date

1821 Sept. 26 B §.2 To Toreno
1821 Sept. 26 B §.2

To Toreno

2 o

Letter VI

§ 2. Code welcome

§[?] 3 Conditions

5

1

With regard to any such view /these views/ to see a work appear[?] in the character of a proposed work is one thing: to see the same work in the character of an adopted and sanctioned work is another /a very different/ thing. That in this latter character it would be a real pleasure to me to see this same work of theirs, rival as it is in relation to mine is what I am inclined to think you would hardly have anticipated but from the title given to this my concluding Letter.

The natural satisfaction thus expressed would not be less sincerely in this instance than is the natural satisfaction in the instance just mentioned. {It is not upon any such insubstantial evidence as that of the party in question that I call upon you for belief: it would be an ungrounded confidence.} When the choice is between good and good, any choice in so far as I conceive myself able to distinguish falls without difficulty upon the greater good: where it is between evil and evil, upon the lesser evil. By the Gentlemen in question as noticed in my second Letter, a picture has been given of the state in which they found the body of the existing laws: it is not a /no/ flattering one, and I see no reason to suspect it of being an overcharged one. {As to that proposed succedaneum Though it has not happened to me to be sure of having found so much as a single one of those good things which you, Sir, were fortunate /happy/ enough to find in it} nor would there have been any use in my looking for them it is still no flattery to say that in my mind not any the least doubt have place but that if substituted as far as it goes to that which they have found established, what they propose would if established be a highly beneficial substitution.
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  • Title: [1821 Sept. 26 B To Toreno Letter]
    Description: 1821 Sept. 26 B

    To Toreno

    Letter VI

    §.2. Code welcome

    §.3 Conditions

    7

    3

    Permit me then if you can Sir, to unfetter[?] the organ of infallibility and give it to you to keep […?] who[?] […?] it existed[?]; the organ of impeccability will remain all the firmer on their heads.

    Firm in the supposition that the whole would be found of a piece with the samples which chance in much larger proportion than design has thrown into my hands, such, Sir would be my wishes in favour of the existing work, taken as it stands, and on the supposition that by acclamation the whole was to receive without alteration the force of law. Of course much superior would be my satisfaction upon the supposition of its having first received from your influence and those who think with you those amendments which it would receive by being cleared /disburthened/ of the bad things you allude to and enriched with /improved by/ an additional lot of good ones.

    Be this as it may, as you can not but have understood from the first, the sort of consent thus given can not be taken to be absolutely pure and simple: one condition to it you can not but have anticipated. It is that whatever other attributes may be found in the work as given to it, that of eternity may not be of the number: that on the contrary a power[?] limited duration be in the first instance given to it: leaving the attribute of eternity to wait the arrival of the appointed instant so appointed, and thereupon to which itself is not attaching itself to the work according to the indication afforded by discussion and experience.
  • Title: [1821 Sept. 26 B To Toreno 2]
    Description: 1821 Sept. 26 B

    To Toreno

    2 o

    Letter VI

    § 2. Code welcome

    Apology

    1. Personality[?]

    J.B. glad to see their Code

    10

    2

    Altogether different /opposite/ as you have seen, Sir, is the sensation produced in my mind by the view of their proposed Code. In more shapes than one their work is in my view of it of the greatest /no small/ use to me. 1. It gives me a compleat view of all that part of the field of legislation as it has place in Spain in which all the relative inaptitude that can justly be imputed to a foreigner as such has its force. 2. It enables me /puts me in a condition /in condition// in my endeavours to render my labours useful to your nation it enables me to touch with some confidence upon points I could scarcely have ventured to touch upon, and to penetrate further than I could otherwise have ventured to penetrate into the region of detail. 3 Nor can it appear wonderful to you, Sir, if out of the chagrin with which the idea of perpetuity or even long continuance as possessed by the work with which I have dealt with /so freely dealt with by me/ can not but affect me, I extract a proportionable satisfaction from the thought, that unless the bar to competition should in the event be as perpetual as in the design it appears to have been, such is the complexion of the work and the only work with which mine will have to contend,.
  • Title: [This ‘folio’ comprises two sheets pinned]
    Description: This ‘folio’ comprises two sheets pinned together, with most of the text on both sheets deleted. Mostly in Colls’s hand.

    1821. Aug 24. + B Letter 6

    J.B. to Toreno

    1 o & 2 o

    Letter 6

    Letter VI

    § 3 Conditions

    9

    5

     Add as a Condition in a Article leaving Space open to all

    Observation on any part of the law established or about to be.

    {Fixt as I am in my determination of submitting to the Spanish Nation, in so far as life

    and ability shall continue, a suite of Codes, Penal, Civil, and Constitutional, {with the reasons all along interwoven with, yet distinct from, the several proposed arrangements,} this same authoritatively proposed Code is a real treasure to me, and my satisfaction at seeing it promulgated, great and pure. In it, I shall have a view of those local circumstances for which, for want of local knowledge and experience, I could not otherwise have ventured to make provision: and, throughout, I shall have a source of appropriate information, and an object of reference and comparison.}

    {On two conditions this my satisfaction would be heightened, by seeing this same proposed Code pass {immediately} into a law: and this, even although I were assured that no such alterations as you allude to, nor any other such alterations /amendments/ as your wisdom, and that of the other friends of good government, might suggest should be made in it. For, what ever may be the imperfections of it, I can not think but that it must be a real blessing, when compared with that compound of tyrannical despotisms and anarchy which it will supersede.}

    {After what you have been seeing, Sir, you will scarcely, I imagine, be expecting to see a wish with the expression of which this long and I fear almost unendurably tedious /unwelcome/ letter /address/ hopes to conclude. Let the proposed Code pass: pass even this very Session: pass – with, or even rather than not pass, without such amendments as you yourself, and such other of the deputies as may be fortunate enough to stand superior to sinister interest and local prejudice may have to propose for it. This wish of mine has for its ground the certain following information communicated /made public/ by the Gentlemen in question, and the correctness of which I see no reason to dispute or doubt of: I mean that which speaks of the preeminent inaptitude of the mass of legislative matter which they find in force, and of which in the way of allusion (I mean), which was all that the occasion admitted of, some samples are brought to view in their preface.

    Every thing can now be said at once. The consent above intimated was not, I confess, meant to be pure and simple. Three conditions were meant to be attached to it. But I hope they will not be found unreasonable ones –

    Here insert those expressed in the first edition}

    {In these conditions you will see, (for how can I help it!) a sort of conception on my part that by possibility, the work of the Gentlemen in question may not, in the eyes of their colleagues and their constituents stand exactly at that highest degree in the scale of aptitude at which their own conception seems to have placed it: and that if at their proposition it shall happen to their composition to supersede the compositions of all their predecessors, so peradventure at some future period at the proposition of some /this or that set of/ successors of theirs it may happen to some posterior, I know not whether I may be allowed to say maturer composition to supersede theirs. The taste will, I fear not be a very easy one}

    but if by your persuasion Spanish wisdom can be reconciled to a lot /mortification/ which English practice is /[…?] is/ experiencing every day /subjected to/, you will have rendered to your country useful service.

    One of these conditions, is – that the duration given to it be but temporary. Suppose one year: suppose two years, with or without further duration to the termination of the Cortes which the one or the two years finds in existence. In England, with the benefit of English experience, this temporary duration /even where the demand is infinitely less imperative/ belongs to the A.B.C. of Legislation. {And, where the demand is infinitely less imperative, any objection to it would be regarded as rash, and affording such symptoms of self-sufficiency as would /might/ expose the objector to ridicule.}