Henry Cockburn was extremely dissatisfied with the attitude of the judges of the First Division to jury trials, and raised the matter formally with Lord President Charles Hope after the case of Collins against Hamilton, which he had heard in Glasgow as Lord Ordinary in 1837, was successfully appealed to the Inner House on what he considered spurious grounds. Cockburn argued that the judge who heard the case in the first instance should be consulted and heard by the appeal judges; his side of the argument was taken up strongly by William Adam, the retired Lord Chief Commissioner of the Jury Court. The entire correspondence is interleaved with extensive notes and comments by Cockburn.