25 Dec r 1807

Letter V

Repeal[?] II

Review Chamber

Seeing so much said about malâ fide causes, Your Lordship may perhaps be not incurious to know, /deem it not altogether undeserving of notice/, what may reasonably be expected to be their proportion to bonâ fide causes. My Lord, without the end /need/ of /any expence of/ any thing like /sagacity or/ arithmetical skill or sagacity on my part, it is in my power to give to that question an answer which, I hope, will be found satisfactory /tolerably precise/ /sufficiently precise/: all from the prototype of the Chamber of Review, as depicted /determined/ by the Committee on Finance

Total Number of causes in a year lodged in the Exchequer Chamber in an average of three[?] years - minute fractions and uncertainties neglected - 606

Whereof argued, with or without any supposition of merits, or expectation of succeeding against the merits, and therefore not proved to be mala fide causes on the part of the defendant 6

Remains unargued, argument not presenting to the eyes of the defendant or his professional advisers, any the faintest sliver[?] of success, and therefore all of them to a certainty on that same side malâ fide causes - - - 600

In the mind of the learned placemen[?] of the Scotch Chamber of review was there any appearance or prospect of seeing the proportion of certainly mala fide to possibly bonâ fide causes, as compared with the English proportions, lessened? - My Lord, from the first dawn of the age /days/ of reformation in Scotland English practice has been throughout, from the days of L d [...?] in 1789, till now in 1807, English practice, such practice as Your Lordship has just been seeing, has been the ne plus ultrà of perfection, in the imagination of the Scottish reforming lawyer.