093-351.xml

Title: [23 Oct r 1807 L d Eldon's Bill]

Description: 23 Oct r 1807

L d Eldon's Bill

'. 1.

Division vice Court

Among the intentions ascribed to the Union Act was that of keeping every thing in Scotland from all change, and consequently from all improvement /beneficial change/: and in particular that as to the judicature in the highest stage, nothing should ever be done by the legislature to make it go on better, while the Judges were to keep making it go on as much worse as they found convenient and agreeable to themselves.

In the case /instance/ of Queen Anne's motto, it was in jest that worse and worse was given as the translation of Semper eadem: but in every case /instance/ where shutting its eyes against the light of experience presumption or hypocrisy has undertaken to give eternity to human institutions, by tying up the hands of the legislature /supreme power/, it is the true version, and the only true one.

To the breaking /bursting/ in an honest and manly way these pernicious and essentially illegal bonds /bands/, there was a class /set/ of lawyers that had an insuperable objection: but the objection was of a moveable /ductile]/ nature, ready to give way, on condition that lawyers instruments, viz. fraud and abuse of words were employed to steal cases out of it /these bonds/ one after another, as they were wanted. Why? - Because fraud and abuse of words, instruments of lawyercraft, kept under lock and key /a sort of pick lock instruments[?]/ by lawyers, were /could/ not to be employed without their leave: whereupon if it were for the benefit of the people, that the breach were to be made and in a manner that suited not the purposes of these lawyers, no it could not be done: but so long as this purpose /convenience/ were not crossed by it, oh yes, do it and welcome.

091-212.xml

Title: [17 Feb y 1808 on L d Eldon's Bill]

Description: 17 Feb y 1808

on L d Eldon's Bill

Letter VI

Omissa & Facienda

1. No reporting

I. Directions for the encouragement of malâ fide wrongdoers against (good out-door parlance[?] and agents) in the character of malâ fide defendants of all six sorts.

II. Directions for the more effectual encouragement of malâ fide wrongdoers in the character of solvent defendants combating for ultimate success through indigence on the other side - See below directions concerning malâ fide Plaintiffs.

III. Directions for the encouragement of malâ fide wrongdoers in the character of solvent defendants combating for intermediate profit, arising out of delay, and proportioned to the length of it. or Particular directions concerning defendants combating for intermediate profit.

IV. Directions for /Particular directions concerning/ the more special[?] encouragement of malâ fide wrongdoers in the character of insolvent defendants combating for the intermediate faculty of embezzlement or destitution or wilful damage in gratification of enmity.

V. Directions for /Particular Directions concerning/ the more efficient encouragement of defendants solvent or insolvent combatting for ultimate success through casualties /delays by means of [...?] destructive[?]/.

VI. Particular Directions concerning defendants combating for gratification of enmity - See below Directions concerning malâ fide Plaintiffs.

VII. Particular Directions concerning solvent Defendants taking the benefit of an insolvency licence.

In one instance /case/, and that a very exclusive one, composing the whole business of the Bill Chamber, extraordinary difficulty /difficulty/ is in a book of practice+ stated as the signal looked to by the Lord Ordinary for [...?] a cause out of his hands without decision instead of deciding in it, [...?] for reporting instead of advising. "All Bills are advised by the Lord Ordinary in the first instance, unless his Lordship thinks there is difficulty in which case he reports the same to the Court, verbally at the foot of the Table, and pronounces such interlocution[?] [...?], as is warranted by the opinions [...?] delivered[?]."

The course they take for getting the better of /mastering/ extraordinary difficulties is truly curious. Where there is no difficulty, the case receives it decision from a single Judge, who has been keeping all the documents in his hands any number of months at pleasure, with the faculty of recurring to them any number of times and for any length of time at his leisure. When difficulty calls for proportionable examination and meditation[?], it is to be got rid of by a crowd of Judges huddled together each of them taking his conception of the case from what he can pack up from vivâ voce statement of the learned Reporter who stares[?] [...?] in [...?] in the station of a secture[?] rather than a Judge, expects in /looks[?] to/ the termination of the conference for the faculty of extracting himself from a situation thus irksome and incongruous.

