24 April 1807

A5 5

Letter V

Inadequate compensation

3. Appeal vice Advocation

3. The analysis of this remedy is not yet compleat.

A remedy against delay, it is in the like proportion a remedy against expence: observe then the application of it. It is not intended for any thing better than a makeshift. Against misdecision it is not regarded as affording a security equal to that which is afforded at present by the regular and established mode: if it were, that existing mode would be abrogated compleatly, and this new one compleatly substituted in the room of it. It being a principle of the technical system that the security against misdecision is in the direct ratio of delay, vexation and expence, this, like the institution of the Small Debt Courts, and every other institution that either affords or promises diminution of fabricated delay sacrifices (so it is understood) a portion of the security against delay, with those its et ceteras, for the purchase of a proportionable quantity of security against, or exemption from, inconvenience in those other shapes.

Now then, the less the value at stake - the sum for example in demand in any case - the less the mischief of misdecision is in that case: the less therefore is the value of that sacrifice which is made when security against misdecision is bartered for exemption from that other mass of inconvenience. It is on this principle that where the value in demand is no more than £5, the undilatory procedure pursued in the Small Debt Courts is tolerated: when the value has risen to £5,1. the mischief of misdecision has then swollen to such a magnitude, that the security against it afforded by the dilatory system of procedure is too great a price to be paid for the exemption for the extra-delay with its appendages: it is refused accordingly.