date

1 Sep. 1809 Parl y. Reform
1 Sep. 1809

Parl y. Reform

B.II. Ex

Ch.1. Explanations

'.5 Matter of corruption its force encreased

{16}

3

Discord?

Of all the shapes in which it is possible for the matter of corruption to present itself by far the most pernicious, by far the best adapted to the /every/ purpose of corruption is that of a sine-cure office.

1. In respect of the amount of the emolument annext to it, it is capable of swilling[?] to any degree of excess.

2. It involves on the part both of the donor and donee the vice of mendacity and fraud: the profit of it being so much money which in so many eyes washes out all claims, it would stain the character of both.

3. The quantum of it depending on events[?] altogether unconnected with meritorious service, it is altogether /radically/ incapable of being applied with propriety in the character of a reward for meritorious service.

In so far as the King has a particular interest of his own {separate from and} opposite to that of the /his/ people, it is his interest that the public mind, the mind of the people should both as to /in respect of/ the moral and the intellectual part of it, should be in a state as corrupt or debased and weak as possible: of the leading few /of the mind of the few who had the moral part, that they may be the better disposed to join with him in acting the part of the deceiver /deceivers/: of the mind of the many who are led, that they may be deceived and kept in a constant and perpetual state of delusion with the greatest security and ease.

Every institution and every practice by which the vice /disposition/ of mendacity can be cultivated and promoted and rooted in the breasts of his subjects of all classes, mendacity, the handmaid of all other vices and the instrument of all crimes, is in this way in a pernicious degree subservient to the King's {sinister &} /particular and/ separate interest.
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    Of all those masses of the matter of corruption which considered as being in the hands and to the use of the donee are in the shape of /constitute/ the matter of wealth, considered as in the hands and to the use of the Donor are in the shape of /constitute/ the matter of power, sinecures of the ecclesiastical cast, money /sum for sum/ constitute the with reference to the particular and sinister interest of the king the most valuable and useful ones. They couch[?] to them the valuable properties of the {office and the instrument the} sine-cure and the test.

    On the part of him who accepts a sinecure the mendacity is but implied and as it were constructive: on the part of him who for a benefice or the prospect of a benefice has swallowed one of these lists, the mendacity or the imbecillity, or both (because /since/ both may have place at different times) are express, avowed and recorded.

    The first day of a man's servitude (says Homer speaking of domestic slavery) is in his mind the last day of every manly virtue: the servitude in question being directly only that of the body, of the mind indirect only even through the incidence of the body, the observation of the sage confines itself to half the stock of each such virtue: in the case of a test, the servitude being directly that of the mind, that of the body being out of the question /the body having nothing to do with it/, had it been known to Homer what a test was he could not thus have halved the matter, he would have considered /spoken of/ the whole as gone.

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    The stronger the intellectual part of a man's frame is, the better able he is to discern the distinction between the King's social his public his common interest and his self-regarding, his separate his sinister interest: and to conceive and understand what lines of conduct are more /in a greater degree/ more subservient to the one interest, what others to the other.

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    So enormous is become the body of those dependents whose sinister[?] interests are

    connected with and dependent on /united to/ the sinister interest of the King, that

    the voice of this part of the people alone is become capable of raising itself to

    such a pitch as to be scarcely distinguishable from that of the whole. So numerous is

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    factitious necessity which under good /prudent and able/ management would not have

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    conduct of public affairs under the British Monarchy. So prodigious /vast/ is the

    proportion of the peoples property drawn from them by /in the way of/ taxes, that in

    the character of a corruption fund, an engine of corruption, that what with need

    produced by the impoverishment on the one hand, what with ways and means accumulated

    on the other, the force of corruption is almost universally irresistible. Of the

    money thus taken from the whole body of the people from the people in a body, a part

    serves for the corruption and enslavement /corrupting the virtue/ of a majority of

    their lenders: so that /and the result/ in looking round among the people the

    difficulty is to find a man of any account who is not in some way or other dependent,

    who is not under the influence of a separate interest more powerful than his social

    interest and under the influence of this sinister interest ready at all times and

    upon all occasions to sacrifice to that interest which he possesses in severalty

    whatever interest he possesses in common with the people body of the people.