date

1820 Feb. 17 Radicalism not dangerous
1820 Feb. 17

Radicalism not dangerous

III. Experience

II. Ireland

Radicalism origin of

8

Meantime not a day passes but if peradventure he can find case for such a collection of seconds[?] not a day passes but in that Liturgy /form of prayer/ what has been established by Act of Parliament he stands assured /learns as /receives for/ an unquestionable/ that the Monarch, whatsoever by his known view whatsoever his known contempt for religion is that Charles the second for example was - not only the most gracious but the most religious of all men as well as of all kings.

Presently after, scarce has he commenced his Blackstone when he receives as another uncontradicted truth that such are the attributes belonging to the same most religious King, that it is almost a condescension in this earthly sovereign to be a religious one as towards the heavenly one that his place in the hierarchy is above that of any heathen God, and rather higher than a little lower than that of the Angels and other heavenly Ministers of grace by whom he is defended, and it is after having been duly impregnated with this half-profane half-sacred lore[?] that in his future character of Country Magistrate he prepares himself for sacrificing on the newly erected political those demagogues /turbulent spirits/ who fondly[?] regarding free discussion unbribed and coerced discussion as a necessary instrument for the discovery of important truths have by questioning any thing of that which they have been /being unable to understand they are/ commanded to believe /by controverting any thing of that which men are so richly paid for professing to believe/ placed themselves in the predicament of blasphemers.

[Marginal insertion:] in so many of them is he a sharer[?] with the triune {and} only God that it is almost a question whether that is the only God.
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  • Title: [1820 Feb. 19 Radicalism not dangerous]
    Description: 1820 Feb. 19

    Radicalism not dangerous

    III Experience

    II Ireland

    Radicalism - its origin?

    Factitious dignity

    King and President

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    Look here to the King /Monarch/ of Great Britain and Ireland! Look there to the President of the United States! Say then, which of the two is likely to be best disposed to do his utmost towards the bettering the condition of the people.

    Look first to the Monarch: to the omnipresent all benevolent all-beneficent omnipresent impeccable all perfect immortal all powerful, irresponsible arbiter of our destiny, the fountain of all honour and all justice. + This political Emmanuel - this God with us - this factitious English God so much nearer to the true God than ever Greek or Roman God was, this idols of flesh and blood who made him? by whom is it that he was made? by whom but by yourselves. By your obedience you make his power - by your tongues and pens saying to him Lord most gracious most religious most excellent majesty and so forth you make his factitious dignity: by your money while /by that money for the many of which/ so many are starving you give to that factitious dignity the support that is said to be so necessary to it. And wherefore /for what/ is it that you do so? for fear of being embowelled or hanged, or banished, or imprisoned or fined or seeing your houses gutted, or being shot or cut to pieces. But for those motives /inducements/ motive of this complexion and this force, how long would that prostration that prostration of will at least if not of understanding last, that prostration which is necessary to so much /all this/ obedience /obsequiousness/ on the one part to so much /all this/ power and dignity on the other. To you the question is addressed: but it is so only for forms sake. The answer is given by other hands, it is given in by the Vote for the eleven thousand additional wielders of those musquets and sabres without which by the declaration of Blackstone’s earthly God he would not be secure in the throne which under the terror of these visitations your hands have /never cease[?] to/ built for him:

    +  Refer to and perhaps quote Blackstone.
  • Title: [1820 Feb. 19 Radicalism not dangerous]
    Description: 1820 Feb. 19

    Radicalism not dangerous

    III. Experience

    II. Ireland

    Radicalism - its origin

    Factitious dignity

    20

    9

    This immense mass of the instruments of felicity thus poured into his coffers is it so much as professed /pretended/, that it has for its object the rendering him any better than he would be without it? No: this is not so much as pretended. He is, even without it he is already as good as any man can be: better than any other man be who is not thus pampered: to render him such his power, his power is of itself sufficient: what the money is of use for what the money is necessary for is to cause him to be deemed to be - deemed to be by the people in general - by the people who are thus […?] to pamper him deemed to be as good as he really is: or at any deemed to be as near to that mark as by such means they can be brought to believe him to be.

    Oh silly people! such of you as really are thus deluded how long will you suffer yourselves to be thus deluded? /so to be?/

    It has been proved - proved beyond all power of contestation - that by every particle of the matter with which he is thus pampered a man /man/ in that situation is rendered so much the worse. Yet in the making this application of the money, the object is - to produce and keep up in your minds the pernicion[?] that by every particle of it he is either rendered so much the better, or at any rate rendered the more able being already so fearfully[?] working to render your condition better than it would be otherwise. Such is the object: and alas! such has hitherto been the effect.
  • Title: [1820 Feb. 17 Radicalism not dangerous]
    Description: 1820 Feb. 17

    Radicalism not dangerous

    III. Experience

    II. Ireland

    Radicalism origin of

    * 7

    If sincerity be a branch of moral worth and good sense a branch of intellectual worth, only at the expence of intellectual and moral worth on the part of the people in their character of subject can either /regard either to/ Monarchy or aristocracy have place.

    In a Monarch according to the truth of things the Monarch is not morally[?] no better /no better a character/ than the day labourer but almost to a certainty a much less good - and in truth a positively bad one. Yet in a Monarchy what is the universal talk and even the almost universal notion? This notion does a man really embrace it? it is at the expence of his good sense, in so far as he embraces it, his good sense leaves him. The notion really entertained by him in relation to it does it fall short in any degree of that which is presented by his discourse? in proportion to the deficiency his sincerity leaves him. A peoples Monarchy can not have existence. Be the nation what it will so long as it has any such characters in it as a Monarch it is a nation composed /it is composed/ - composed though in infinitely diversified and unascertainable proportions it is a nation of dupes and sycophants.

    The youth whose object is in Gods own good time to sell himself /his services/ at as dear a rate as he can, in the first place to the malefactor or the prosecutor /injurer or the injured/ which comes first /whichever is first to have been/ then to the Monarch and his Ministers - the high bred University youth reads Tacitus {with or without his tutor} because of his own accord filled with contempt by the servility of a Roman […?] to a Roman Emperor, and with horror unless his Tutor has been neglectful, at the blasphemy of those /the miscreants/ by whom he was raised to the dignity of the Godhead to be a rival of the triune and only God.