concomitants[?] /accompaniments/.