date

1819 May 18 Disfranchisement
1819 May 18

Disfranchisement

§.5. Evil 4. Encreasing Country Members

6

2

Reformist. Yes /True/: in the main what you say /bring to my view/ of this notion of mine is correct. But on the present occasion I must present you with two /a/ modifications /and a remark/

1. In the first place on the part of no other class of men, nor of all other classes put together does there exist any sinister interest the prevalence is by a vast deal so extensive as that which is shared in common by this class. Consider of whom it is composed /the subdivisions contained/. In the first place that whole body of the Peerage: which to the part it has in the power of the Lower House adds the whole of the power of the other House which the individuals its Members are continually on their knees to the Monarch for more

2. In the next place all those proprietors great and small the principal part of whose substance /income/ is derived from the rent of land.

Taken together the two divisions form a compact body the numbers of which have one common interest distinct from and opposite to all other particular interests, are continually brought together the principal part of them in a variety of places and in particular in the two Houses, and at the Sessions of the Peace are made known to one another by a variety of public documents such as County Maps and County Histories know how to find one another out upon all occasions and finding every instrument and every facility for combining with one another for the purpose of strengthening and extending /giving strengths and extensions to/ oppression in every imaginable shape in which it is useful to them, have provided dungeons for the bodies /persons/ and musket shot bayonets and quartering knives as the case may require for the bowels {of all such persons as in /by/ pursuit of any efficient plan of reform shall without their consent and encouragement presume to meet one another for the purpose of affording protection to one another against those fruits of the matchless Constitution in its present state.} /of all such partakers in the universal interest as shall presume to seek in the society of one another any efficient protection against the oppression under which they are held by that partial and particular and thence sinister interest./
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    §.5. Evil 4. Multiplying Country Members

    17 or 1

    Anti Reformist.

    In any other class any larger dose of aptitude?

    18 or 2.

    Reformist. 1. As to probity, no; unless by mere accident, except in the seats filled

    by Westminster and those other Election Districts, if any, where by multitude of

    votes and comparative independence Electors probity is efficiently protected against

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    19 or 3.

    2. As to intellectual aptitude, no class that affords so bad a promise (3. See

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    20 or 4.

    Anti reformist. Said by you already, without appropriate probity, d o. intellectual aptitude is better absent than present; by it the more

    efficient aid being given to the improbity opposite to appropriate probity.

    §.5. Evil 4. Multiplying Country Members

    21 or 5.

    Reformist, yes; but here comes two modifications 1. In all other classes put together

    no such strong body of sinister interest as in this: viz – 1 Peerage: which to its

    own House adds the seats to which it nominates in Common’s House –

    (3. Quote the number.)

    22 or 6.

    2. All Landholders whose subsistence is chiefly derived from rent of land.

    23 or 7.

    All constantly on their knees to Monarch for more money, powers and factitious

    dignity.

    24 or 8.

    To all these are many common bonds and unity of interest: viz –

    1. Meetings in Parliam t. House and club Houses &c.

    2. Documents such as County Histories, Maps, &c.

    3. Justice of Peace Sessions General and Petty.

    25 or 9.

    Thence mutual encouragement and facility for joining and giving strength and

    extension to oppression for crushing all reformists who seek in one another the means

    of self defence.

    §.5.4. Evil 4. Multiplying Country Members

    26 or 10.

    For an example of the fruit of this common sinister interest, take the facility of |

    | secured by them to one another under favour of Judge made law.

    27 or 11.

    Not possible that by shopkeepers &c. any judgment should be formed of

    customer’s ability except from his visible possessions and expenditure: with rank

    where he has any.

    28 or 12.

    Higher-order men run in debt with them in all ways – on his death, his land, with

    younger son’s fortunes on it goes to his family free from all such debt. To the

    unconsumed remnants of his moveables these creditors have to go to Law with, and with

    their Lawyers to gain undue advantage over one another.

    29 or 13.

    Established was this arrangement not by Parliament but by Lawyers for their own

    benefit, and that of the Aristocracy of which they are Members and in which they saw

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  • Title: [1819 May 18 Disfranchisement]
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    §.5. Evil 4 Encrease Country Members

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    Now then /On the other hand/ in this same […?] of appropriate probity see how the case stands in the instance of a man of any other class; suppose of the mercantile class.

    Like the Country Gentleman, and every other man, his dispos /propensity/ will be to seek to advance his own personal interest though it were at the expence of all other interests put together. But to this propensity to this noxious propensity of his, he is not as the Country Gentleman is, able to give effect. The Country Gentleman is /Country Gentleman is a link in a chain of iron:/ a member of an impregnable and irresistible body united by one common interest: an interest to which it is not in the power of the most stupid among them not to be /to avoid being/ fully sensible. The mercantile man {belongs to no such body: he is one grain} in a rope of sand. Mercantile /Commercial/ men in different lines /branches/ of commerce have not to any efficient[?] extent any common interest, in the same line each individual has with relation to every other an opposite interest.

    Every man having with relation to every other a common interest and an opposite interest every man is with relation to every other a friend and an enemy. In his quality of an enemy were it not for the reasons that (a) by which he is witholden he would become one /an/ oppressor. But in proportion as the state of the law and especially it Constitutional present[?]/ is good these ties are strong, in proportion as it is bad they are weak. In /Under/ the Democratic Constitution of the American United States, the law and especially the Constitutional branch is strong, and oppression is unknown. Most men would oppress all others that come in their way if they were able but no man or knot of men is able. Under the English Monarchy as it stands, or rather rules, the constitutional branch and with it all the other branches are rotten. Having one common sinister interest the ruling few composed of the Monarch and the Aristocracy have it in their power in every way to oppress the subject many, oppression in a thousand ways is the consequence

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    §.4 Evil 3

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    In some districts /this district/, the pair of Terrorists are both of them Tories: in others, both of them Whigs: in others again you see a pair of these corruptionists grinning at each other for form sake, but pigging together in the same mire. In this last case, the scene exhibited is as every body knows in a multitude of instances the result of a partition treaty: a treaty entered into in all the forms of Christianity, to save the effusion not of blood indeed, but of that which is more valuable /better worth/ than blood – money.

    On this plan to the purpose of the universal interest – to every public purpose but that of local interest – of comparatively speaking petty interest – such as the proposing or opposing this or that bill or other measure in which some such narrow interests alone are at stake, the district is and in so far the kingdom /whole community/ are without a representative. But the two personal and family interests, and that same extensive sinister interest in /of/ which Toryism and Whiggism are tenants in common – the interest which both parties have in keeping the door fast shut against all efficient reform – this interest is most compleatly served.

    The peace of the County if it be a County is now said to be preserved /secured/: and in this treaty, this peace, with that national /public/ happiness which is its inseparable attendant, are of course the only objects in view: patriotism and mutual charity, the only motives by which it has been produced. It /The alliance/ is the new Holy League in miniature: motives the same; object in both instances alike compressible under the same name – legitimacy.

    The plain truth /ultimate result/ seems to be – that in the present state of the representation the ultimate result is, the good produced a palpable though not very extensive good: the good excluded, a good, of which an estimate /of which/ seems not very easy to make: – the good which in case of contest might result from the drawing the attention of the people of the district in question to the state of the subjection in which they are held, and of the irresistible sacrifice to which by this sort of coalition, until they shall have the spirit and resolution to think and act for themselves, their common interest is /best interests are/ everlastingly directed.