2 Jan y 1806

Facienda

IV. Inquirenda

Fees

Net[?] the[?] return of these fees which [...?] in benefit

In regard to those Officers stiled private Clerks of the respective Judges in their capacity of Ordinary Lords to the question by whom are they appointed I find not any where any express answer: viz: neither in any of the Returns made to the Committee on Finance, nor in any of the Books of practice. Your Lordship I am inclined to think will not regard in any such express statement as necessary to inform us in whose hands the appointment actually is vested │ │ the indication given by the word " private" seems sufficiently conclusive /to leave little if any doubt │ │ is not that the known destination attached /annexed/ to the word private when applied to a Clerk a Secretary to any person in high office?

Taking for granted that these private Clerks are appointed by their respective masters, I should be curious to hear it explained, by order of their whole Lordships, how it is that the constituting of an officer by whom all those fees in all the great variety and infinite repetition of occasions are to be received, constitutes no benefit to any /one/ of these honourable masters? whether on the appointment of any such Clerk it is out of the power of any one of these honourable masters to make any terms with him, to raise for example to a higher destination any portion of these /such/ his fees: whether on the supposition that no such fee ever rests in /passes on into/ any other pocket than that of the Clerk by whom it was received, whether in this case the power of appointing a Son, a Brother or a Nephew to receive without deduction all this mass of fees be incapable of being refused with propriety to the Chapter of " benefits".