132-066.xml

Title: [[copyist’s hand] nd To Erskine]

Description: [copyist’s hand]

nd

To Erskine

3.

George Rose loved himself. For unless it be in Armata where is the man that does not? But George Rose loved his Country: George Rose, with the exception of those whose skins were black, loved mankind. I say my Lord he loved mankind or at least his Country. Ese, my Lord, what use could he think he had for me? I could give him no sinecures. George Rose could serve himself, and he did so: he could give himself sinecures, and so he did. George Rose could not serve mankind, George Rose could not serve his country: and therefore he did not.

Thus it is – thus it ever will be – under the system of corruption: that system, to which, on this occasion, your Lordship’s eloquence, and even without being lifted up by fees has, with so much eagerness given its protection. | | as he touched it, turned every thing into gold. Under the system of corruption, the corrupter General turns into corruption the whole crop of the tree of good and evil; and without so much as touching it. – Touching it did I say? Looking at him it of itself becomes corruption: he need not so much as look at it.

But I have been wandering and prating of past times. It is among the weaknesses of old men.

Well, my Lord, I have told your Lordship where merits are not: I will now tell you where they are. Direct indication commences the work of Instruction: contrast perfects it. Merits are not in your Lordship’s ‘great body’ of the Parliamentary Whigs: they are in the 3883 against whom these Whigs with their Tory Helpmates prevailed on at the Westminster Hustings in March 1819.

In the ‘great body’ of your Lordship’s clients, pretensions abundant: good deeds unavoidable and | | not a few: merits none. In the 3883, “in the Miserable little junto” – “in the Rump who administer Westminster in the name of Sir Francis Burdett” – there it is that merits may be seen – seen in an abundance by which I am the more astonished the more I think of it: seen by those whose eyes allow them not only to see Merits, but to see them where they are. In that miserable little Junto, would you see labour without profit – labour with expence instead of profit – would you see in a word self-sacrifice? there you may see self sacrifice: that you may see what a may look for till his eyes water and not find it in your Lordships calumniated Whigs of England (p.9 l.1.)

in

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Title: [[copyist’s hand] nd [wm 1818]]

Description: [copyist’s hand]

nd [wm 1818]

To Erskine

4.

in your Lordship’s band of patriots (p. 7. l. 9) in your Lordship’s “men of honour, manliness and wisdom” (p. 13. l. 29) in your Lordship’s “men of true wisdom” (p. 23. l. 11.) in your Lordship’s men who follow the dictates of a pure and honest sense of duty, envious of their talents and their honest disposition” (p. 24. l. 15) in your Lordship’s acknowledged profession of the highest sense of honor” (p. 24. l. 24.) in your Lordship’s enlightened and independent men” (p. 30. l. 12.) and so forth.

“Shade of Hampden! look down, and in a list of Tradesman and Shop-keepers, behold thy yet living and altogether worthy successors” Parl. Cat. Introd. p. cxxix. Such was the exclamation called forth by the contemplation of the Merits of these My fellow citizens of Westminster, of such of their merits as in the year 1817 had already manifested themselves. Now in 1819 do I see any reason for lowering this voice? No: I see encreased reason for raising it.

And was this mere froth? Was it an attempt at an anticipation of your Lordship’s eloquence? was it a substitute to reasoning? No, my Lord: it was the result of determinate facts brought together by reasoning: it was produced by a picture of the conduct of the persons in question, detached and correct to dulness, ranged under 12 heads. There it has been to be seen these two years: there it has been actually seen by purchasers in thousands: by readers in thousands more: by every body I had almost said but your Lordship and M r Perry:– seen even by M r Cobbett, who, with gnashing of teeth and unlocked jaw, unable to lock his eyes as your Lordship’s and M r Perry’s are locked, confesses in his agony his knowledge of the existence of the work, of which the merits of this real band of patriots form the most striking object

But your Lordship is a very slave to duty: and above all to professional duty: duty as towards clients – the first | | of the whole duty of man in learned eyes: and with an energy rising in proportion as he is convinced of his being unanswerable, whatever is advanced on the other side, it is the duty of the advocate to keep his eyes fast closed against: yes: fast closed against it: or if haply for any one purpose the object has been seen, yet if, for any other purpose, it requires to be forgotten, the last thing he forgets is to forget it.

But

132-051.xml

Title: [1819 Apr. 13 + To Erskine Lett]

Description: 1819 Apr. 13 +

To Erskine

Lett. II Whig Merits

3

18

But your Lordship, or your Lordships Morning Chronicle friend, may say – though in the middle of our paragraph the junto was “a miserable little” one, yet, at the commencement, it was “a junto who administer Westminster” {to wit “in the name of Sir Francis Burdett”} and again towards /nearer the/ /moreover, towards/ the close it is “the rump that govern Westminster in his name”, and have “dependants looking to them for a seat in Parliament,” and this his rump administration is an object towards which the “pliancy and subserviency” of the Baronet “finds it necessary to manifest itself”. Here then says M r Parry – and here, through the mouth of this your Lordship’s “disinterested, honest, enlightened independent” “intimate” (p 18 l. 17) whose “spirit and eloquence would have added lustre to the bar at any period” (p. 19 l. 5.) Your Lordship may perhaps remember not to forget, that whether the Rump govern the Baronet, or the Baronet the Rump, pure is a thing called power: and this said thing a good thing, which the said Rump have not only possessed but exercised, and by exercising it enjoyed: and forasmuch in that “miserable little junta” the appetite and relish for power is as sharp as in your Lordships Clients it is regulated and subdued, thus it is that the members of that same junto have their reward, and all idea of self-sacrifice: and therefore even according to your own notion says Your Lordship – according to your own notion theoretical as it is and therefore false, all merit is out of the question. Now Of this argument the full advantage shall be left to Your Lordship and Your Lordships said distinguished friends, who being so disinterested might, but for some inadvertence have the shortness of his memory remembered to all the Morning Chronicle gratis, while Your Lordship was fascinating Juries {with eloquence} at the same price.