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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Lord St Helens to Bentham. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 10 (Memoirs Part I and Correspondence) [1843]

Edition used:

The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). 11 vols. Vol. 10.

Part of: The Works of Jeremy Bentham, 11 vols.

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Lord St Helens to Bentham.

“Windsor, 5th January, 1808.

“My dear Sir,—

I have just had the pleasure of receiving your note of yesterday; and though your accompanying Tract on Scotch Judicature has not yet been forwarded to me, I can safely acknowledge myself as highly obliged to you for it, as well as for your promised plan for remedying the no less lamentable deficiencies of our own Supreme Court of Appeal.

“I am afraid that what I can communicate respecting the formation and proceedings of the judicial committees of council, will be of little worth. However, I will set down all I can state from my own knowledge. Whatever the right may be, certain it is, that in point of practice, no Privy Councillor attends those committees without a special invitation; the form of which is a printed slip of paper, without any signature, specifying that a committee of council will be held at the Cock-pit council-chamber on such a day, for such a purpose, at which your attendance is requested; and on the back of this paper, is written the name of the person at whose house it is to be left. These summonses are sent by the clerk of the council in waiting, under the direction of the Lord President, through whose means the office is furnished with a list of the very few councillors whom he has been able to engage to undertake, occasionally, this tiresome duty. These committees are of two sorts: one for deciding appeals from the plantations, and the other for appeals from the Admiralty and Vice-admiralty courts; and both ought, in strictness, to consist of five members; but, from the difficulty of procuring a sufficient number, it has been held of late that three are sufficient. Of these, one is always an eminent law-officer; and, during the period of my attendance, this duty used to be undertaken, in the committees of appeal from the plantations, by the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; and in those of prize appeal, by the Master of the Rolls, assisted by Sir William Wynne: but the attendance of none of these legal men was ever considered as obligatory, or in any other light than as an accommodation to Government; and accordingly I recollect that, not very long since, a Master of the Rolls withdrew himself entirely from the courts of prize appeal, in consequence of his being politically at variance with the minister of the day. From this description of the said committees, I think you will clearly infer, 1st. That they stand in need of much the same sort of alteration as you would wish to suggest for the judicature of the House of Lords; and 2nd, that the members composing them, can fairly claim no higher title than that of occasional make-shifts: since the above-described summonses cannot certainly be supposed to constitute any special delegation; and, indeed, it frequently happens, that they are sent half over the town, without any direction on the back, in quest of any Privy Councillor whom the messenger may chance to find at home and disengaged.* It is observable, too, that the form of these summonses is precisely the same (with the omission of the word committee) as those which are used for assembling those councils at which the king himself usually presides.

“You will be glad to hear that his Majesty is in perfect health, saving the dimness of his eye-sight, which, however, has not impaired his cheerfulness, nor incapacitated him from taking his usual exercise.

“Repeating my sincerest thanks for your very kind remembrances, I am, my dear Sir, most faithfully yours.”

The following is an answer to an inquiry as to reversals of decisions in the House of Lords:—

[* ] The state of matters here described, has been considerably amended by the Act 3 & 4 William IV. c. 41, which appointed certain members of the council, holding, or who have held judicial offices, to form a court, called the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.