date

9 Oct r 1809 Parl y Reform
9 Oct r 1809

Parl y Reform

B. I. Necessity

Ch. Occasional inadequate

§.3. Burke advocates occasional

3

A curious sort of remedy it must be confessed is this which he recommends—or to

speak more properly curious the conjuncture—the only conjuncture at which he can

endure the idea of its /that this remedy of his own prescription/ being applied.

The signal for the application of it must be some particular ‘ act’: and of what description must that act be? It must be not only ‘ flagrant’ but ‘ notorious’: this flagrant

and notorious act must moreover be an ‘ innovation’: that

/this/ innovation must be a capital one: this capital

innovation must be such as shall have made it ‘ appear’, that

‘ these Representatives are going to over-leap the fences of the

law:’ and this intended over-leaping of the fences of the law must have had

for its object or its effect or both nothing less than ‘ to

introduce an arbitrary power.’

[In margin:] so it keep to its old shapes misgovernment swell to what bulk and

continue for what length of time it pleases

In the eyes of this Physician of the body politic, this remedy which with /under/

all these conditions he ventures to prescribe must be /have been/ not only a quack

remedy, but among the most dangerous and drastic of quack remedies. The patient must

be /is to be/ at death’s door, before the Physician who thus prescribes it will

endure to see it adminstered.

Be this as it may when once the proper Physician is called in, there is to be an end

of the remedy: it is not to be used in any such character as that of a diet [...?]

/it is not to be used./ It is to be used not as a succedaneum to his skill, but only

as an instrument in his hand: an instrument too which when once he is /has been/

called in, and has fairly taken his seat by the bed-side, is never more to be

employed or thought of.
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  • Title: [9 Oct r 1809 + §.3 Parl y Reform]
    Description: 9 Oct r 1809 + §.3

    Parl y Reform

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    B. I. Necessity

    Ch. Occasional inadequate

    §.3. Burke advocates occasional

    1

    §.3. Occasional, to the exclusion of constant, interposition pleased for

    /advocated/ by Burke

    Occasional interposition—(it must be confessed)—‘ interposition’ indeed, but that not more nor other than occasional—was what was

    desired and pleaded for, on the part of the people by Edmund Burke.

    ‘Indeed’ (says he +) ‘in the situation in which we stand, with an

    immense revenue, an enormous debt, mighty establishments, Government itself a great

    banker and a great merchant, I see no other way for the preservation of a decent

    attention to public interest in the Representatives, but the

    interposition of the body of the people itself’ (the words italicized here

    are italicized in the original) ‘of the body of the people itself—Yes—but when?

    {Periodically and regularly and} at {stated and} pre-appointed and foreknown

    times?—No: but on some very particular occasion or occasions, when the purpose of a

    very particular and meritorious connection of Noble Lords and Gentlemen may be

    answered by it, things being at that pitch that for giving the country the benefit of

    their services, nothing less, nothing else will serve—‘whenever’ (continues he) ‘it

    shall appear, by some flagrant and notorious act, by some capital

    innovation, that these Representatives are going to over-leap

    the fences of the law, and to introduce an arbitrary power’;—a state /juncture/ of

    things the arrival and continued existence of which the ninety-nine preceding pages

    had been employed to prove.

    + Thoughts on the causes of the present discontents. p. 100.
  • Title: [1822 Novr. 15. Tripoli. Securities against]
    Description: 1822 Novr. 15. Tripoli. Securities against Misrule. Preliminary Explanations

    Ch. Bashaws Inducements ?.2. Extra-regarding

    As to water, whether it be to be excluded by draining, or occasionally

    introduced for the purpose of irrigation, capital, to an amount more or less

    considerable, must it is evident be expended: capital, the returns for which

    will be more or less distant and uncertain.

    Now as to fences. Some animals there may be, for the sufficient exclusion of

    which, in some situations and circumstances, no very considerable expenditure of

    capital may be necessary. But in other instances the expenditure necessary for

    this purpose, even where this is the only one, may be very great.

    As to human beings, of expences sufficient for the exclusion of depredators and

    deteriorators in this shape, the amount can not, in any situation, fail of being

    very considerable. For the effectual exclusion of them, if absolutely determined

    to gain entrance, no expence, how vast soever, can, it is evident, be

    sufficient. In the making of fences in this view, a sort of calculation

    sufficiently obvious, is of course made: on the one side, is set down the

    estimated value of the damage apprehended from such intrusion, on the other

    hand, the estimated expence of such fence as will in general be sufficient:

    sufficient to overbalance the net profit looked for by an intruder after

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  • Title: [[…?] June 1811 6 Abdication]
    Description: […?] June 1811 6

    Abdication

    Corrupts […?] aims[?] at[?] an innovation

    1

    The /A/ curious circumstance is - that all this mischief - all this corruption all this idleness - is an innovation: a most rank /manifest/ and undeniable innovation. {Comparatively speaking it is but of yesterday.}

    Not that with /upon/ me, I must confess, this passes for an argument /a distinct grievance - a consideration/ worth attending to. With me the mere novelty of any evil is not of itself any addition to the mischievousness of it. If so it be that our ancestors /forefathers/ were in this or that respect or upon the whole, absolutely or comparatively speaking ill governed, not with me is this any reason why we should not be well governed, as well governed, and to the end of time as much better and better governed, as it is in our power to be.

    But so it is - and for such as to all matters of government and legislation is the state of general imbecillity and ignorance in which this system of misgovernment has succeeded in keeping the public mind - so it is, that the novelty of a remedy is received; but too extensively received as a sufficient argument for the continuance of a disease, and be it ever so good, a man dares scarce open his lips /mouth/ in favour of one /any set of/ arrangement, without coming[?] at the same time with proof, or something that is to pass for proof, that there was a time in which it actually had place, and that restoration not innovation, is the proper appellation /appellative/ for it.