15 July 1807

4

Letter V

Letter V

Ch.3. Bonâ fide Appeals

§.2. Efficiency not proved

For the support of the expectation it seems natural enough and not altogether unreasonable to look for some sort of estimate or calculation. I look for it accordingly but find none.

By a calculation I do not mean a prediction, a prediction of the exact number of appeals which the proposed instrument of defalcation, the Review Chamber will strike off.

What I do mean, is this: a statement of the number which it must strike off in order to produce the effect expected from it.

But the number in question is - not an absolute, a single, number, but a proportionable one, a proportion between two numbers. To state the proportion, one of the two numbers, the greater, must be a given number: viz. the aggregate number of appeals of all sorts, from all three kingdoms.

Unfortunately this term[?] of the proportion has not been given. It has indeed been undertaken and endeavoured to be given. But with submission, performance unfortunately has not corresponded. The Account that has been called for and given under that name is incompleat. In the English divivion of it the sort of Appeals called Writs of Error are not included: and these virtual though not nominal and thence not included Appeals the number, there seems reason to think, would prove considerably greater than that of the Appeals that are included, the Appeals that happen to have received and retained that name. But of this under another head.