date

1818. Sept. 6. Things as they are
1818. Sept. 6.

Things as they are

§. Best why last

2

In the course of this contest, the party which within the arch of the confederacy feels /finds/ itself weakest, will ever and anon by the sense of this weakness be led to look for support from without: a sort of appeal may thus come to be made to the body of the people. But vain would /will/ be the hope of gaining support from the people unaccompanied unless more or less is done towards giving satisfaction to the people. Hence[?] this same mitigation may arise to the rigour with which of course the power would otherwise be exercised.

Without contention, […?] was concluded by war and conquest anarchy can never have been converted /made to give way /place// into Monarchy. This Monarchy is at first the power exercised by a /an irresponsible/ Captain General over the army /Commander over Soldiers/ under his command. While /So long/ as the army is in the field in the presence of an enemy the necessity of an obedience /obsequiousness/ without reserve, of an authority without limitation is presently felt: all bodies of men in which an arrangement thus simple has failed of taking place must have mouldered away before they have ripened into Monarchies. The warfare, and the land the most substantial and durable fruit of it divided, the members of the embattled lust was of course dispersed, each subordinate chieftain settling with his followers upon the spot which fell to his share. By mere dispersion the habit of constant and universal obedience to one and the same chief, was now of necessity made to cease. In an age of letters /of printing/ such as the present, local distance be it ever so wide is no bar to dependence: to universal habitual, constant and ever continued dependence. A prosperous[?] soldier was the first of Kings.

Le premier qui fut Roi fut un soldat heureux, says the French Poet: instructive truth could not be better expressed in words.
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  • Title: [1818 Sept. 6. Things as they are]
    Description: 1818 Sept. 6.

    Things as they are

    Best why last

    4

    Hence those quarrels and that almost constant state of contention between the Monarch supported by such of his Barons as adhered to him on the one part, and such others of his Barons {whom a common interest opposite to his, engaged in a state of hostility against /as towards/ him and a sense of common weakness bound together in a state of amity and confederacy with /as towards/ one another.}

    So long as the conquering army continued in the field here, as already observed was pure monarchy. When along with peace dispersion /separation/ and mutual distance took place the particular and local despots yielding to a greater or less amount and with more or less regularity tokens of allegiance and eventual return of absolute obedience to the universal despot, here was a Monarchy, with an Aristocracy under it: the power of the Monarchy having no effective hands but those which were set to it by the power of the aristocracy: by the cluster of local despotisms /monarchies/ respectively exercised by its members.

    In the course of the contest had the Monarch lost his life, his posterity at the same time failing or means of commanding adequate attention being wanting to them, Monarchy would have been at an end, and pure Aristocracy would have taken its place /succeeded to it/. /As it happens/ No such state of things however ever took place.
  • Title: [1818 Aug. 25 Things as they are: or]
    Description: 1818 Aug. 25

    Things as they are: or First lines &c.

    §.2. Misrule 2. Effects

    2

    9

    2

    4. Money being one object of desire and thence of competition and contention, to all, can not in any large quantity be either obtained or preserved for use, but by means of power. Money is a real being: power is but a fictitious one: but in this as in so many other instruments for the purposes of discourse it is necessary to speak of a fictitious being as if it were a real one.

    5. By the same universal and unchangeable desire by which a Monarch is engaged to be continually upon the endeavour /occasion/ to get and except in so far as the parting with it is /appears/ necessary to procure happiness to retain as much money as he can, he is engaged to be in like manner upon the […?] to keep and to get as much power as he can.

    7. In the hands of every government the grand instrument of power is a standing /permanent/ army. On the part of the people at large by the disposition to obsequiousness ever so moderate and well established, the occasions for manifesting it are comparatively but few, and consequently the existence of it proportionally precarious /uncertain/, and to the possessor of the corresponding power unknown and not to be depended upon. Moreover to obey /for paying apt obedience to/ those commands by which power is most effectually exercised requires not inclination merely, but likewise skill and that a sort and degree of skill not to be acquired but by long and uninterrupted practice: in a standing army and that alone {all} these requisites are combined.

    In every Monarchy therefore an other main and constant aim of the Monarch is to have at his command /obtain and keep on foot/ as large a standing army as possible.

    Money can not be employed without being in a large proportion parted with: power may be and is employed without being in any proportion parted with.
  • Title: [1818 Aug. 27 §.4 Things as they are]
    Description: 1818 Aug. 27 §.4

    Things as they are or First lines &c.

    §.4. Instruments in Mixt Monarchy - 1. Force. 2. Corruption

    1

    §.4. Instruments of Misrule in a Mixt Monarchy - 1. Military force. 2. Corruption.

    In a mixt Monarchy, such as is the English, if from the beginning there were force enough as much as in a pure monarchy of the same extent, population and opulence there would be no need of any other instrument. But in a mixt Monarchy there is not to the sinister purpose in question any such sufficiency of military force: some other instrument is therefore in this case necessary.

    Of a mixt Monarchy such as the English, the characteristic is that there exists a body of men, chosen some of them at least by the great body of the people without whose concurrence the Monarch can not act. In none of these shapes then in which misrule is profitable to him can he give effect to it without their concurrence. But this concurrence is not to be obtained on any other terms /conditions/ but /than/ that of letting them into a share of the sinister profit. In so far as this /an/ arrangement of this sort has place, corruption has place: the Monarch is the corruptor: the /these treacherous /unfaithful// representatives of the people, the persons corrupted.