JB_126_430.xml

Title: [7 Aug 1809. Parl. Reform Ch]

Description: 7 Aug 1809.

Parl. Reform

Ch. Necessity Hume

Humes concession

2

24

To bring the propositions /ideas in question each of them/ to a precise point.

To give correctness to the expressions, and perhaps to the ideas, some alteration /change/ will require to be made in some of the expressions: for David Hume, though a man of genius was seldom a close reasoner /had not the faculty of close reasoning/: a deficiency of which his general habit of scepticism was a consequence and a proof.

1. Amendment 1. After the word gift, add with the power of taking it away at pleasure. By power of reward howsoever arbitrary power of reward for example by appointment to lucrative offices neither absolute power nor any thing approaching to absolute power, unless power of punishment, for example by power of inaction[?] in relation to those same offices, be conjoined with it. Witness the Kings of Poland who had always good things to give and in plenty, but without power of taking them away: not to speak of patent places here with us.

2. Amendment the 2 d. Add more, or if any, yet not so much, but that the taking away of the quantity of property attached to the office / their respective offices/ would produce in their respective bosoms /respectively/ a sense of privation operating in the occasion in question in the

character of a motive with a force too great to experience on that same occasion from the motives acting on the other side any effectual resistance.

Without an amendment to this effect the supposition he makes would be a nugatory and useless one, not being altogether incapable of finding its exemplification any where. For in what possible state of things would /could/ the House of Commons now a days be composed any part of it of a set of men, each of whom on being dismissed from Office would feel his coat stripped off his back. Yes, if you go a few centuries back, viz. to the times when /back to the reign of Henry the 7 th, when/ under the name of liveries the retainers of the King or of a Baron wore uniforms and when the subsistence of many a brave gentleman depended on the overplus grass of a common for his cattle, or of the overplus meat in his Majesty's or his Lordship's kitchens, for the more immediate source of his sustenance.

JB_126_429.xml

Title: [7 Aug 1809 + Parl Reform Ch]

Description: 7 Aug 1809 +

Parl Reform

Ch. Necessity Hume

Humes Concession

1

23

What is curious is that if Hume were taken for judge the matter would be decided and that not exclusively in favour of parliamentary reform, i.e. a government without corruption that being what he himself has expressly declared against but in favour of a commonwealth, viz. in the estimation of every person in whose eyes that form of government were preferable to absolute monarchy.

But that in such a case Humes authority any more than any body elses authority ought to weigh for any thing, much less be regarded as decisive - or will be so in the judgment of any one who holds himself capable of weighing reason and forming a judgment for himself - but that those persons whose sole look out is for a shove to gain their faith again, and who in their adherence to such their opinions, begged or borrowed those opinions are, are not among the least tenacious, /tenacious - that in persons of this description it may be visible/ may on that the authority of Hume which they might /may/ have supposed to be in their favour, is in fact against them.

"Did the House of Commons" (says he) ["]depend in the same maxims on the King" (viz as the King is made dependent on the House of Commons by the power of the purse) "and had none of the members any property but from his gift, would not he command their resolutions, and be from that moment, absolute."

Thus far, David Hume: from which taking into the account, on the footing on which they have since some out, the facts relative to and probative of that dependence, it will be sufficiently clear that in his opinion, at least supposing his view of the matter confined to those facts, the King would at the moment at which I am writing be pronounced to be already absolute.

+ Essays &c [...?] p.107[?].

JB_126_420.xml

Title: [7 Aug. 1809 Parl y Reform Hume]

Description: 7 Aug. 1809

Parl y Reform

Hume

14

14

Add Origin of this notion Ballance of power as[?] in international law.

In note B. nothing is said of the quantity [...?] of the forces.

And what is it that in his view of the matter had so long kept them from it? Want of " moderation" forsooth: want of moderation, and nothing else.

"But such a moderation["] (continues he) "is not to be expected in party-men of any kind. After a concession of this nature, all declamations must be abandoned; and a calm enquiry into the proper degree of court-influence and parliamentary dependence would have been expected by the readers.["]

"And though the advantage in such a controversy might (continues he) possibly remain to the country-party, yet the victory would not be so compleat as they wish for; nor would a true patriot have given an entire loan[?] to his zeal, for fear of running matters into a contrary extreme, by diminishing too far

+ the influence of the Crown. It was therefore thought best to deny, that this extreme could ever be dangerous to the constitution, or that the Crown could ever have too little influence over the members of parliament."