date

1819 Aug. 28 Defence ag t Ed. Review
1819 Aug. 28

Defence ag t Ed. Review

Beginning

6

The holders of those offices to which the greatest share of power is attached, are stiled Members of Administration, and in the aggregate are called the Ministry: and that all punishment in case of abuse of the powers of office may be plainly impossible, are holders likewise of seats.

Those who without being holders of offices are holders of seats, being of course desirous of Offices coalesce naturally into a party, called in the aggregate the Opposition, and from a name which had been given to the Opposition in former days, the Whigs.

In proportion to the number of seats which they can command they are thus sharers in possession of all that mass of power to which no immediate profit is attached, and in expectancy even of that to which all immediate profit is attached They are thus at all time part and parcel of those by whom the power of government is exercised partakers of that power and at the same time of that sinister interest by which by means of the power a constant sacrifice is made to their own interest of the interest of the subject many over whom the power is exercised.

Being descended some of them, from some of those of whom under Charles the 2 d the Opposition was composed, and who had a principal share in the Revolution by which his immediate successor was dethroned, they commonly as a means of /for a ground of/ obtaining popular favour, make profession of a congeniality of opinions and affections with those of their ancestors.

In interest and consequently in affection they are little if any thing less decidedly hostile to the subject many than their most successful adversaries, the Administration, called by a correspondent allusion, the Tories. But so unfortunate and embarrassing is their situation, in the course of the perpetual attack which they are perpetually making on their Tories, in the hope of causing them to be removed from their offices, and themselves placed in their stead, they have no means of operation but such as consist in the exposure of misrule with its sinister profits: and thus, while supporting the interests of the subject many, who are alike the objects of contempt and in so far as they […?], of aversion to both parties, they have no means of endeavouring to serve their own interest in one shape but by disserving them in another.
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    Of the power of the ruling few that part which is in the hands of the King is in the hands of the possessors of Seals: of seals in the two Houses of Parliament: more especially of the House of Commons in which resides the principal share of the power, the deficiency in power being made up in the other House by dignity, and that together with the power hereditary: and among the possessors of seats in the House of Commons a great number perhaps the greater being Members of the House of Lords, hence of the aggregate power the greatest proportion is at all times in the Members of the House of Lords, and thus it is by that division /portion/ of the ruling few whose interest interest is most constantly and permanently opposite to that of the subject many that the lot of those over whom the power is exercised is determined.

    To the seats, as such, no immediate pecuniary profit is in either House attached: on the contrary in the House of Commons, in so far as those seats are in reality what in shew and formal discourse they all are, open to competition, the acquisition of them is loaded /burthened/ with considerable expence: the price current, setting aside casual causes of abatement, £1,000 a year: or £5,000 once paid for the seven possible years, reduced by casualties to about five.

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    As to aims[?] it is the interest of each party to oppose the others one but so it is when in power, to organize new ones.

    As to the means, they consist the chief of them in the nullity of the influence of the people, the effect of the abuses in the Representation, and in the quantity of unnecessary warfare.

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    2. Seduction alluring and intimidative – alias by corruption and by terrorism

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