130_121.xml

Title: [8 Jan y. 1810 Parl y. Reform]

Description: 8 Jan y. 1810

Parl y. Reform

Ch.17.

'.3. Disreputableness

24

3

Setting to work upon the scale by the light of this high and illustrious authority I proceed to mark out the degrees, occupied in the scale of disreputableness by the several modifications of parliamentary corruption, the places of which are part endeavoured to mark half[?] {on the} scale of mischievousness.

1. At the top of the scale {I mean now that of disreputableness}, I place without hesitation the misconduct of that Member of Parliament, who on this or that particular occasion being determined, if possible, to procure himself to be expelled for bribery, and having seen in the instance of Lord Melville the extensive difficulty which a Right Honorable or Honorable person labours under when he obtains to obtain evidence[?] from[?] other Right Honorable or Honorable persons for any thing that might have the effect of exposing him to censure should betake himself to the expedient of entering note, under the direction given in the Curwen-Percival parliamentary purity Act, into an express Contract under hand and seal upon good and well stamped parchment or paper binding himself for and in consideration of ,10 for example or ,100 - or ,1,000 - or any other fit and proper sum well and truly in hand paid and the receipt thereof by these presents acknowledged to be in his own proper person present at and in the said Honorable House, and then and there at the requisition and request of the other party to the same presents to give and deliver such vote as the said party should think fit to direct and appoint.

for here we see moving from hand to hand that " dry and sordid" matter, towards which the aversion and contempt of the Right Honorable Gentleman is so explicitly declared /manifest/ /emphatically expressed/.

True it is that the case in which the dry and sordid /this disgusting/ matter supposed to be received is not exactly this case: But forasmuch as the present case is one of which the exemplification of which can not but be considered as extremely rare, and forasmuch as, in respect of its rarity, supposing it ever in any instance to transpire, it would by /in transpiration of/ reason and in proportion to its rarity, naturally be attended with much more [...?] and scandal than that other /the case of a traffic in seats/ (of which presently which he had just been noticing that "in these days and within these walls ... it has been averred[?] and justified, the title of this rarer case to a precedence in the scale of disreputableness over the more frequent one seems sufficiently established above /out of/ the reach of dispute.

130_128.xml

Title: [9 Jan y 1810 Parl y Reform]

Description: 9 Jan y 1810

Parl y Reform

Ch.17.

'.4. Disreputableness

31

10

Now then as to this proposed subversion - this subversion of a /the/ system of Court and Ministerial dependence - has /does/ it any degree in its favour the good wishes or approbation of the /our/Right Honorable Gentleman /Censor Morum/? Alas /Oh no/ quite the contrary: - for in the pile of /mountains of supposed/ mischiefs which he apprehends /present themselves to his imagination/ as the consequences /results/ of the traffic /sale/ in /of parliamentary/ seals the most momentous and crowning article consists /is composed of/ those "most formidable weapons which in his view of the matter " it furnishes" to those whose "endeavours" have that " subversion" that " reform", as they call it, for their object.

130_122.xml

Title: [8 Jan y 1810 Parl y. Reform]

Description: 8 Jan y 1810

Parl y. Reform

Ch.17.

'.2. Disreputableness

25

4

Were it there any room for doubt, by one short question the matter might be brought to a short office. On the occasion in question within the walls in question the sale of seats had been avowed and justified. On any occasion within those same walls is there so much as a single individual by whom the sale of votes the sale of so much as a single vote (understand always for the dry and sordid matter viz. that which in former days /till the days of paper/ /before the age of paper/ used to be known by the denomination of hard money) would be avowed and justified? It is almost superfluous to observe, how assured by and universally the answer would be in the negative is almost superfluous to observe.

1

2.