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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Bentham to Sir Francis Burdett. - 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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Bentham to Sir Francis Burdett.

“May, 1811.

“Dear Sir,—

Your presence was grievously missed on Thursday or Friday last, when M. A. Taylor’s motion about Chancery Delays came to be made. It would be so, still more deplorably, on Thursday next,—the day to which the debate was adjourned. A parliamentary friend of yours has just been with me. His father is upon terms of the oldest and strictest intimacy with both the persons for whose accommodation the vile job threatened in the Lords is intended to be made;* especially the one for the support of whose incapacity, the capacity of the other is to be called in. In such a situation, is it for flesh and blood to write or to speak a single syllable? No: but he will be there; and being there, will give his honest vote. Is not this heroism?

“Sir Francis Burdett has no such chains: and by Sir Francis Burdett shall the interest of the public be—I had like to have said, once more—sacrificed to the interest of the pillow?

“The debates in the Times, and I fear in the other papers, presented but a very partial and altogether inadequate view of what was said on the occasion, especially by Romilly.

“The pace of the present Chancellor in the making of decrees is more than ten times as slow as the average pace. Exactly this, in substance and effect, said Romilly in the House. In one term, (I think it was the last,) during which the Master of the Rolls made one hundred and fifty decrees, the Chancellor made—not one. This, too, if I do not misrecollect, Romilly said in the House: this, at any rate, he has said several times to me. On Thursday he will move for documents, from which, what is above will be proved. This, then, in particular, is the motion which stands so much in need of support. In effect, I am not certain whether in form he gave notice of it on Friday. The few honest or half-honest lawyers, who, had they been there, would have given him their support, were, by this or that accident, kept away. Between personal and public considerations his situation was a most irksome one. I heard it from his lips, and still more impressively in his tone, (I speak of the closet, not the House,) as well as read it in his countenance. I called on him (it was but yesterday) for the purpose of spurring him to do the very thing he had declared his intention of doing in the House. What I am now writing, and whatever little else I have done, or may do on this subject, it is fit you should know is altogether without his knowledge. Since Lord Hardwicke’s time, or earlier, the number of causes in the Court of Chancery has rather decreased than increased: so that, if a dozen of lawyers, having the most practice, were picked out, and the dice were thrown to obtain an average man among them, that average man being Chancellor, would have no need of the proposed coadjutor; so that the only use of the proposed job, except increase of the influence of the Crown over the lawyers, together with a few other etceteras, is to keep in that highest of places a man, of whom it will be proved by the rules of arithmetic, that he has not one-tenth part of the capacity that is necessary to enable a man to do his duty in it.

“The Ministry looked wondrous grim: they are in a sad funk: their not venturing to do anything more than to adjourn the debate, seems sufficient proof of it. If duly and happily improved, opportunities may arise of uncovering more and more the nakedness and rottenness of the nursing mother of all abuse. Forgive all this liberty, and believe me, most truly, dear Sir, yours.

“P.S.—My own situation considered, not to speak of other persons, you will understand without difficulty that I am casting myself on your generosity, and that no part of this is designed either for the tavern or the newspaper.

“N.B.—Lord Redesdale, the ex-Chancellor of Ireland, was for incapacity in this its worst shape, indecision, just such another. This appears from the most pointed facts printed in the debates of the time.

“N.B.—Incapacity in this shape being proved by comparative arithmetic, is an element of unfitness which cannot but be accompanied by mala fides; since it is not possible, that, like erroneous judgment, it should be a secret to the man himself.”

[* ] The appointment of a third judge in Chancery, (in addition to the Chancellor and Master of the Rolls,) then entertained. It was not effectuated till the appointment of a Vice-chancellor in 1813.