date

17 Dec r 1809 Parl y Reform
17 Dec r 1809

Parl y Reform

Influence

Ch.3. Dependence - Modes

'.1. Self the possessor

5

5

10. Where the benefit in question is revocable, and that benefit in possession the /the circumstance by which it is converted[?] into an/ efficient cause of dependence is the fear of losing it.

11. By the fear of losing a revocable benefit, for example a lucrative or power-conferring office, a greater /more operative efficient/ /actually /already/ in possession/ degree of dependence is produced than by the hope of gaining the same office, coupled (as all hope must be) with the opposite fear, the fear of not acquiring /gaining/ it. For

12 When once a man has been for a certain time in possession of any such benefit with the source of income attached to it, he grounds /builds[?]/ upon it the plan of his future life: whereupon, if it happens to him to lose it, he is no longer able to move in his accustomed sphere, but is forced to descend /sink/ into a lower: whereas /an inferior one: but/ if the object of his ambition /desire/ be still but in expectancy, not having yet been attained /obtained/, in this case, although it should never happen to him to attain /obtain/ it, still no such downfall is ever felt by him: the worst that in that respect /in respect of mode of life/ happens to him is to continue as he was.
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  • Title: [17 Dec r 1809 Parl y. Reform]
    Description: 17 Dec r 1809

    Parl y. Reform

    Ch.2. Dependence

    '.3. Modes and Degrees

    12

    7

    All this while his /the/ advantage such as it is, is so only with reference to the Member of parliament /the interest/ /the party/ to whom it is proposed to place in dependence, not with reference to the higher interest, viz. that of the King, by whom and for whose benefit the agent of the people ought to be kept in that convenient and useful state. For to the Member's share as against the King falls in this case a degree - not of dependence but of comparative independence in comparison of the state in which by the acceptance of the revocable office in his own person he would be placed.

    Accordingly in any such view as that of creating dependence, to bestow any such revocable office upon the friend of a Member would never be worth the King's while, were the dependence created, and consequent obsequiousness secured by that one single and individual transaction the only benefit of the kind capable of being drawn from it. Thus[?] bestowed no greater fund /stack/ of obsequiousness is capable of being extracted from a revocable office or other benefit than would be from the same if it were an irrevocable one. But once more, be the nature of the benefit what it may, and whether by the possession /if it were in possession/ of it any dependence would or could not be created, by the expectation of it if it be good for anything dependence may always be created: and for one possessor there are expectants always by dozens and by scores: and so many of these expectants as you have, so many dependents, so many proper and loyal gentlemen, on whose obsequiousness a Gracious King may count.
  • Title: [4 Dec 1809 Ch.1. '.2 + Parl y Ref]
    Description: 4 Dec 1809 Ch.1. '.2 +

    Parl y Ref m

    Influence

    Ch.1. Explanations

    '. Dependence how produced

    1

    1

    strange[?] as fair or market

    desirable thing or object

    '. Corrupt dependence, by what means producible /how produced/.

    The instruments by which dependence is produced by which a man is placed and kept in a state of dependence are all resolvable into two {assortments viz. hopes and fears}: hope the expectation /prospect/ of good; fear the expectation /prospect/ of evil.

    Note?

    Even Hope and fear have each of them a mixture of the other: for unless the acquisition be looked upon as being at the highest degree /pitch/ of certainty, hope of gaining can not exist without some fear of not gaining intermixt with it: fear of losing, without some hope of not losing intermixed with it.

    But where the probability /chances/ of enjoyment is regarded as the greater, hope is the word employed: fear in the opposite case.

    Fear may exist without the prospect of good in any shape as in the case of suffering expected to be inflicted under the name of punishment: hope, unless preceded by fear, can not: unless preceded by fear, as in the case of punishment expected in the first instance but the expectation accompanied or followed by an /a counter/ explanation of deliverance.

    In the case of parliamentary corruption some instrument of enjoyment some object of desire - some portion of the matter of position good is commonly the instrument which in the character of an instrument of corruption and thence of corrupt dependence is employed: in this case the only fear which has place is that which has for its object a portion of the matter of positive good for its object and consists in the fear either of not gaining or of not keeping it or of not gaining it.
  • Title: [4 Dec 1809 Parl y Ref m Influence]
    Description: 4 Dec 1809

    Parl y Ref m

    Influence

    '. Dependence how produced

    2

    The object of desire - the desirable thing - may be either a thing the receivable nature of which is to be received all at once such as a sum of money once paid, or a thing the nature of which is to be received only in parcels or instalments, in respect of which the several acts of delivery and receipt delivery on one part receipt on the other are spread over a more or less considerable length of time as in the case of a pension a lucrative office the use of a house or the use occupation or profit of a portion of land.

    {As it is only either by hope or fear that dependence is created, so it is}

    In regard to the connection between corruption and dependence, so intimate is the connection between these two objects, that the difficulty /only difficulty which it admitts of/ consists not in conceiving how corruption should be productive of dependence - corrupt dependence - but how it should fail of being thus productive. But though extremely rare the case in which it is barren of dependence, and thence almost barren of evil is not altogether without example.

    As it is only by hope or fear that dependence can be created, so the only case in which, corruption being employed, dependence fails of being produced, is the case in which the receipt of the benefit is neither preceded nor followed by any hope or fear having respect /that benefit for its object/: viz. neither by the hope of receiving it, nor by the fear of not receiving it, or of losing it.