/To cover incapacity, and escaper from responsibility - yes: but is this the way to conquer difficulty, and do justice to the cause?/

+Board 265, 279.

JB_172_326.xml

Title: [1822 April 6 Rid Yourselves]

Description: 1822 April 6

Rid Yourselves

Lett 15 Relinquish m honorable

Letter 15. By perseverance, Spain would be dishonoured among nations:

by relinquishment honored. Relinquishment honourable.

Spaniards!

Can imagination form to itself any thing by which man, or nation,

will be more surely or thickly covered with dishonor, than by a mixture of injustice,

folly, sullenness, cravingness and impotence? impotence manifest in the eyes of the

whole civilized world? impotence no less conspicuous than uncontrovertible? My

friends, so long as your rulers pursue their present course, this dishonor will it

not be yours.

Reverse the tablet. This unexampled shame, would you exchange it for

equally unexampled honor? The course - the no less sure course is equally before your

eyes. How inevitably soever the general result would be brought about by already

existing causes, whatsoever were the course pursued by them, - still, were they but

seen taking an active part in giving promptitude and facility to it, and the

characters of frankness and cheerfulness were seen stamped upon the face of their

measures, novelty would give its lustre to the utility of the sacrifice; honor

positive honor - would be amongst the rewards of it. Yes: of service so unexampled,

honor not less unexampled could not fail to be the recompense. Many a government, and

even without being forced, has for one cause or other given subjects of its own to

other governments: Since the days of Actius the Anglo-American Democracy excepted, no

where has Government ever given them to themselves.

Thus much as to honour. As to glory, so barbarously has the word been abused - so

replete with suffering and crime the ideas that still cling to it - rapine and

murder, devastation & oppression - all upon the largest scale, are so

commonly understood to be the merits of which this fictitious entity is the reward -

Such being the word not without this caution could I bring

myself so much as to mention the thing as a fit object of

your regard. But, if any thing to which this name is

applicable be to your rulers an object of desire, here it is at their command: most

compleatly at their command: glory, of the newest character

and purest kind:- the glory of political

continence:

[clxxii. 326]

1822 April 6

Rid Yourselves

Lett 15 Relinquish m honorable

Letter 15. By perseverance, Spain would be dishonoured among nations:

by relinquishment honored. Relinquishment honourable.

Spaniards!

Can imagination form to itself any thing by which man, or nation,

will be more surely or thickly covered with dishonor, than by a mixture of injustice,

folly, sullenness, cravingness and impotence? impotence manifest in the eyes of the

whole civilized world? impotence no less conspicuous than uncontrovertible? My

friends, so long as your rulers pursue their present course, this dishonor will it

not be yours.

Reverse the tablet. This unexampled shame, would you exchange it for

equally unexampled honor? The course - the no less sure course is equally before your

eyes. How inevitably soever the general result would be brought about by already

existing causes, whatsoever were the course pursued by them, - still, were they but

seen taking an active part in giving promptitude and facility to it, and the

characters of frankness and cheerfulness were seen stamped upon the face of their

measures, novelty would give its lustre to the utility of the sacrifice; honor

positive honor - would be amongst the rewards of it. Yes: of service so unexampled,

honor not less unexampled could not fail to be the recompense. Many a government, and

even without being forced, has for one cause or other given subjects of its own to

other governments: Since the days of Actius the Anglo-American Democracy excepted, no

where has Government ever given them to themselves.

