Coaching and the Post Office in olden Times (4)

.....but also to make payment to the pursuer of the
 sum of .£20 in name of damages and expenses.
 The tollmen, in their answers, maintained that the
said expresses were not sent bona fide upon
 Government business, but were despatches
forwarded by Mr. Jackson to particular country
 gentlemen whom he wished to accommodate,
and upon their private affairs only. The Sheriff,
 upon advising the condescendence, &c., ordained
 Mr. Jackson " specially to set forth whether the
persons who were stopped were carrying the
public mail or packet, which is regularly sent off
 at stated times, in the common course of the
 Post Office employment, or a packet despatched
by special express from the Post Office; and
Whether such packet was a Government or
public packet upon His Majesty’s service, or a
private packet sent off at the instance of a private
person in regard to private affairs."

This interlocutor seemed to have given Mr.
Jackson great offence, for he gave in a reply
 saying——" That his duty as His Majesty’s
 postmaster made it impossible for him to
condescend in terms of the interlocutor, upon
 account of the impropriety of laying open and
 discovering the objects of His Majesty’s service."

At this time there happened to be a
prospect of a vacant seat on the Bench in the Court of
Session, and Mr. Jackson added the following singular
argumentum ad hominem for the consideration of the
’Sheriff:—