date

24 Jan y 1810 Parl y. Reform
24 Jan y 1810

Parl y. Reform

Ch.15. Electors bribe

'.2. Mischief to Electors mind

1

'.2. Mischief to the mind of the bribed Elector.

The less a mischief really is, the less it is likely to be {- not to say sure to be -} in the eyes of any person exercised in the production of it.

Even When the votes necessary to the filling of a seat are all sold in the lump by the patron of the borough, even in that case /wholesale way of dealing/, unless the existing system of parliamentary representation be to such a degree bad, as to be fit for nothing but to be subverted, this way /mode/ of filling a seat, so far from being attended with any superior mischief is, for the reasons that have been given, less pernicious than the gratuitous[?] made: and if the system be bad, still this mode of filling a seat is of all modes of filling it but that which in case of the subversion of the system would be the universal one the least bad.

As /Seeing thus in the existing state of things/ I should not myself think that I myself was doing any thing bad, or that I need be ashamed of if wanting a seat and having money I bought a seat of the individual who had one to sell, or having a seat and wanting money I sold my seat to any man /a customer/ who wanted to buy one, so I should not expect to find that in the like case any such self condemnation in the breast of any one else /another bosom/.
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    Ch.15. Electors bribed

    '.2.

    2

    But the conscience of the patron of the borough by whom the whole number of necessary votes is sold in the lump might be pinched with serious /considerably painful/ spasms and yet that /the conscience/ of the Elector who sells no more than his one vote out of some hundreds or even thousands scarce experience the value of a flea-bite: the mischief, if there were any that is done by the sale of the single vote being no more than a fraction of the mischief done by the sale of the whole number of the votes: and as between flea and flea supposing the intensity of the pain /twinge/ produced by the bite to be as the magnitude of the flea, and supposing the magnitude of a full grown flea to be to that of a chicken flea just out of the egg as 10 to 1, then the twinge experienced by the Elector /the conscience of Elector A/ who sells his vote that vote being one out of 200 will be to the twinge experienced by the conscience of Elector B who sells his vote, that vote being but one out of 2000, as the twinge produced by the bite of the adult flea is to the twinge produced by that of the infant one.

    Note (a) to preceding page

    (a) A man who is thus frank with his confessions may be excused, if he protests against their being understood to go further than he intended.

    What I do not pretend to say is but that my conscience could be in a state very distant from tranquillity, if by the sacrifice of half my means of subsistence (not to pursue the process of self-examination any further) it were /having it/ in my power to purchase seats enough /in number sufficient/ to put an end to the practice of filling seats by legitimate rights of influence, virtuous[?] any generous[?] motives of friendship, and dry and sordid gain together, I were to leave the opportunity unimproved.

    My plan would then be - and that not in the way of justification /nor that a justification but an excuse/. Being grown old I am grown cold and selfish: and shall furnish my old age with the same feelings as those with which the most brilliant wits of the present generation are by their own early and habitual avowals known to have commenced their youth.
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    Suppose an open borough, number of the majority 2000: each of them having received, (as in a particular instance actually in view) half a guinea from the successful candidate, Number of improper votes given by this corrupting /bribing/ Member during his continuance in the seat over and above what a non-bribing Member would have given in the same time (not that any determinate reason can be given why any such should have taken place +) say 100. These being the numbers putting as the lawyers say into hotchpot viz for the purpose of taking an average the mischief committed or rather contributed to by these hundred improper votes here then we have for the quantity of mischief produced by the Electoral vote of each one of these bribed Electors one twentieth part of the mischief produced by - one twentieth part of the mischievousness of any one of those parliamentary votes given by the Member by whom they were bribed.

    Here then we have a formula, in and by which what seems a plain and proper mode of making an estimate of the mischief which may with propriety be charged to the account of parliamentary corruption in the different seats /stations/ and shapes of which it is susceptible. To a professor of the mathematics /mathematician/, should it happen to these pages to ration[?] any such scientific person to the number of their readers, if he finds any convenience in the transformation, change the figures into letters of the alphabet, interposing such lines and sub signs as the case requires.

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  • Title: [24[?] Jan y. 1810 Parl y Reform]
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    Ch.10 Seat Buying

    '.6. Mischief in[?] buyers mind

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    Seat-buying - Buyers & Seller mind distinguish between Purchase of /from/ Electors, & d o from a Patron, selling his influence over them.

    '.6. Mischief to the seller's mind {of the seller} {of the seat.}

    Of the sort of person by whom this part in the transaction is borne, the situation admitts of two modifications. It may be that the situation of the Elector, viz that of the person /the situation occupied by the several persons/ by whose votes the Member is placed in his seat, as it may be that of patron of the seat, as above, by whose influence over the Electors the business /purpose/ is effected.

    If it be the situation of an Elector it belongs not to the present head: it will be spoken to a little further on.

    If it be that of a single person /individual/, who, in the character of patron of the seat, takes upon him to dispose of the benefit in the shape of power which no matter how, he finds to be at his disposal /command/, and to receive in return for it, and to his own use a benefit in the shape of money, the condition of his mind /his condition in respect of the [...?] made[?]/ is the same with that of the patron in the 2 d case, the patron by whom the seat is given /bestowed gratis/, nearly[?], to wit with no other differences than that which is constituted by the circumstance of his receiving in a pecuniary shape in return for such his service, a retribution which in that other case he either does not receive in any shape, or which, if in any he receives in some non-pecuniary shape.