date

1821 Sept. 26 B To Toreno Letter
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.
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  • 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: [1821 Sept. 26 B §.2 To Toreno]
    Description: 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.
  • Title: [1821 Sept. 26 + {B} {D} §. 4 To Toreno]
    Description: 1821 Sept. 26 + {B} {D} §. 4

    To Toreno

    2 o

    Letter VI

    § 4. Apology for prudence

    Sympathy

    1

    9

    1

    In my first Letter, Sir, I took the liberty of representing to you, how incompatible with the only justifiable end of our correspondence would be the keeping it unsubmitted to /in a state of concealment from/ the public eye. In the course of the succeeding Letters many I can not but think are the occasions on which you have seen reason to confirm this notice by your assent. Remarks thus free remarks thus /of a nature so surely/ unwelcome could you consistently with decorum could you consistently with prudence have given utterance to in the Cortes /Assembly/ or in every instance to the Gentlemen in question, even in private?

    As it is, while you are eased of so unpleasant a responsibility, the remarks with the benefit if any there be which is derivable from them, will without any such unpleasant adjunct /incident/ be reaped by the illustrious nation which it is my ambition thus to serve.