262 CORRESPONDENCE. [1814. 



approaches so gradually that it can give no offence ; 

 but the risks, constitutionally speaking, of the presump- 

 tive heiress surrounded by those next in succession 

 viz., Dukes of York and Cumberland (he having issue) 

 is pretty plainly put. I have desired the sheets to be 

 sent up, and shall send you them. 



" This arrangement for Adam is the most glaring job 

 by far that has ever yet been done."" I must put you 

 up to it ; and although I am sure no man likes Adam 

 better privately, or wishes him more to succeed in his 

 plans, or thinks he has been worse used by the Prince, 

 yet really I trust that our friends will not be deterred 

 from doing their duty by such feelings as these. 



" The introduction of jury trials is not merely proper 

 but necessary in Scotland. I have seen a litigation of 

 three or four years in Scotland, and then an appeal, 

 lasting ten or twelve years in all, with scarcely the 

 possibility of shortening it, and no great facility of 

 deciding it rightly, all about a matter which in West- 

 minster or Guildhall would have been finally decided 

 in an hour or less. Lord Ellenborough decides 300 or 

 400 such every quarter in the City, and 160 or 200 at 

 Westminster, besides doing all his law business in term. 

 You will understand that I am alluding to cases of 

 disputed facts, and perhaps conflicting evidence, which 

 never can be well decided but by oral examination, and 

 not almost in any case speedily, except in this way. 

 Scotch practice decides them thus : A man in a tavern 

 called a commissioner, takes the examinations at vast 



* William Adam, referred to above, nephew of the architect's brother, 

 noticed in vol. i. p. 3D, born 1751, died 183!). In 1815 he was made a 

 Baron of Exchequer in Scotland, with the view of establishing the 

 English form of jury trial in civil causes ; and in 1816 he was appointed 

 Chief Commissioner of a separate court for trial by jury. 