Thus much as to honour. As to glory, so barbarously has the word

been abused - so replete with suffering and crime the ideas that still cling to it -

rapine and murder, devastation & oppression - all upon the largest scale, are

so commonly understood to be the merits of which this fictitious entity is the reward

- Such being the word not without this caution could I

bring myself so much as to mention the thing as a fit

object of your regard. But, if any thing to which this name

is applicable be to your rulers an object of desire, here it is at their command:

most compleatly at their command: glory, of the newest

character and purest kind:- the glory of political

continence:

[clxxii. 327]

1822 April 6.

Rid Yourselves

Letter 15 Relinquishment honorable

continence: glory of self mastery and self-sacrfice. Yes: of the very

purest kind: for pure is not

here, as so commonly it is, an unmeaning, or what is worse a mischievously deceptious

expletive: pure from all alloy uncontaminated by human suffering - uncontaminated by

evil in any shape - this is its meaning here: It belongs not to the number of those

vague generalities, which fly into the clouds to make their escape from scrutiny: it

fears not either moral, logical, or arithmetical scrutiny: it shrinks not from the

probe, it invites it.

Straining still to reign - these rulers of yours - to reign in

countries placed by nature beyond their reach - straining with frog-like ambition,

coupled with frog-like impotence, they would make you

burst, and after all, not reign over any thing, unless it were over you, after they had ruined you: abdicating, they would nobly reign:

reign along with you - reign in the hearts of millions -

reign in the page of history - reign to the end of time.

Of this only true political glory, let Portugal - let even Naples -

let even Piedmont - as they have already been a source, be in their turn a school to

you. From all these countries already have you reaped two harvests of this pure

glory. In you they beheld and followed the first example of national self-defence: of

national and successful insurrection against regal despotism: preserving with

unexampled magnanimity - preserving, and even fixing, upon the throne, the man by

whom were they to fail, they were but too sure they would be destroyed or ruined, as

so many others that went before them, had been, and as they had actually been, since.

In this, you out-shine even the men of the Anglo-American United States. For neither

crowns, nor sceptres, not thrones, nor coronets, nor mitres, nor any other of those

instruments of state witchcraft, by which their European kinsmen continue still

blinded and entralled, had ever been in their view, as they have all along been in

your's.

This

[clxxii. 328]

1822 April 6.

Rid Yourselves

Lett. 15 Relinquishment honorable

This was your first harvest: the other was not long behind. From you

it was that all these countries received the faculty of choosing their own laws: from

you it was they received the laws themselves. From you they received that branch of

law - the Constitutional - which contains in its bosom all the others. Mistake me

not, my friends. It is not of the work itself that I am speaking here: of that I have

spoken elsewhere. It is not of the work but of its effects on the reputation of the

workmen and their fellow countrymen that I am speaking here

These glories, which you have thus reaped already from all those nations - not to speak of those other nations that

have burned, and still burn to follow them - these glories have not cost you any

thing. How much more valuable to you would be this, which,

with such ardent longing, I desire to see you reap from your Ultramaria! Not only, as I have so plainly shown you - not only would it

cost you nothing, but it would save you, as I have shewn you, from an unfathomable

abyss of expence.

Tarnish not, then, my friends - tarnish not all this glory, by

suffering your rulers to exemplify in their conduct, any longer, that disgraceful

compound which it has been so painfully necessary for me to keep holding up to your

view, the compound, made up of frantic concupiscence and prostrate impotence.

Think, whether, if they still continue to provoke, and harass, those

whom they can not master - think whether they will not make the breach day by day

wider and wider: the breach between you and these your kinsmen, whom nature, if

unthwarted by blind ambition, would have numbered among the most constant of your

friends. Think, whether at this rate, in every line of conduct instead of placing

themselves as near to you, it will not every day be more and more determinately their

object, to keep themselves at as great a distance from you as possible.

On the other hand, do but cease to persecute them, your conduct will

still be the model of theirs: in every track it will be a pleasure, and a pride to

them, to follow you. Your Ultramaria will still be to you what Portugal is - what

Naples and Piedmont would have been - and let me hope will again be: Oh yes: that and more: in language, institutions,

customs,

[clxxii. 329]

1822 April 7.

Rid Yourselves

Letter 15 Relinquishment honorable

customs, religion she is already

yours: laws, so they be not forced upon her - forced upon

her by your rulers, for their own profit not for yours - laws, she will be at least as prone to receive from those same rulers, whoever

they may be, as it will be of use to her to be. More than forty years have elapsed,

since the men of the Anglo-American United States shook off the yoke of our Kings:

the yoke - the fouler yoke - of our lawyers, is even hugged by them, and remains

still upon their necks.

