9 Oct 1807

Lord Delegates

After Ch. │ │ Advantages

Ch. │ │ Hale's Plan

Art. 4 & 7. ( Tryers of Petitions). At present, this denomination having fallen into compleat oblivion, the revivals of it would not promise to /scarcely at this time of the day/ contribute very considerably to recommend the efficient parts of the plan to the favour of Parliament or people.

Even at the time when proposed by Lord Hale, it being already in that state or thereabouts, the utility of this part of the plan seemed not very different from what it would be at present as above. But the sort of business proposed in art. 7. to be grafted on it, I speak of the factitious complication, is not quite so convenient. On the occasion of each such Appeal or Writ of Error there was to be not only a Petition presented (a sort of instrument in which for every useful purpose a mighty few words, and those except the signature /the signature excepted/, consigned to a printed form, expence 1 d or 2 d would be sufficient, but each such Petition was to have a parcel of gibberish in the form of law-french[?] and always the same parcel scribbled upon the back of it: and for the making of this scribble, a number of officers under the technical name of Quorum of Petitions were to perform /after performing/ the office of a slit in a door, to make a shew of attendance on the King and his Council, whereupon the King and his Council that is some Clerk or other while the Council if really sitting were attending to nothing or to something else, were to make a shew of considering when there was nothing to be considered. I say nothing to be considered: for all this solemnity /operation/ was avowedly mere[?] motion[?] of course. On the part of the officers [...?] denominated by the proposed appellation of Receivers of Petitions, there was something to be considered: for it was to be considered to the cognizance of what authority the cognizance of the Petition in question belonged: and an answer accordingly was to be endorsed upon the back of it.