16 May 1807

Scotch Reform

Letter VI

Letter VI

V. Authoritative Plans

As to the bonä fide Appeals, the only /the 4/7/ Appeals heard, the only Appeals that draw upon the House of Lords for any part of its time, to the diminution of this portion of the whole mass of Appeals, the plan of the Majority, I admitt, contributes nothing. The more they [...?] I hear has been advanced by very high and very competent authority in relation to the plan of the Minority. My own expectations I must confess are not equally clear /simple/, not equally decisive. 1. Along with the learned Memorialists I see a certain proportion of those who would otherwise have been appellants to the House, stopped by exhaustion of purse or perseverance in the Chamber of Review: but as to those the effect produced is - not justice but denial of justice.

2. Another portion /proportion/, I can help regarding it as probable, would really be stopped, according to the expectations held out by Your Lordships learned Adviser, in the desirable and only desirable way, by satisfaction given to the [...?] party of the justice of the judgement pronounced against him or at least of the [...?] of any other more favourable from above /at a higher stage/.

On a former occasion I [...?] the consideration which gave birth to any opinion that this almost probable benefit produced in this way would not compensate for the certain inconvenience /bad effect/. This being said already need not here be said again. But what belongs to the present purpose is hat whatever benefit in this shaped was perceived by the learned Advisers plan at the expense of all that inconvenience is permitted[?], and with at least equal probability of accomplishment by the plan of the majority, without any of that inconvenience.