date

1823. Feb. 22 Greece J.B. to Greek
1823. Feb. 22

Greece J.B. to Greek Legislators

You are not afflicted by the plague of spurious representatives: hundreds chosen by the thousands /nominate by their own creatures and dependents/ to plunder and oppress the millions. You have none of these bloodsuckers, these unpunishable malefactors stigmatized and abhorred under the name of Borough©monger by all who are not their accomplices

Stationed on this eminence with the citizens of the Anglo©American United States on your side you will look down upon all these other nations, but with the best©deserved scorn and contempt upon England and upon France

In your struggle to free yourselves from the yoke of your Mahometan oppressors, you have no Monarchs, no Nobles, no Priests, nor retainers of Monarchs, Nobles or Priests to join with the arch©tyrants and do their utmost to preserve /keep/ if that can not be to restore /reestablish/ the tyranny /[...?] it on your necks/. Your delegates /newly appointed Agents/ have therefore neither reason nor pretext for screening their malpractices in any shape from censure, by restraints on the liberty of public discussion and of the press. From imputations false in fact, as in the station of a private citizen so in the situation of a public functionary in any department and any grade protection will be given to reputation by the hand of law: for damage in any assignable and specific shape compensation will be awarded if produced by rashness, and /to which/ if by wilful falshood appropriate punishment will be added. But as in the Anglo©American United States so with you every man by whom any such imputation has been cast will be admitted to prove the truth of it: and since /considering that/ mischief capable of being done by functionaries is great in proportion to the power of which they are possessors or partakers while defence against unjust imputation is in a correspondent degree easier, more indulgence will be shewn by you to ungrounded imputations upon public functionaries /men/ than by the like upon private Citizens. Legislators! the stronger the protection a man has from any other source whatever, the less not the greater is the need he has of that which is afforded by the hand of law.
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  • Title: [1823. Feb. 22 Greece J.B. to Greek Legislators]
    Description: 1823. Feb. 22 Greece J.B. to Greek Legislators

    You have not for your affliction any such unpunishable Depredator General

    Oppressor General, Corrupter General, Deluder©General God upon earth as that to

    which we [...?] under by the name of Monarch as in Germany, Italy, Russia,

    France Denmark the Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, Portugal and England [...?] in

    this liberty /Standing on this pinnacle/ you may look down with pity

    You have no Aristocratical cast of men to deal by you as the Helots were dealt

    with by the Spartans /hacedaemons[?] /Your Spartan [...?]/: [...?] who for the

    tyranny they suffer /experience/ at the hands of the despot make themselves

    /find a compensation/ in that which they join in /concurr with him/ in

    exercising over their fellow slaves

    You are not inflicted with the plague of priests. For though a class of men who

    under that name pretend to that knowledge of the Almighty which it is not given

    to man to possess, yet you know them too well to suffer them to tyrannize over

    you: and ere long you will learn from the example of the Anglo©American United

    States that an established priesthood paid at public expence by forced

    contributions are no more necessary to the maintenance of piety than useful to

    the maintenance of morality: and as for the body so for the soul, to those who

    think they have need of a physician you will leave the care of choosing one for

    themselves Relieving your fellow citizens from all burthens imposed on them on

    this pretence, youwill not forget what is /the protection/ due to actual

    possession, nor suppose that possession derived by priests /from priests/ is

    less entitled to protection, than if it were derived by some fore fathers

    Standing on this /From this other/ eminence likewise you may look down upon all

    those other nations whom I have brought under your review
  • Title: [1823. Feb¼y 22 Greece. J.B. to Greek]
    Description: 1823. Feb¼y 22

    Greece. J.B. to Greek Legislators

    Trials 1. Cupidity. 2. Revenge

    Appetite for 1. money. 2. power 3 Revenge

    1. Cupidity for Office

    Cupidity [...?] out to your grasp needless offices, useless offices overpay of needful and useful ones and to ones called sinecures: revenge the ruin of all who by appeals to the people your constituents shall presume to call in question your faultless excellence © that faultless and matchless excellence, which men in your situation have no where failed to arrogate to themselves. If, under these temptations, if you sink, you will fall with others; if you stand firm, you will stand alone. To prove their fitness for command men have been seen in various countries subjecting themselves to the bodily torture none who could revenge themselves have as yet endured patiently that torture which by obloquy, always the severer the more merited, especially if merited is inflicted on the mind.

    Legislators! the occupier of every office /place/ which is over and above those which are /is not/ absolutely needful as well as are useful, is a public robber: so is the receiver of whatever emolument /pay / is over and above that which is needful, in every needful and useful place. Every occupant of a sinecure Office is moreover a swindler: receiver of money extorted from the people on a pretence altogether false.

    When I say to you, endure with patience whatever obloquy is cast upon you © treat with nothing but silent contempt any appellatives of vague reproach © defend yourselves against specific imputations defend yourselves with no other arms than counterargument and disproof, I call not upon you for any thing more than what for these á³á á³á years does been done by others in your place © I speak of the /all/ constituted authorities in the Anglo©American United States.
  • Title: [1823 Feb. 21 Greece. J.B. to Greek]
    Description: 1823 Feb. 21

    Greece. J.B. to Greek Legislators

    J.B. to Greek Legislators

    Regeneration

    Legislators of Greece

    You enter upon your career under the most favorable auspices /auspicious circumstances/. Nothing to match them is to be found in history; Nothing to match them is to be found in present times. Obstacles which in other nations set up a bar to good government, and that bar an insuperable one, have no place in yours /your case/ You are not cursed with Kings You are not cursed with Nobles Yor minds are not tyrannized by /under the tyranny/ Priests. Your minds are not under the tyranny of Lawyers

    Legislators! It is now more than five and fifty years since he now addresses you first devoted himself to the service of mankind. He has served faithfully: he has toiled hard: he has suffered something /had his sufferings/ and he has not gone unrewarded! He complains of no man. he is contented with his lot © he has no complaint to make. The [...?] is never out of his sight: [...?] his cheerfulness [...?] diminished by it.

    The sort of attention which on pain of not serving /in his endeavour to serve/ you, he must call for at your hands, others in your place in place correspondent to yours, have given to him before

    In whose /Never/ is the day labourer, never is the helpless pauper an object of contempt to me: I can not say the same thing of the purse proud noble /aristocrat/ I can not say the same thing of the ancestry©proud noble /aristocrat/: I can not say the same thing of the official bloodsucker: I can not say the same thing of the man loaded /covered/ with the tokens of factitious honor least of all can I say the same of the /a/ Kings. When a Monarch has thought to enslave /corrupt/ me and delude me, to degrade me to a level with the Castlereaghs the Metternichs the Hardenbergs and the Gentzs, you may see at any time what he has got by it