Ridding yourselves of this nightmare, what a lesson will you thus

read to England! By the establishment of a real

Constitution, thus blowing away all fictious ones, one great lesson you have already

given her: the example which I am thus urgent with you to set her, would be a second.

Not that, till the present system of corruption has dissolved in its own filth, she

will follow any such example, or any other good one. No: where in every speech a man

makes, he makes a Constitution of his own to suit the purpose of it, none agreeable

to him will be a wax-like Constitution, which, on each occasion, he can thus cast

into a different mould, than one made of more rigid materials would be, though he

were himself to have the making of it. No: so long as England continues unreformed,

never, will her rulers give up any the most burthensome dependence they can contrive

to keep - never will they give it up, so long as it continues to be a source of

depredation and corruptive influence,- unless it be for a still more burthensome one.

Make yourselves heard then my friends, make yourselves heard by your

rulers. Say to them - "Speak thus to your and our Ultramarian kinsmen. We have erred:

we have repented. We have done wrong by you: we cease to do so: we will never do so

more. Not as masters, do we address you, but as friends. Cease to be angry with us:

fly not from our embrace: while we were wronging you, we were doing by you no

otherwise than as others have always done - all others who have been alike situated

in relation to those whom they have thus wronged. The wrong has but too many

examples: the reparation we are thus making you has, down to this time, never been

made by man

[clxxii. 330]

1822 April 7.

Rid Yourselves

Letter 15 Relinquishment honorable

No:- Our will shall no longer seek to govern

yours: our understanding, such as it is - our experience -

our advice - will always be at your service. Buried be in oblivion every past

difference; every past act of unkindness; with eyes of mutual sympathy, and hands

ready for mutual help let us look jointly to the future. The same ancestry, the same

language, the same customs: these we always have had, and shall continue to have: we

have still the same religion: till lately we have had and may still continue to have,

the same laws; the same institutions: with conjunct and mutually communicated

howsoever distant endeavours, let us at all times make them as much better as we are

able. All these same bonds of sympathy and connection - the same ancestry, the same

languages, the same laws, the same institutions, the same religion,- to some men

these were reasons for keeping you in subjection: with us they are reasons for

leaving you free; for leaving you as free as we are.

Henceforward, what other nation can ever be so much to either of us, as each of us is

to the other and ever will be?"

My friends! were your rulers to speak thus, would they, could they,

thus lay themselves lower than they are? Where such is the that error takes, where

such is the end it leads to, which part is the most honorable - to persevere in it,

or to confess and quit it?

[Sheet enfolding clxxii. 331-344]

RId Yourselves

Letter 16

The Relinquishment would be honorable.

Slave Trade

[clxxii. 331]

1821 July 19 Corrected Apr. 1822

Rid

Relinquishment honorable

Slave trade

Such disinterestedness not in practice

Witness U.S.

I have spoken of the jargon by which when carried on upon the largest

scale oppression and depredation oppression partly for the gratification of selfish

pride and the lust of power partly for the purpose of depredation are in use to be

defended: in use to be thus defended and for this plain reason that the nature of the

case affords not in the way of needs any thing better by which by possibility they

can be defended.

When the Slave trade is to be defended jargon in this form is no

longer applicable. In secrecy unoffending human beings and dealing by them as cattle

are dealt with though with [...?] more suffering to them, there is neither honour,

nor glory nor dignity: no natural /antique/ rights no antique distinction

sovereignty, supremacy in the case.

What then in this case, is the word? The vocabulary of the political

jargon. The vocabulary of the political branch of the [...?] language has been

searched and no more than one word applicable to this case has been found in it.

Necessity is the word is necessity: a word in and by which where it is rightly

applicable one argument of no mean cogency is expressed /conveyed/.

