10 Oct r 1807

Lords Delegates

after Ch. │ │ advantages

Ch. │ │ L d Hale's Plan

Art. 5 ( handsome decorum and dignity) To an unprejudiced eye this reason has /wears/ a good deal of the air[?] of a make-weight: let any one that can find /assign/ a meaning for it. What then was the case that in those days the House of Lords did not know how to preserve a handsome decorum and dignity of themselves? but required some of them to be commissioned by the Crown for this purpose /to receive a commission from the Crown to teach it to them/, and all of them to be outnumbered by a pack of upstart hirelings? If such were the case then let us /that here[?] now/ comfort ourselves with the reflection that such is not the case now. For if so it were that the House of Lords did not understand decorum and dignity, what is it that they would understand? and if ever by a hairs breadth or so, it happens that in that most honourable House the laws of decorum are transgressed, by whom are they transgressed? /is it that the /they most/ transgression is committed/? that the transgression is apt to be broadest? by the unlearned Lords, or by the learned ones whom in the eyes of these[?] their venerable brethren it is so necessary to station there in superior numbers, to serve as instructors and guardians to their noble but unlearned colleagues?