date

1819 Mar. + To Erskine Lett
1819 Mar. +

To Erskine

Lett. 3. Peoples Errors

Influence

15

11

Under these circumstances, what then, my Lord, can the people have any reason to think – what ought they to say of these their sometimes pretended, sometimes not so much as pretended, friends? Almost every other part of the representation of the United kingdom – almost every other part of the whole number of seats – the Whigs share with the Tories, share it by means of that matter of corruptive influence, which is alike dear to both: that matter, sooner than part with a portion of which, they would in the memorable words ascribed to Lord Henry Petty, “make a stand”: sooner, for such is the nature of man, see the whole people perish, were it not that, for the comfort of those who eat the fat of the land, the labour of those who produce it is so unhappily indispensable.

This distinction – and, my Lord, is it either an untrue or an unimportant one? – this distinction between the two sorts of influence, the salutary and the poisonous – it has been before the public for these two years: two years has it been courting the honour of Your Lordship’s notice: two years have your Lordship’s eyes bee fast closed against it. And why thus closed against it? Even because, if these noble and learned eyes had been open to it, and with the assurance that the eyes of all expectable readers would be open to it likewise, no such “Defence of the Whigs” nor any defence of any such of any such characters could have found a hand to write it.

Forcing a man to act thus or thus in that in the acting of which he ought to be free, is not this tyranny? If so, then if the Tories are tyrants, the Whigs are no less so. This, my Lord, is it vague vituperation? is it rhetoric? No, my Lord, it is definition: it is strict logic; or there is in such language any where.

“But how can it be helped?” Oh, my Lord, nothing easier. Let suffrages be but secret, they can not but be free. No suffrage that is secret can be otherwise than free. Of suffrages that are not small indeed in comparison is the number of those that can be free.
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  • Title: [[copyist’s hand] 1819 Mar. 20]
    Description: [copyist’s hand]

    1819 Mar. 20

    To Erskine

    Lett 1.

    4.

    These being found to be your Lordship’s positions, my next search has been for Your Lordship’s proofs. These I find to be of two sorts – flowers of rhetoric and argument.

    The strength of Samson lay in his hair. Rhetoric being your Lordship’s favourite art, the strength of your Lordship’s “system” seems to be in these flowers. With these then I shall commence. What I have done with them is the best which my weak eyes and awkward hands could do. I have gathered them up as they lay scattered: I have tied them up, and made two bouquets of them. I have ticketed them, flowers laudative and flowers vituperative. Who they were respectively destined for can be no secret: laudative for the Whigs your Lordship’s clients: vituperative for those who go beyond the Whigs: for the Ultra-Whigs say some, for the Peoples-men say others: for the people simply say I here: hoping to be allowed to say so all along, were it only for shortness sake. The collection I have thus made – the fruit of my humble labour – I proceed in the first place to lay upon the Table. It may be seen in the next page.

    Thus much for the flowers. Taking up now the arguments, I view them under three heads. The heads being mentioned short so in this place shall be the intimation given of the answers.

    I Whig Merits. Short answer – Good deeds many: merits none.

    II. People’s Errors: under which head I find a supposed fundamental error – an error that regards influence. Short answer – Error yes: but not exactly on that side

    III. In all things, and in particular as to parliamentary reform the Whigs the people’s true and only friends. Theirs is and ever has been and ever will be, the sincere desire to give existence and effect to the only

    desirable
  • Title: [1819 Mar. 20 + To Erskine Lett]
    Description: 1819 Mar. 20 +

    To Erskine

    Lett. I Plan

    3

    As to the object of this work of Your Lordship’s it has been already in some sort /measure/ brought to view: out of the 30 pages I had not to rummage above six and twenty before I found it. A bad name having been picked up out of the kennel in Covent Garden by somebody picked up sometime out of the kennel in Coven Garden, what Your Lordship’s “system” has for its object is – to prove that this same bad name belongs not to the Whigs. “A corrupt and profligate faction” [*] (p. 2.) fie! fie! Yes: and another too! “unprincipled and corrupt”. (p. 26.)

    {But this bad name what was it given for? Aye; there’s the rub. It was for not being friends to the Constitution, and in particular reform, to wit, parliamentary reform: [**] so we have already on the second page: “a corrupt and profligate faction, which had abjured all the free principles of the Constitution, and had abandoned the cause of Reform, which they had once solemnly pledged themselves to support.”}

    In answer to this Your Lordship throughout insists – that the Whigs are, and have always been, true friends to Reform, all who have gone beyond the Whigs, false friends. This for past and present: this for the future, and for practical inference, that the people ought to leave the whole business of reform to the Whigs: shape, time, every thing: for that the Whigs are not only men of wisdom, but their true and only true friends: and that the people ought never so much as to think of reform, of themselves or for themselves, for that they are, always have been, and always will be unwise, and not their own true friends.

    These being found to be Your Lordship’s positions, my next search has been for Your Lordship’s proofs. These I find to be of two sorts – flowers of rhetoric, and arguments.

    The strength of Samson being in his hair: Rhetoric being your Lordship’s favourite art /forte/, the strength of your Lordships “system” seems to be in these flowers. With these then I shall commence. What I have done by them is but what my weak eyes and awkward hands could do. I have I have gathered them up as they lay scattered: I have tied them up, and made two bouquets of them. I have ticketed them, flowers laudative and flowers vituperative. Who they were respectively

    destined

    [*] p. 2.

    [**] p. 18.
  • Title: [1819 Mar. 16 + To Erskine III]
    Description: 1819 Mar. 16 +

    To Erskine

    III

    Influence

    13

    8

    But (concludes your Lordship) – and if not in words in argument – any mischief which the Tories might, and would, and do effect, by the exercise of this same influence has no application to us: it is no “corruption” in us: for we are “enlightened men who can see clearly the interests of the country; [+] and being so “purely disinterested and supremely honourable” [++] we perceive them of course, those same interests – we labour of course to promote them to the utmost of our power.

    For this purpose, here as elsewhere, the Whig maxim the product of Charles Fox’s genius not measures but men is ever at hand: the Whig maxim, by which, before Whig steps[?], all difficulties are smoothed. What would be wrong if done by others, is right if done by us: what would be wrong if done for others, is right if done for us. This is the grand postulatum which every one is called upon, or supposed, to admit. This is the grand postulatum, by which any one thing as well as any other may be proved. Wrong becomes right, vice becomes virtue in our hands.

    Alas! my Lord, it is not in my power to see the weather[?] in this same point of view. In my eyes influence of will on will, exercised to promote the return of a Member of Parliament, is corruptive influence: corruptive influence is corruptive influence by who so ever exercised: in opposition to those among the people who are of neither party no less incompatible with freedom and good government when exercised by or in favour of Whig than when exercised by or in favour of Tory hands.

    So much as to principle. Now, my Lord, as to fact. Under this head what appears to me, is – that in the late Election in which, by means of the support given by the Whigs, M r Lamb was returned for Westminster, in opposition such of the people as were neither Whigs nor Tories, this corruptive influence was exercised: exercised, and that with such effect, that had it not been for this corruptive influence so exercised, not M r

    Lamb, but M r

    Hobhouse, would have been the sitting Member: M r Hobhouse – he being the object of choice to the independent part of the Electors.

    [+] p. 19

    [++] p. 21