In this or that country the continuance of the slave trade that is

the purchase of men of black complection from who in their native climate have them

in their power is matter of necessity: it is necessary to the cultivation of the

province to the existence of its population their existence could not continue /go

on/ without it.

[clxxii. 332]

1821 July 19

Rid

Relinquishment honorable

Slave trade

Necessary? Oh yes doubtless it is: many are the things many are the

persons to which it is necessary. But what are those things /things what are they?/

what are the persons what are they The things are - making pecuniary profit by

injustice /oppression and murder by injustice/ in the most flagitious of its forms:

the persons those for the obtaining of this flagitious profit in this shape are not

only content but reasonably ardent in their endeavours to continue or enable others

to continue in the practice of this flagitious injustice.

By the word necessity - by any other word

although like beads in a rosary /aves or paternosters/ it was day by day and every

hour of the day - repeated would the injustice would the selfish barbarity be in the

smallest degree alleviated? /[...?]/

If, and upon so vast a scale by this or any other word injustice

coupled with the superlative of cruelty be defended and vindicated by it upon the

like wickedness when committed upon a less extensive scale.

Try it upon housebreaking for [...?] /the like purpose of

depredation,/ try it upon highway robbery, coupled or not coupled with murder

according as by his obstinacy or his audacity the passenger /sufferer/ makes or does

not make the murder of him necessary.

Here you have /In this case have you not/ necessity, here you have it

in a form as cogent as irresistible as unanswerable as in the case of the Slave

trade? Robbing black men of their liberty, of that blessing /possession/ in which the

whole of their property from the beginning to the end of life is included is to the

Slave dealer necessary to his living in the stile in which it is his wont to live:

robbing the traveller of the money he has about him is necessary to the highwayman:

necessary to his living in the stile in which it is his wish to live.

[clxxii. 333]

1821 July 19

Rid

Relinquishment honorable

Slave trade

Aiding, abetting, assisting, supporting and engaging black men in

that course of murder which by its being carried on upon a scale of a certain

magnitude - is covered with honour and called war is to the slave dealer and his mode

of living in stile a matter of absolute necessity: of each gang bought murdering a

portion more or less considerable by a course of torment of water or similar duration

is another course of conduct necessary to the same economical end. On the other hand,

not less necessary in the case of obstinacy or resistance on the part of the

traveller is every now and then the destruction of his life.

Meantime if so it be that by the necessity applying to his case the

Slave-dealer is justified in his offence /morally/ so much as extenuated, not only is

the Highwayman, murder added or not added by him to depredation justified; but in

comparison of the Slave-dealer /trader/ yes and of his accomplices /his aiders,

abetters, supporters, engagers/ in all manner of ways and in every country the

highwayman - even the cut throat highwayman he is a Saint.

The man who sitting on the opposite side of a table tells me that the

continuance of the Slave Trade is necessary - necessary to him, as to those with whom

he is in a community of interest or assistance, and that it is by the sense of that

necessity that by such /whatever/ arguments as he can bring to bear he stands engaged

to support it what is it that prevents him from rifling my house and stripping it of

every thing in it that takes his fancy and to secure him his life against the

consequences of my resistance /self-defence/ destroying it? What but the force of

punishment at the hands of the law: or that of the question, the fear of that

disrepute which may attach upon such his conduct for want of his having custom - that custom which applies to the case of the Slave

Trade for a cloak to it?

[clxxii. 334]

1821 July 20

Rid

Lett 10

Slave Trade

There is a certain thing we are every now and then hearing of

/talking about/ called tyranny. My friends what say you to

it? In regard to it what is the state of your affections? /relation to it how stand

your affections/ What a question! say you: as if we could do otherwise than abhor it.

