date

1819 June 19 To Erskine ult
1819 June 19

To Erskine

ult o

Lett. 7. Whigs AntiReformists

§ 2. Pos. I. Desire impossible

Number of self-sacrifices?

6

3

But then this number 204 is it to /can it with truth/ be looked upon as the number of the seats in the instance /case/ of which a reform giving the faculty of filling them to the people at large would not be /have been/ regarded by the existing occupants as an arrangement having /the/ for its probable effect the depriving them of those seats? No: out of the 204 persons so circumstanced perhaps not a third perhaps not a fourth, perhaps not a fifth would in the event of such a charge regarded themselves as not in the way in question prejudiced /made sufferers/ by it. For in this number are included all those which though in the list in question are not spoken of as being filled by influence were not in fact /truth/ no less filled by influence; to wit partly by money employed in trucking[?] and fetching up distant voters, and thence by competition-excluding terrorism, partly by intimidation of voters, and thence by vote-compelling terrorism. In those case was all the County seats but the /17/ very few to wit 17, mentioned in that text: in that all but the 61 borough seats mentioned in M r Oldfields work as being open to competition in respect of the largeness of the numbers of the voters, which numbers he accordingly gives: and among these there are those (Barnstaple for example) which have since been proved to be seats of close boroughs, closed against candidates at large and opened only to purchasing Candidates by the golden key of bribery.

It is in this state of things that for the purpose /in the view/ of persuading us to believe on the part of Your Lordship the wish and at the same time the expectation of reconciling /of seeing reconciled/ to the idea of an efficient change a number of proprietors and occupiers of seats sufficient to produce it /for the production/, gives it to them as Your Lordships conviction p. 28 that a “very considerable extension of the system of representation would produce less change in the returns of Members than is generally imagined.” But by the sort of comfort thus administered so much as a single convert to reform in any efficient shape will ever be made or was ever expected to be made, is more than if I strained ever so, it would be in my power to make myself believe. ‡
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  • Title: [1819 June 18 + I C To Erskine]
    Description: 1819 June 18 + I C

    To Erskine

    ult o

    Lett. 7. Whigs Anti Reformists

    § 2. Pos. I. desire impossible

    N o of self-sacrifice?

    4

    1

    What we see as thro’ a glass darkly, they saw face to face

    Plan Cat cccxiv

    II. Number and proportion /Proportionable number/ of the persons by whom, to be effectual the sacrifice would require to be made.

    Take from M r Oldfield’s Recapitulation in the last edition of his History of Boroughs the following numbers

    Returned by nomination 487

    Independent of nomination 171

    658

    But of these last the greater part are /County/ Members for Counties: and in all those instances terrorism whether applied to Electors or to Competitors being the instrument by which they are seated, these are among the persons by whom it is impossible to say in what proportion probably by much the largest the sacrifice would be to be made.

    Of all men in this predicament the situation would be in the most desperate case /These are the persons in whose case the sacrifice would be in the highest degree improbable/. For pocket boroughs as in the case of Ireland compensation might be made. But for loss of English County seats no compensation could ever be so much as be proposed to be made.

    The case in which the seats appear to be in the greatest degree open to competition, and therefore under the present plan the possession of them least assured, are those Borough Seats in which the numbers of the voters being from 17,000 down to 400 the expence of a contest is upon a first view least formidable, and thence terrorism least surely effective. So it would really be if the right was confined to residents: but voters may be /are/ importable from all parts of the kingdom to the globe: so that in a large proportion of this small number (seats 61) the first conception would be delusive.

    Vain on this occasion would be any objection to the accuracy of that work. So vast is the number of those by whom on the most unfavourable /adverse/ calculation the sacrifice would have to be made, that errors to the amount of the half of the whole or more /all of them too/ on one side might be admitted, and still the practical inference not varied.
  • Title: [+ 1818 Oct. 21 Reasons §.1 Art 4 Parl]
    Description: + 1818 Oct. 21 Reasons §.1 Art 4

    Parl Reform Bill

    Reasons

    §.1 Seats and Districts

    Art 4 Seat one only

    10

    2

    2. Avoidance of nullity of the Electors’ influence, in every District in which the two Members take opposite sides.

    {Question 2. Seats – why no more than one to a District?

    Reasons

    1. If while the whole number of seats being as at present not less than 658, two seats were in all instances as at present in most instances allotted to a /an Election/ District, the number 668 already but too large would be swelled to 1336.

    2. If while one set of Districts filled each of them but one seat, another set districts not twice as populous as those of the former filled each of them two seats, here would be inequality, and no use in it or reason for it.}

    Under the existing system, though with the exception of the City of London no more than two seats are in any instance filled by one District, considerable is the inconvenience produced even by this lowest degree of plurality. When, in one and the same district, the two seats are filled by two Members, who, in respect of the general scheme of government, are, with relation to one another, guided by opposite opinions or moved by opposite interests, they in so far nullify one another: the district which they represent is without influence: with two such Representatives it is no better served than if it had none. Even under the proposed Reform, but for the arrangement here proposed, the case would in this respect be the same.

    3. Securing the freedom of Election against partition-treaties between rival Candidates.

    2. Under the existing system two proposed Members, who, if the district had but one seat would enter into competition, and thus allow to the several Electors the faculty of giving their votes to the worthiest, enter into a compact with one another, and by terrorism, in one or more of its shapes, exclude competitors, share the two seats between them, and thus for that time deprive the whole body of the Electors of the faculty of giving /exercise of their franchise/. Under the proposed system, no such terrorism could have place: not but that by combination, after every thing that could be done, emulation and competition might, in cases in which they would have been useful, be incidentally excluded. But the instances would be comparatively rare.
  • Title: [1819 June 18 To Erskine ult]
    Description: 1819 June 18

    To Erskine

    ult o

    Lett. 7. Whigs Anti Reformists

    § 2. Pos. I. Desire impossible

    Number of self-sacrifice?

    5

    2

    250

    29

    /Since the Irish Union/ Three hundred and twenty men would /will/ have been the number necessary to secure a persevering majority till the change were effected, since the Irish Union: 279 before that period. Not to speak of 329 or 279, has there ever been a time when under the circumstances above stated at the hands of so much as a tenth part of the number the persevering /perseverance in the/ disposition to make the requisite sacrifice in question could with any tolerable portion of reason be looked for could be regarded as being in any degree worth mentioning probable?

    If M r Oldfields numbers be objected to, take those of the Whigs of 1793 associated under the name of the Friends of the People. Supported as it is by individual statements – by lists of seats with the names of the Patrons by whom they are filled, this is the authority I have employed, had it extended to Ireland /were it not that it Ireland was not included in it/ had Ireland been included in it: but the date being by six or seven years anterior to that of the Irish Union, Ireland was not, would not have been included in it.

    True it is that {whatsoever be the case at the present time} at the time at which those speeches of Pitt the second and M r Grey were respectively made namely those speeches by which the interference of the people in bodies was spoken of as the only means of sincerity the numbers stated as the proportionable numbers by the self-stiled Friends of the People are the proper numbers. These are

    1 By /By the Treasury/ returned by nomination and influence together 7

    2. By 70 Peers d o for English and Welsh seats 163

    3. By 91 Commoners for d o

    139

    Together 309

    4 Omitted of which the same account might have been given, Scotch 45

    354

    Deducted from 558 the same total numbers of seats

    this number of 354 leaves as and for the number of seats not

    stated as being filled either by nomination or by influence 204