date

21 Jan y 1817 Necessity Cat
21 Jan y 1817

Necessity Cat

{II Application} /I Theory/

Factitious dignity

13

United States no factitious dignity

If therefore any such desire should ever really be entertained as that excess, waste and peculation in this shape should be prevented - in the first place extra remuneration will be confined to extra meritorious service: in the next place no such extra remuneration will ever be conferred but upon proof made proof made of title to such extra remuneration as of title to an estate: made not only with equal publicity but with publicity more anxiously[?] and more effectually secured in this than it has ever hitherto been in that case. And in these conditions in the hands of a British Monarch the faculty of extra remuneration for extra meritorious service may with justice be /reason be/ regarded as being in a higher degree conducive than prejudicial to the universal interest.

At an immature state /stage/ of society and government every thing is arbitrary punishment as well as pardon and remuneration: as improvement advances which it will not which it will not do as much so long as sinister interest in high places which has everything to lose by the advance can help it, pardon and remuneration will be subjected to the rules of evidence, as punishment and title to property are at present: but by that time, to rules of evidence, somewhat less inconsistent with each other and with the ascertainment of truth than those[?] which are in use at present, and have had no such object /have not had for their /in a/ principal end of any degree for their end/, but on the contrary the sinister interest of those by whom they have been framed.
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  • Title: [21 Jan y 1817 Necessity Cat]
    Description: 21 Jan y 1817

    Necessity Cat

    {II Application} /I Theory/

    14

    Q. < > Well but still you have not told me how it is that in the sort of hands in question remuneration in the shape in question viz factitious dignity presents in its nature likely in any degree to be preventive of extra meritorious public service?

    A. Fear not: your request /desire/ has not been forgotten. For extra-meritorious service rendered to the public you will allow /admitt I presume/ without much difficulty that natural reward is not altogether wanting?

    Q. < > By natural reward you mean doubtless that esteem and respect which at the hands of the public soever extraordinary in kind or degree rendered to the public at large can scarcely fail to receive?

    A. Of course I do: and this will in general, in so far as the service is known to the public, what at the most trifling expence it may in all cases be, will, run in tolerably /pretty/ exact /correct/ proportion to the magnitude of the service: and if not in every instance in the correct proportion, the public being composed of human beings and therefore to misconception and misjudgment yet in a proportion much more likely to be correct than if administered by a hand so much exposed to the misguidance of sinister interest as the Monarch or any of those who on this behalf are employed to act in his name.
  • Title: [21 Jan y 1817 Necessity Cat]
    Description: 21 Jan y 1817

    Necessity Cat

    {II Application} /I Theory/

    Factitious dignity

    12

    Q. < > But supposing this source and trade of remuneration and encouragement taken away what is to /will/ become of meritorious service? will there be any probability of its being rendered in any shape?

    A. In every shape the probability of it so far from being taken away will be encreased rather than diminished.

    But here before I enter upon further particulars I must beg leave to make another distinction: and that is between ordinary and extraordinary meritorious service. Ordinary meritorious service is that which in the situation in question {whether} in respect of {appropriate probity} appropriate intellectual aptitude and appropriate active talent, men in general are competent to render, and without the expence or prospect of any such extraordinary remuneration may reasonably be expected to render. In general to service to meritorious service rendered to the public whether in /permanent in an official/ respect of office, or occasional as by occasional supply of human labour or goods, ordinary remuneration in the shape of pay is attached: in return for the official pay the official person engages to render all the service which he has it in his power /having it in his power/ to render he is required and expected and required to render accordingly: between the public and the individual as between individual and individual here we have a bargain made: why the individual should have any thing above his bargain /more than what he bargained for/ there is no more reason than why the public should have had any thing more than it bargained for: and there is this strong reason why he should not. When at his own expence for service rendered to himself an individual makes remuneration /retribution/ to another individual, for there is no danger of excess, no danger of waste and peculation: but when at the expence of the public and by this or that individual not at their own expense a set of individuals for service rendered or pretended to have been rendered to the public, there is great danger of excess, a real danger of waste and peculation.
  • Title: [21 Jan 1817 Necessity Cat I]
    Description: 21 Jan 1817

    Necessity Cat

    I Theory

    {II Application}

    § Probity

    Sinister[?]

    Factitious dignity

    17

    To cut the matter short - an without becoming pale with rage losing your temper calling me hard names and doing your utmost to ruin the man[?] who ministers it to you you say here of the American United States and even in the character of a government conducted itself tolerably well and[?] ever[?] in this or that particular affording an example not altogether […?] /unfit/ for consideration in with in[?] order[?] to emulation - can not you?

    Q. I will say {at[?] it}at any rate: and you should not only look hard at me look me full in the face all the time but feel my pulse if you please. Well then. In the United States they have no such fund of factitious reward. Yet in point of […?] they have all along gone on tolerably well there; saving war making which we are making our […?]

    And in […?] if the military service be considered and what is secretly[?] that branch of service in which extra meritorious service is most likely to be performed and for which extra reward is most in demand there was General Jackson by whom so good an account was given of the chief among the joint[?] victims of Bonaparte. No dukedom with enormous[?] estates linked to it had he in prospect - no not so much as a ribbon: and suppose he had an Archdukedom with in[?] time[?] as much money linked to it, think you that the service which in that case he would have rendered would by any determinate[?] amount[?] if exceeded that which he actually rendered?

    Q. I suppose not.