Good: but how abhor it? simply and absolutely? or only subject to certain

distinctions and not otherwise. In so far /Whatever/ as we are the victims of it, oh

yes: there we do abhor it: but where are the authors of it or among the instruments

of it, there the case changes: in short where we suffer /wherever we are sufferers/

by it we hate it, as all wise and humane men do of course /wise and humane as we are

can not do otherwise/ but where /in so far/ as we in our own opinions at least profit

by it, /reap an advantage from it/ there so far the case is quite reversed. Tyranny

exercised over us is a most wicked /a bad/ thing: honour where that all would forbid

our endurance of it. Tyranny exercised by us or for us is a good thing: honour could

not endure our parting with it: no means of any thing we did would with any propriety

be termed tyranny: which however you must acknowledge is not the case: that which in

others might be tyranny, with /in/ us is just exercise of legitimate rights. Tyranny

it might be in others to hold a distant nation in subjection in the hope of squeezing

money out of them: but in us it is but just exercise of legitimate rights. Tyrany it

might be in others to keep men or to keep others in houses or fields in a state of

slavery: but property is a sacred right: and in no such dealing is but the exercise

of that sacred right.

[clxxii. 335]

1821 July 19

Rid

Relinquishment

Slave Trade

Religion

Religion indeed! Take for his habitual /every day/ occupation Make

murder and robbery upon the largest scale and profess /dictate/ at the same time that

religion is in his eyes an object of regard. The profession of him is it sincere or

insincere? /insincere or sincere/ If insincere what is to be thought of him? If

sincere what is to be thought of religion of that religion that has place in his

breast: A religion which suffices not to restrain me from the habitual /constant/

practice of the most flagitious enormities what can it be good for what the value of

it what the uses of it? Murder and robbery and murder by any number of masses can

they be atoned for? What then are we to think of masses? Be it what it may with

references to the happiness of a future life - of that life in comparison of which

the present is but as a grain of sand in the universe as it affects the happiness of

the present life is it anything /would it be such a religion to/ better than a

nuisance? the prevalence of it any thing better than a public calamity? the support

of it than a public grievance?

[clxxii. 336]

1821 July 19

Rid

Rid

Slave Trade

But if thus indefensible /inexcusable/ is the conduct of those

Colonists who are partakers in the Slave Trade how much more inexcusable is that of

your Masters if by your loss they continue partakers in that abomination by affording

or striving to afford protection to those who persevere in staining themselves with

it. In continuing it, in so far as by continuing it they make greater profit /of the

sums capital/ than they could by any other means, they are not against self-regarding

prudence, they are not against any virtue other than those which are comprehended

under the head of Effective Benevolences /[...?] [...?]/ Only to the unhappy victims

of that system of murder is their conduct injurious.

But your Rulers, in act or in endeavour so long as they extend to the

provinces engaged in that traffic their protection such as it how much further are

the is their conduct from being excusable?

[clxxii. 337]

1821 July 19

Rid

slave Trade

You rank yourselves with the rulers of France - like to Ultras - the

circumspect despots of England.

Say not such disinterestedness as you preach - such virtue as and

without expence on your part you call for the exercise of at ours is at too high a

pitch for the fraility of human nature? Call not upon us to soar above the level of

the commmon nature: it is sufficient /we content ourselves/ with what is practicable,

to us to be upon a level with the rest of mankind.

Spaniards! this will not serve you. Think not that by abstaining from

depredation and murder in this fix you place /would place/ yourselves above the level

of human nature: all that you would do would be the ceasing to be as you are at

present, in a deplorable degree below it.

[clxxii. 338]

1821 July 19

Rid

Relinquishment

Slave holding indicted

Slave Trade

Emancipation is one thing: cessation of purchase is another. Neither

to the aggregate /common/ benefit nor even to the benefit of the Blacks alone would

/immediate/ emancipation immediate or other than gradual emancipation be practicable.

Not /Quite other/ so cessation of purchase.

For my part to speak of impossibilities if at that price, and not at

any less price in addition to emancipation the establishment of the Blacks in /under/

a government such as that of the Anglo-American United States could be effected

gladly as a /in the character of/ indispensible means to that end would I see the

White population every man and woman and child extirpated, put to death.

