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judgement_n defendant_n plaintiff_n plead_v 6,492 5 9.1918 5 true
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A34350 Considerations touching the dissolving or taking away the court of chancery and the courts of iustice depending upon it with a vindication or defence of the law from what is unjustly charged upon it, and an answer to certain proposals made for the taking away, or alteration, of it. 1653 (1653) Wing C5918; ESTC R18810 47,697 80

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which some are content to leave at Westminster to determine Appeals and other necessaries to that contrivement as there will be Counties the yearly allowance or Salarie of whose Judges if they should have but two hundred pound per Annum for every Judge according to the number of Five in every County Court of Fifty will amount to 50000 l. per Annum more charges than the Commonwealth is at already for Judges Salaries And when they shall be thus paid and furnished out will if Lawiers shall be so much excluded from being Judges as hath been proposed be as to Four in every Five of them meer Strangers to the Laws of the Land or know so little of them as not to be relyed upon for their Judgements For we cannot suppose that the eleven Judges in the Courts at Westminster Hall are intended to be any of them or can be at one and the same time at Westminster and in these new County Courts or serve or be enough to make one in every of these Fifty County Courts as some would contrive it to sit with these new County Judges who having as is to be feared not read much of men or books will have no ground or capacity for knowledge to grow in nor any thing of parts or learning to build up an ability withall but be willfull or obstinate in their ways or opinions for want of better understanding or domineering because they shall not be able to know when they do well or ill And if they should be honest which perhaps will not alwayes happen their want of knowledge of the Laws and the rules they should go by their not knowing how to understand what shall be said to them nor what answers to give their inability to expound the Law by other Laws or make a right construction of the words or meaning of Deeds or Parties or to distinguish and divide betwixt truth and falshood right and wrong reason and pretences of it colour or reality or how to find the difference betwixt the Cases or Evidences that shall be urged by the one side or the other or to state the matter of Fact or to sever the point or material part from the circumstances will make them as fruitfull in their oppression as in their errors and mistakes apt to be led or mislead by their fellow Judges that shall be Lawiers or which will be worse to be like wax taking the impression of every mans Seal that shall be last clapt upon them be directed by a Wife or Clerk or some other simple or knavish favourite that shall broak and trade in every cause that shall come before them and be sure to abuse it Trouble and delay the people with needlesse scruples and niceties by making Quaeries or doubts of that which to others would be common and easie and stumbling at every word that comes not up to their apprehensions give advantage to knaves and put men to seek indirect Courses or ways to ballance the Judges because they dare not trust them to do that which they ought to do hurt rather than help such as shall be innocent and oppressed or are not allowed Counsel to plead for them make them be ready to allow of all the reasons given by the Plaintiffs Counsel and as ready to approve of that which the Counsel for the Defendant shall urge against it and for want of knowledge to guide them in their Judgements to be incertain and instable making an order one day at the instigation of the Plaintiff and another the next day quite contrary to it at the request of the Defendant be like Feathers blown with every wind of Doctrine and like Bowls run only according to the Byas shall be put upon them one will like the Mole in the Fable think himself the most clear sighted of all his fellows another help to mislead himself and others by endeavouring to make men believe that which he speaks is from Christ Jesus when he never spake with him or knows how to expound his written word another will have a fancy of the Spirit or think himself guifted when he himself would not trust the most guifted Trades-man to settle a Daughters joynture or make his Conveyance when they shall have nothing of learning or Law to make use of but their own will weak apprehensions will make such kind of Justice as will be had from them more arbitrary than that of a Tyrant whose will and purpose of governing without Laws when he knows them cannot be so lasting and dangerous as the will of those men of ignorance which shall be only guided by the necessity of an invincible ignorance and may prove to be a greater oppression to the people than it those that shall be thus made to be corrupt or to do like unrighteous Judges had been knowingly wicked for that the one sort doth commit numberlesse errors by not knowing them and the other committs but a few because they dare not adventure to do it often Whereas the old constitutions and course of the Laws of England as ill as the proposers think of them knew how to serve the people better by making choice of such men for Judges as by Seven years study in an Innes of Court or Colledge of Law had come to the degree of Barresters And from thence after a great number of years practice and continuance of Study to be Readers of the Law to the Innes of Court whereof they were after that Serjeants at Law and after that for their eminency of parts and honesty to be Judges where by a continual Study observation and practice of the Law from their age of 16 or 17. until they came to be as it most commonly happens before they come to be Judges above Threescore years of age they became to be great Masters of reason and so fully experimented in the whole body of the Law and Customs of the Nation as by their knowledge therein and of the Civil and Cannon Laws which border upon them and so many Cases and experiments as had in all that time passed through the course of their Studies and practice as they were honourable in the gates of their people and appeared compleatly able to contradict or rectifie Hundreds of other Lawiers that moved or pleaded before them and not only to advise the Supreme Authority when they were called to it concerning the making or executing of Laws but to apply fit remedies to every mans action or grievance that came before them and had all their life after no other Trade or profession to divert or call off their thoughts from a continual Study of the Law and right administration of justice But if it shall be said that all that Catalogue of evills will be prevented by a carefull choice or election of such as shall be made Judges out of the best or most knowing of the people that will but little amend the matter when the Lawiers all but such as shall be chosen to make one