29 April 1807

7

Lawyers judged

Letter I

By the official plan of reform, introduced by Lord Grenville into the House of Lords, and still remaining upon the carpet to be disposed of, two papers both of them in the point of view here in question of the utmost importance /of the utmost importance/, have been brought forward: one of them containing /conveying the sentiments[?] or at least/ the language of the majority of the Judge of the Court of Session -the supreme judicial Court in Scotland; the other those[?] of a Committee of the Faculty of Advocates the leading [...?] of the professional class of lawyers: a Committee which being chosen by a great majority if not the whole assemblage of the members of that learned body, and a few as appears adopted by them, cannot but be understood to convey a faithful idea /representation //statement/ of the setiments which it is in their wish to see accepted and understood as theirs.

Comparing these two papers /mutually adverse papers (for such they are)/ with the plan on which they both comment, and with each other, I saw, in documents [...?] from both sources what I could not but expect to see, ample confirmation of the preocccupations above stated as entertained by me: a demonstration of their coincidence in hostility to every plan from which the interest of the subject in his character of possible litigant /suitor/ could receive any considerable benefit, of their attachment each of them to his /its/ separate and exclusive interest - and of their consequent hostility on the part of each towards the other on the several grounds on which those separate interests, received in the light in whch they happened to present themselves, appeared to clash and interfere /and clash/.