date

1820 Feb. 19 Radicalism not dangerous
1820 Feb. 19

Radicalism not dangerous

III. Experience

II. Ireland

Radicalism its origin

Factitious dignity

2

2

2

16

5

A man who to the desire should regard himself as adding the faculty of giving to an institution of the sort in question the colour of a define[?] &c

Nay but says somebody factitious dignity in all its branches is not more than is requisite for operating in the character /way/ of reward and thereby giving bulk to merit in all its shapes and in particular to meritorious public service in all its shapes.

Answers

1. It is not necessary to any such purpose. In relation to every such purpose it is needless.

2. It is therefore at best but so much of the matter of good expended in waste.

3. In[?] Taking meritorious public service in the aggregate, all tendency of it is rather to prevent /exclude/ them to give encrease to any such public service See above

4. It was not for any such purpose that it was instituted. This was not the end /purpose or among the purposes/ for the attainment of which it was instituted. It was instituted for other ends. Being so instituted, a use a use beneficial to the public was required to be found for it by those whose task it is to prove /by whom the acceptable task has been undertaken of proving/ that whatever is is right, that what is and what ought to be are throughout /all over/ the whole field of government the same thing.

5. All meritorious service /public virtue/ to a certain /may to a considerable and in general a sufficient/ degree its own may in a short way of speaking be […?] its own reward: to operate as such all that it requires is to be made known - to be made known /as bare[?]/ exactly for what it is. In this way, and generally speaking, in this way alone, may /can/ the authority of government be employed to good effect. In this way the nature of the service may be particularized and explained with the utmost accuracy and particularity: and the greater the degree of particularity the more exactly appropriate apposite and congruous will the natural reward which in this way will attach itself as it were of itself to the meritorious service.
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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

    17

    6

    This nice discrimination all this nicety of discrimination factitious dignity supposing it ever to have any such object as the production of meritorious service necessarily confounds and puts out of sight. So many Knights of the Garter, so many Knights of the Bath, so many Knights of the Thistle, so many Knights of S t Patrick so many simple Knights /Knights Bachelors/ so many Baronets, suppose all these men to have rendered to the country in some shape or other meritorious public service, how in any one instance can you perceive or so much as discover in what degree or in what shape the service has been rendered?

    Meritorious public service - factitious dignity - is it possible without extreme violence even for so short a time and for the purpose of the argument to bring the mind to conceive[?] /keep forced into the mind the conception/ of any tendency on their part to take up their abode in the same subject receptacle?

    Personal favour or money - look at /open the book of/ history in these two causes you will behold the original and only ordinary[?] sources of distinction in that shape.

    Look in the first place to the order of the garter. A /As a/ token of the place occupied by the wearer in the private affections of the Monarch - in this character and no other, as every body may see, was it conferred.

    As to the others one and all they are but so many copies inferior copies of the /that/ same original.

    In one thing they all agree and that is a […?] with the person.

    One lot of factitious dignity there is which is hereditary which in imitation of that composed of independent /irresponsible/ power and factitious dignity called a peerage is capable of continuing for ever in the same family descending to the eldest and nearest male of the last possessor. Of this institution what is the purpose? Giving encrease to meritorious public service? No such thing. What then? Giving encrease to the wasteful and selfish expenditure of the Monarch in pursuit of his own individual pleasures. It was sold by him to who ever would pay the price for it; sold, and the produce of it poured into that tub of the Danaides his privy purse.
  • Title: [{Nov r 3 1817.} Government at 70]
    Description: {Nov r 3 1817.}

    Government at 70

    Government

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    1

    1

    When a factitious dignity is conferred a draft is drawn upon the public for a certain portion of respect to be paid to the person or persons on whom it is conferred.

    Under monarchies in general and the english monarchy in particular the person by whom drafts of this kind to the greatest amount are drawn is the monarch.

    Like all other practises that have place in the business of government this is kept up because it has been kept up: as to the question of public utility the uselessness of the practise is either never thought of, or taken for granted.

    Upon examination /scrutiny/ made of this practise on the ground of public utility the result is - that it is on no account useful and on several accounts pernicious.

    If on being questioned any endeavour is used to justify and defend it on the ground of public utility it will be under the notion of its being conducive to the production of meritorious public service: service from which the quantity of happiness in the whole community taken together receives increase. The result of the scrutiny is that in several ways this quantity that experiences diminution and in none increase.

    To be bestowed with a view to the production of meritorious public service is to be bestowed in the way of reward. The aggregate mass of factitious dignities forms accordingly one component part of that mass of the matter of reward which in this country is in the hands and actual disposal of y e Monarch

    One non hereditary two hereditary: both naturally mis-applied: hereditary would be wasteful if well-applied.
  • Title: [21 Jan y 1817 Necessity Cat]
    Description: 21 Jan y 1817

    Necessity Cat

    {II Application} /I Theory/

    14

    Q. < > Well but still you have not told me how it is that in the sort of hands in question remuneration in the shape in question viz factitious dignity presents in its nature likely in any degree to be preventive of extra meritorious public service?

    A. Fear not: your request /desire/ has not been forgotten. For extra-meritorious service rendered to the public you will allow /admitt I presume/ without much difficulty that natural reward is not altogether wanting?

    Q. < > By natural reward you mean doubtless that esteem and respect which at the hands of the public soever extraordinary in kind or degree rendered to the public at large can scarcely fail to receive?

    A. Of course I do: and this will in general, in so far as the service is known to the public, what at the most trifling expence it may in all cases be, will, run in tolerably /pretty/ exact /correct/ proportion to the magnitude of the service: and if not in every instance in the correct proportion, the public being composed of human beings and therefore to misconception and misjudgment yet in a proportion much more likely to be correct than if administered by a hand so much exposed to the misguidance of sinister interest as the Monarch or any of those who on this behalf are employed to act in his name.