date

1819 Aug. 22 Disfranchisement or
1819 Aug. 22

Disfranchisement or

Apology for the Borough-mongers

3

To every man /reformist/ who will give the matter a serious consideration, it must now surely be manifest, that it is not /by no means/ matter of indifference, whether in speaking of the evil and its causes such a word as the word terrorist and terrorism and terrorist, or such words as bribery, corruption, corruptionist borough-mongers and borough-mongering, be /are/ most in use. Where the relation considered is the relation between the Member of Parliament on the one hand and the Monarch and his placeable and displaceable instruments on the other, indeed, the terms such as corruption

corrupters and corruptionists venal men and venality are the only ones that bring to view the true nature of the case. I say the only ones: for in this case in the particular mode of corruption designated by the word bribery, corruption never need, and thence probably, considering the danger it is attended with never does take place But where /in so far as/ the relation considered is no other than the relation between the Member of Parliamenton the one hand and the Parliamentary Elector on the other hand, then it is that the more that is said of terrorism and terrorists, and the less that is said of bribery, or corruption, corrupters and corruptionists of borough-mongering and borough-mongerists, the better. Why? because of {the evil being in two shapes} /two evils existing/ the lesser and the greater of all the exertions employed for the removal of it are bestowed upon /confined to {it is} the lesser in that case even supposing the exertions so[?] far[?] successful, the greater part of the evil will remain unremoved. But if in proportion as the lesser evil is thus removed the greater evil is substituted to it, in this case when all is done that has been endeavoured to be done, the sum of the evil, so far from being lessened will have been encreased
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    1. As to the mode /that one to which it confines itself of the two modes/ in which the sinister influence may be and is applied. Such I say is the effect of this inadequate application, that the evil thus complained of is[?] the only one might be thus compleatly eradicated removed and the state of the representation and the condition of the county in consequence instead of being bettered rendered so much the worse

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    circumstances. In this state of things, that /if in /by/ the existence of/ the additional circumstance in question, to wit that in the property thus held in common there are some shares that are in the habit of being sold, and some others that might be capable of being sold, no considerable addition if any is made to the mischievousness of the system no change for the worse made but rather a change for the better made in it, still the main mischief remains to wit the existence of this sort of property itself: if a in the shape and with the effects of property the sort of power in question – a sort of power thus divided into shares did not exist, no such shares could be sold: in a word if there were no Borough-holders there could be no Borough-mongers: always remembered that it is in the holding of those Boroughs that is of the seats belonging to them that the real mischief consists: in the holding and not in the mongering of them: and that if, supposing it possible, the mongering could be done away /abolished/, the holding still continuing, the effect of such abolition would be rather to encrease the evil than to diminish it.