[clxxii. 339]

1821 July 20 Omitted 9 April 1822

Rid

Relinquishment honorable

Slave Trade

Well then: in this result you see another advantage - (and if there

be any moral feeling in you a prodigious one you will see it is) from the proposed

relinquishment. While you retain the dominion, or any claim upon it, this foul stain

/that moral leprosy/ cleaves to you: rid yourselves of the incumbrance, and you rid

yourselves of the leprosy along with it. Think not that upon any other terms, even

were /supposing it/ you were so desirous it would be in your power then to purify

yourselves. Among these your /these many/ former dependencies there are some who are

to such a degree tainted with it, that as surely as they saw in you a disposition to

put an end to that enormity, so surely, howsoever disposed to cleave to you, they

would break loose. Then indeed /Thereupon/ would come the excuse derived from

/comprised out of one /the/ abuse of the word necessity. it is necessary to keep on

foot this practice: for otherwise these subjects of ours would no longer be so. This

we must not endure, so long as by any thing we can do we can retain them under our

subjection; this would be an infraction of our Constitution: of that Constitution

which every body has sworn to observe.

[clxxii. 340]

1821 July 20

Rid

Relinquishment honorable

Slave Trade

Sworn to observe? Oh yes: sworn to perform all and singular /this

together with all the/ impossibilities which may be seen swarming in it.

Look at Article 4. 'The nation is obliged to preserve and protect, by

wise and just laws, the civil liberty and the property, besides all other legitimate

rights, of all the individuals of which it is comprized.'

What? all the Citizens? all that are its Citizens and no others? No: no such

restriction does it contain: individuals is the word: not

ciudadanos is the word. Now then the human beings whose

skin is of a darker colour than your own - are they not individuals? When they cease to be individuals, then will you /your

Representatives/ cease to have guaranteed their /to them/ civil

liberty: then should any one say to you - you are tyrants not haters of

tyranny, hypocrites not men of sincerity then will you be able to clear yourselves of

the opprobrium /their /imputations/ reproaches/, and call them calumny, and call the

authors of these calumniators.

Slavery under you or any subjects /known subject/ of yours is it what

you mean by this same civil liberty? /slavery such as that in which they keep those

whom for that purpose they have purchased instead of cattle/ Well then go yourselves

to Negro land, put yourselves under the power of those whom by such purchase you now

get under yours - by that means /in that way/ you may secure to yourselves the

blessing you thus denunciate and without the complication and embarrassment of

Constitutional Codes made only to be violated or neglected.

[clxxii. 341]

1821 July 20

Rid

Relinquishment honorable

Slave Trade

Casting from you this leprosy /Having healed yourselves/ you would

thus be that which so long as it cleaves to you you can not be - an object of respect

as well as sympathy to the whole of the English nation and the honest part of the

French and /but/ especially to the Anglo-American United States to that nation whose

place in the seat of moral and intellectual worth it stands so high above both..

Spaniards /My friends/ why should I dissemble to /conceal from/ you those reproaches

which so incessantly wound my ears - those reproaches in which it is said that had it

not been for your nation and another which I can not bring my pen to trace this stain

upon Christianity /the religion of yours/ /civilised society/ would years ago have

been washed out. Such are the reproaches with which my ears are wounded: and what can

I say /find/ to clear myself of them? tell me I beseech you what, for with all my

affection for you with all partiality for your cause as often as this topic comes on

the carpet so often am I mute.

[clxxii. 342]

1821 July 20

Rid

Relinquishment honorable

Slave Trade

Speaking of the French nation, I say the honest

part: for it is but too true and sufficiently notorious that in that nation

there are those who having made a vow to make slaves of their own countrymen regard

with horror any proposition /measure/ the effect of which would be to set limits to

the number of their slaves With you these men I am satisfied are no more in honour

than with me. But on this [...?] subject whatsoever may be said against them on the

score of barbarity /inhumanity/ and injustice, nothing can be said against them on

the score of inconsistency and /or/ hypocrisy. They have not sworn as your

Representatives by Articles 4 and 13 and your King has sworn to take for the end of

their government the happiness of all the individuals belonging to the nation: they

have not sworn to preserve civil liberty to all those individuals. In their eyes the

proper end of government is - not the happiness of all, but the happiness of one,

together with that of such few others, to whom in consideration of a certain mass of

property which no matter by what means they have secured /contrived/ to get into

their possession, it shall please him to let in for a share /loan/ suffer to enjoy at

his expence /share with him/ a share in the means of happiness.

