PRIVATE

19 Dec r 1807

Scotch Reform

(1)

Letter V

Ch.11 Appeal list mutilated

§.1. Deficiencies or [...?]

Writs of Error are as much Appeals as Appeals so called.

how, my Lord, under favour, in the nature of the case was there any foundation for this omission? Writs of Error, are they any thing but Appeals, under another name? Is not misdecision imputed alike in both cases? With equal appositeness might not the denominations have been transposed? the appeals called writs of error? the writs of error appeals? The appeals called Writs of Error and the appeals called appeals. The distinction thus expressed, is it not a fair and proper one?

For the reason of the object - of the species of application, I prefer the word appeal. Why? because it is a term of universal jurisprudence, or rather a term belonging to the common stock of the language, presenting the object to every man alike who is conversant with the language: writ of error a term of lawyer's-cant, part and parcel of the flash language, of no more real use in addition to the proper word appeal than, in another sort of cant, the appellative Beak is, in addition to the term Justice of the Peace.

In truth, not of so much use: Beak has the merit of conciseness: no small merit in language: it substitutes one word to four. Writ of Error has the demerit of diffuseness: to one word it substitutes three. With this diffusion it is still in a high degree elliptical: so much so, as to be in itself inexpressive; expressive and intelligible, to these and these only, whose acquaitance with the name is derived through the medium of the thing itself. A Writ of the nature of a Mandate, issuing as from the King, and directed to some judicatory, ordering it to take cognizance of a complaint, by which error is imputed to the proceedings of some other judicatory. Thus prodigious the heap of words all which must be supplied before the cant nickname employed by the surfeit[?] of English lawyers is capable of presenting the idea presented by the single word appeal in the honest part of the language?[?]