27 Oct r 1807

L d Eldon's Bill

'.11

assembled by President

My conclusion is that it was desired on one side, and settled[?] by the learned draughtsman on both ends, that nothing should be done.

But why then all this talk and bustle about enquiries and regulations? Why these commissions - these newly to be organised bodies of initiating legislators? The one commission proposed by the Lord President - that member so generally /liberally/ directed (by /on the part of/ the learned draughtsman) of the L d Chancellor?

When a commission is established - established at the proposition[?] of Administration by the authority of Parliament, it may be for either of two purposes - to cause the business to be concluded in Parliament, or to prevent it from being begun there.

In the present instance, without pretending to certainty /infallibility/, the opinion that appears to me the more probable is - that the latter (is the sort of termination that on both parts was looked to with most complacency,) was the real object of the learned exertions now bestowed, to which those /the present/ learned labours were really directed.

Nor on these terms /this supposition/ would those labours be either without their suitable object or without fruit. Beside the composing of the public mind in Scotland, which is an object in all plans and at all times highly desirable, here are two funds - two new funds created for the reward of merit: I mean not of merit displayed in the business thus brought /put/ for forms sake into action /into a train/ - that being by the supposition destined to receive /repose/ its question - but to merit antecedently displayed in whatsoever other shape: merit remaining to be discovered by the discerning /penetrating/ and judicious eyes to whom under his Majesty, name and auspices the charge of the discovery is proposed to be committed.