18 Feb y 1808

on Lord Eldon's Bill

Letter V

'. 2 Course taken by the Bill - another proposed.

Such being the contents of the Bill - such the Lord Chancellor's learned Draughtsman's plan for the reformation of Scottish judicature, I proceed[?] to submitt to Your Lordship my own humble conceptions, concerning the general [...?] and time[?] of [...?] course that appear to have been the General design and [...?] that appear to have been pursued in it. contrasting with the view which the same subject would have presented to my own unlearned eyes: after which, I propose to pursue the examination of it through the several parts of it; as above distinguished.

The course pursued by the learned Draughtsman is this.

1. In the first place come in terminus a set of regulations propozed to be established in these same[?] times, in the usual mode[?] by a direct exercise of the authority of Parliament.

2. In the next place came a set of promises[?], the occupied business of which as to give to the Court of Session powers of subordinate legislation of the most ample extent covering /powers in extent so ample as to tower/ the whole field of judicature: powers in effect heaving[?] within that field no other [...?] than what are not by those by which the judication of the Court itself is circumscribed, together with the few [...?] comprized in the Parliamentary regulations just mentioned.

3. In the third place came the portions of authority given to the [...?] set[?] of Commissioners: authority for proposing to Parliament regulations extending over a field of legislation co-existive in the main /for the most part/ with that which is submitted to the power of the Court of Session, as above: in the main, but not exactly; faling short of it in some points, in other points outstretching it: for enquiry, for collecting information, an authority co-existive as it as fit to be, or mainly so, with the field of inchoate legislative authority /field marked out as above as the sort of authority/ to the exercise of which the unquestioned[?] authority was necessary: authority, say; [...?] as to the power which was necessary to the correctness of the body of information [...?] for, every thing[?] of this sort has somehow or other been[?] omitted.