9 Oct. 1807

Lords Delegates

After Ch. │ │ Advantages

Ch. │ │ L d Hales Plan

Art. 2 As to the judges, that by this learned person the necessity of the presence of these his learned brethren should be assumed, is not to be wondered at. In the [...?] plan, there is no room for any such personages: the addition of so much as a single one of them would for the reasons already given, render the number "too excessive." Moreover this time is at present pretty well filled: an objection which did not apply in equal degree, or indeed in any degree, in Lord Hales time. +

In this same article is contained the other proposition /his limitation[?]/, inserted for the purpose of excluding learned persons howsoever learned and more than judicious, from the faculty of acting as Judges over themselves. Let learned and noble Lords in whose learned eyes reason is so little, authority so great, especially the authority of Lord Hale, let all these learned and noble persons, Chancellor of both kingdoms - always ennobled, chief Justice of the English King's Bench - Chief Justices (when ennobled) of the English Common Pleas - let them as often as the temptation may occurr to them of sitting in judgment over themselves, especially the Lord Chancellor of England, sole effective Judge over himself, read their own condemnation in the words of the good and unennobled[?] Lord Hale.

+ See Norths life of L d Keeper North.