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1819 March 28 To Erskine 4 II. Whig
1819 March 28

To Erskine 4 II. Whig Merits[?]

With the French Revolution came the Revolutionary war. The prospect from Parliamentary Reform was now brightened. It went on with so much spirit, that Charles Fox almost fancied /could fancy/ the Hustings were almost as dear to him as the gaming-table. This continued not /It did not go on/ long. The aristocrats feared that instead of getting places they should lose their seats: their seats and such of them as had titles even their titles. At S\T tT\ Jamess and Saint Stephen's Burke had played his game better than Fox. /Answer Burke said the first Lord Lansdown to [...?] My Lord, I can not: I disagree with him in some things; but I agree with him in others. So much the better, quoth he. I hesitated: but while I was hesitating, other cases pressed upon my time and engrossed it./ Fox cold only speak: Burke could not only speak but write. He made all the cowards in the kingdom quake with fear, all the tyrants foam with rage. Burke got his ,3,000 a year for it. A remnant of the Whigs received a call with him, and were converted. Fox was again left in the lurch. Legitimacy took the place of divine right: the periodicals have ever since been filled with. Passive obedience and non-resistance - for of waste and corruption and hatred of economy and reform has ever since been the creed of all readers who are without understanding, and of all writers who are without shame. As terror spread Fox and his Whigs became alarmed not only for their seats but for their necks. To construe reform into treason would have cost but a few words: and these words Judges always /ever/ have been and always /ever/ will be, ready with. For the edification of such as had estates, corruption of blood had continued. Abbot had lent himself for this service, he had thus earnt his Speakership and of course his Lordship. Corruption of blood your Lordship need not be informed, is a phrase, by the virtue of which /by which/ for the supposed offence of one individual others are punished in countless multitudes.
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    Description: 1819 Mar. 28

    To Erskine 3 Whig Merits[?]

    The original unpopularity of the King, with the additional stock laid in by the American war not being yet sufficient, in 1780 or thereabouts, the Whigs betook themselves to Parliamentary Reform Having dissipated his part of the /a[?]/ unaccounted millions, starving for want of more /of the public money/, Charles Fox took a leading part, joined with Pitt in this last thought of and desperate resource for getting at it.

    Pitt the second getting in, Fox the second was left out. Pitt's reform ended in a remedy which would have exasperated the disease: oppressing the country /cramming the House/ with an additional hundred of fox-hunting and coronet-hunting idlers. Not a party in the country, scarcely an individual in the country except the hundred knights and their near connections, to which this reform would not have been worse than useless.

    Thereupon came the Coalition. Whig Fox and Whig Burke gave the right hand of fellowship to Tory North: Antony embraced Lepidus. Now came another Revolution in view: Now come in again the great cause, Aristocracy against Monarchy. Aristocracy, a house divided against itself could not stand. No James was at hand. George's Wife had given him so many children, she had made him popular. George triumphed. For some time however it had been a measuring cast. Passing not long after through Germany, I visited his /the/ Hanoverian palace. I found it newly swept and garnished. How comes this? Sir, (said the Major-domo) his Majesty was expected here.

    No sooner had his Majesty lost his royal senses, than his popularity became complete: no recovery could shake it.
  • Title: [1819 March 28 To Erskine 5 II. Whig]
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    To Erskine 5 II. Whig Merits[?]

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    Came the year 1806 and the cup of power was once more in Whig hands. Fox took his short and parting sip of it. No danger to necks: no danger to estates now. Lawyers, and of course law, were now at their command. All blood might have been preserved, and for ever, from all corruption: they had but to speak the word. But reform now? Sooner would the Thames have run up to Crichliade[?] /Lechlade/. To call /Call/ upon these to reform, was to call upon Mr. Frog to hang himself. Reform was now not simply odious, but by a double title odious: lost by it would be not seats only, but places: places upon which the sitting post had already fixt itself. The people, whose backs would in case of absolute need would once perhaps have been used as stepping stones were now openly insulted. All former demonstrations were now laughed at: engagements were not forgotten but remembered: remembered for the purpose of the joke. Never shall I forget the pantomime /dumb shew/, by which in the Italian manner, a most active agent of the party testified /made known/ to me the change. The people, whose backs, rather than forego all hope of place would peradventure have been used as stepping-stones, were now openly insulted. Thus the Whigs went on. Would you know how, and at as small an expence as possible, learn /would you take[?] as short and at the same time as clear a view of it/ from taylor Place. (+) Alas! my Lord! his /old men's/ thoughts will wander! I had quite forgot who I was talking to.

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  • Title: [1819 May 10 To Erskine ult]
    Description: 1819 May 10

    To Erskine

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    17

    6

    How should they have done otherwise? As to the conjunct points of economy and influence of influence that is to say of power in its sweetest and least obnoxious shape the principles of the most plausible and popular of the two parties – I mean the Whigs had already been declared.

    In two papers published in two successive numbers of the Pamphleteer I have already denounced two publications, one from a Whig the other from a Tory source in which principles were advocated, by the observance of which as by a painful dedication I there observed the financial ruin of this or any other country how much more wealthy so ever would, sooner or later with unerring certainty be accomplished. In this rain of ruin, the Whigs started first. I mean in the person of Edmund Burke. The course he took was of the most artful kind. The character in which he stood forth was that of an advocate of Economy, it was in his pamphlet on the subject of the Economy. His object was to disserve the cause he professed to serve: in other words to betray it. I have shewn with what effect and ingenuity he betrayed it: every proposition advanced by him for the purpose of reconciling their[?] people as to the boundless encrease of waste and its inseparable concomitant sinister and corruptive influence, was given /produced/ in the character of a confession wrung from him. You hear from the Tories side comes forth on the same side /for the same purpose/ the pamphlet of George Rose. But his path had been prepared and made straight for him by his Whig primer by Edmund Burke.