28 June 1806

Evidence │ │ Scotch Reform

Facienda

Summary Court

A horse with a man or other burthen on his back to pull up a hill: take off the burthen, he is dragged down,

Locke's dinner[?] with his old trunk

I am aware that three Lordships, out of three to whose lot it should fall to sit /take up their quarters/ in this Summary Court, might find their business perhaps, in some respects his rather hard upon them.

Accustomed for so many years to travel on in the beaten /regular/ track in pursuit of the ends of judicature, they might find themselves a little at a loss if set down on a new and bye-road however short and level, with a direction to pursue /under an expectation of their pursuing/ the ends of judicature. Accustomed never to act but under a load of technical rules and formularies, they might find themselves in a condition resembling that of a horse who having a load behind him to drag up a steep hill, moves on, if not at a very quick at any rate at a regular rate so long as he has a rider or a pack of equal weight upon his back, but, should the rider dismount, or the pack be taken off, would find himself unable to get forwards /no longer able to set one foot before the other/.

But whatsoever embarrassments may /might/ attend the change, I see no difficulties /obstacles/ that ought to be regarded as insuperable.

In the English Court of Chancery, in which the number of Judges is reduced to one and justice not the worse for it, it is still the right, though of late years it has seldom if ever /and formerly though not in every/ been the practice │ │ recent times the frequent practice for the Judge of that most high Court on particular occasions to call in a Judge or two from the /neighbouring/ Courts in the neighbourhood to his assistance in the Court of Session in Scotland being the Judges of all work and seeing no equals, see no place to which at present they can send for occasional helpmates and assisters /and doing business in a mode of which no one has any sort of experience but themselves/.

Proceeding /Guided/ by this precedent, and by the light of the instruction it affords /In like and[?]/ it might be matter of accommodation at least if not of necessity to the supposed newly-seated Judges if this supposed newly erected Summary Court, for some little /[...?]/ at least in the outset of their career, and which the business, how simple[?] soever in [...?] to be now to them , to call in, even it only because a business would be so simple, to call in assistance and advice from some of the many though still too few Summary Court, already in existence.