And these same men - what /in their eyes/ are you yourselves in their

eyes? A gang /land/ /nation/ of rebels and traitors and rebels whose blood flowing

from a scaffold would to that of the vast majority of their fellow citizens be the

most delightful of all spectacles to their eyes. Such are the men with whom so long

as any part of Ultramaria is called yours you hold community of principle and

affection and endeavour: but with this difference that what with exceptions too

inconsiderable to be worth taking into account /mention/ they do but wish to be, you

are.

[clxxii. 343]

1821 July 20

Rid

Relinquishment honorable

Slave Trade

Now then my friends if honour has any place /so it be that honour

has/ in your wishes, there it is for you: there it is for you as soon as between you

and the Slave-buying provinces the connection is dissolved. There it is for you and

of the purest kind.

Note well too that by so doing you will rid yourselves not only of

the abomination of Slave-buying, but of the abomination of Slave-holding and by so

doing you will thus in the scale of true honour place yourselves not only above the

French nation not only above the English nation but above the Anglo-American nation.

For with them /this young and virtuous nation/ though this least bad part of the

double system is matter of regret and shame, it is still theirs: for with them that

which /necessity/ in your mouths would be but pretence has for the present but too

incontestable an existence, has still that hold which with honesty and sincerity they

are continually employed in loosening to the utmost of their power.

You would rid yourselves I say of Slave-holding or I can /will/ not

suppose /I see no reason to suppose/ that is for your own use that you continue to do

what you still do towards keeping up that practice. It is no part of your new scheme

of good government to import Black men into Spain to serve as slaves in your own

houses. But It is only because if you did not in breach of your Constitutional Code

suffer them to keep Black men slaves in their houses /if you would not suffer them to

treat others as slaves/ and on their lands they would not (you fear) behave to you as

subjects - this is the cause and the only cause by which the connection you have with

the system of tyranny is continued.

[clxxii. 344]

1821 July 19 Omitted 9 Apr. 1822

Lett Conclusion?

The Relinquishment [...?]

Slave Trade

Spaniards /Men of Spain/

Think not that by shutting his eyes, and giving the reins to passion,

to self-tormenting no less than mischievous passion it is in the power of man to

convert wrong into right, justice into injustice, cruelty into humanity, rashness

into prudence, blindness into discernment, impossibility into accomplishment. Think

not that by shutting his own a man can shut other eyes. Fancy not that any more than

your own Don Quixote merely by shutting his eyes or driving spurs into his horse

could any of you more effectually than Don Quixote did put to death a wind-mill or

stop the sails of it in their course.

Think /Fancy/ not that by anger on your part by anger passion intense

and furious and inexerable the nature of things or the nature of man can be changed

Talking and asking thus/

They think to raise themselves, in fact they sink themselves.

Nonsense will not in Spanish any more than in French or English raise a man. For the

moment perhaps, yes: but no sooner is the nonsense seen to be nonsense than that

moment is at an end.

The more you praise yourselves, not the more, but the less, will you

be praised by others. Self-praise, be the quantity in which it is daubed on ever so

unconscionable /enormous/ will not stick. Even in this accomplishment, think not that

you do or can make yourselves stand foremost. We have those who can outdo you in it.

We have been longer in the practice of it. Look at our Tories: look at our Whigs. See

with what facility, honor, glory, splendour, dignity pass with us for reasons. For

reasons for our holding our pockets open to be pillaged: for reason for hiring men,

by hundreds of thousands, to kill others in equal multitudes multitudes none of whom

ever gave them offence.