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1819 March 28
To Erskine 5 II. Whig Merits[?]
Whigs for Revolution
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 June 16 To Erskine Lett]Description: 1819 June 16 To Erskine Lett. 7. Whigs Anti Reformists §.3. Pos. 2. No desire testified 3 What /That which/ could scarcely have been a secret to the most incurious among them is – that the real object of real contention – the power once gained it would have been in their power at any time to make a stand, and lay parliamentary reform still more easily than any other reform /reform in any other shape/, upon the shelf. Simple as it was, when Pitt the second, the first of radical reformists came into power, even diminution of influence was – and without any sort of difficulty, laid upon the shelf. Diminution of influence? Oh yes and change in the state of the representation likewise. Compleatly by that rival of the Whigs /Tory, and then Whig/ in the caress[?] of consistency and sincerity was reform in both shapes laid upon the shelf. No less Compleatly was reform in both its shapes laid upon the shelf in 1806 upon the formation /advent/ of that which used to be called the Whig Ministry, but which henceforward, taught /instructed/ by Your Lordships incontrovertible evidence, we must call the Grenville Ministry. + + See M r Place’s Reply to Lord E. one[?] see M r H.s pamphlet p. | | and Lord E.’s Defence p.
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Title: [1819 March 28 To Erskine 4 II. Whig]Description: 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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Title: [1819 Apr. 19 To Erskine Lett]Description: 1819 Apr. 19 To Erskine Lett 5 Whig fallacies 5 Matchless Constitution! No theory! Tumults of the people to which (says his Lordship) mere Republicks are so liable." Mere Republicks? what Republicks? No other Republic does his Lordship know of, expect those he used to read of when he was at School: These Republics were liable to tumults, and thence he concludes that so must all other Republics How much longer will his Lordship and those who chant[?] or at least speak with his Lordship how much longer will they continue ignorant of that which the meanest /most ignorant/ of my fellow citizens to Westminster Electors is so well informed of, to wit that in the only Republics which any man ever wishes to see in any particular copied or imitated, there are no tumults? But among Whigs there exists a covenant - and to this purpose Lordship is a Whig man to look into a Newspaper without shutting their eyes and ears against the passage, wherever a passage comes in which any mention is made of the American United States. It is since this speech was made, that in[?] the purse[?] of the Prince Regent in the course of what I suppose his Lordship would not refuse to call a tumult, the Monarch was hit by a potatoe: one of those potatoes which according to the discovery made by a willing Magistrate, speak for themselves which, for the affording as some say the better pretence for some of those further encroachments of the Crown of /against attack the steady mind of/ his Lordship has so effectually secured itself, a glass of the coach was broken by somebody that was with it. Now by what potatoes, speaking or not speaking, was any President of the United States ever hit or aimed at? Guarded /protected/ against potatoes, the Monarch has not thereby been always protected against hootings or hissings. By what hootings or hissings has the car of any President of the United States, now for these forty forty years that those States have been States been ever assaulted?
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