date

3 Oct r 1809 Parl y Reform
3 Oct r 1809

Parl y Reform

B. I. Necessity

Ch.19. War prevented by Reform

§.1. Popular pacific. 1. Theory

4

4

Upon the King, power operates as a penalty.

From p.3

The people have their passions, their occasional unruly /ungovernable/ and seductive

passions, sources of so many occasionally prevalent sinister interests, acting upon

them in such a direction as to be capable of plunging them into unjust and

unnecessary wars.

The people have their passions – their sinister interests: - but the King /Monarch/

has he not less?

Yes: - to all the passions /affections/ and sinister interests to the sinister

action of which the people are exposed he adds others which are peculiar to himself.

To urge /drive/ them into war the people have their dissocial their angry passions –

the passions of the irascible appetite.

But to the same temptations which act upon the irascible appetite not only as the

King /Monarch/ is not only exposed in common with the people – but in his bosom they

find a degree of susceptibility, if perpetually pampered pride be in the case of the

angry passions a source of proportionable susceptibility superior in constancy to any

thing of the sort that is commonly /naturally/ to be found in the bosom of the

people.

But Added to that interest which applies itself to the irascible appetite, the King

and the King alone, I speak of a King of England is constantly instigated to war by a

mass of interest which acting upon /belonging to/ the concupiscible appetite is

peculiar to himself in comparison with and in contradistinction to the people.

The people derive no patronage from war as the King /a King of England/ does: the

people have no plunder to pocket from wars commenced by piracy as a King of England

has: the people are not excused from contribution /contributing/ to war-taxes by any

exemption, such as the King that now is has been advised to give himself.

Back to p.3
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  • Title: [2 Oct r 1809 Parl y Reform]
    Description: 2 Oct r 1809

    Parl y Reform

    B. I. Necessity

    Ch.19. War prevented by Reform

    §.1. Popular pacific. 1. Theory

    2

    3

    3

    When the people have been instigated to war it has been by the King’s corrupt tools.

    At present and at all times as we have seen it is the interest of the King to keep

    the people in a state of war, necessary or unnecessary. War encreases his patronage,

    itself an object of value[?] to encrease his patronage is to encrease his power: his

    power of doing every thing: of corrupting the authority which ought to check

    /superintend[?]/ his: of converting those, who ought to be his supervisors into his

    instruments instruments by the use of which he scrapes into his coffers more money

    and more power: power and money befit one another and so taking money out of the

    pocket and liberty out of the breast of the subject so long as either of the one or

    the other any thing is left.

    But it is not the interest of the people to be kept /continue/ in a state of war at

    /in/ any other time /occasion/ nor for any longer time than it is necessary. To p.4

    From p.4

    By their passions the people are liable to be plunged into a war. But the King is

    prompted to keep the people plunged in war not only by his passions passions – by

    casually arising /rising/ and temporally acting but by his interests: by his by his

    constantly acting and most coolly considered interests. In this shape, as in every

    other shape, what is the King’s interest. These same interests so long as he has

    power, the King ought in reason to be supposed and expected to pursue. Take away this

    part of his power, his interest will to the purpose of mischief in this shape be

    without effect.

    To p.5.
  • Title: [1818 Aug. 28. §.4 Things as they are]
    Description: 1818 Aug. 28. §.4

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    §.4. Wars

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    §. -- unnecessary wars.

    Of so many wars as England has been engaged in the last if not the only one which could make any pretension to the epithet of necessary, were those waged against Lewis the fourteenth of France But this were anterior to the grand epoch of epochs the birth of the National Debt.

    Immediately preceding these necessary wars if such they were, behold those two wars against the Dutch, which without disguise /cloak/ or varnish exhibit war and its causes, in their genuine colours. The succeeding ones were against Lewis: these preparatory ones were with him and for him. Of these wars plunder in the one case, bribery in /the/ another were the ever[?] undisputed causes: plunder as well after the declaration of war as before declaration: for that enormous /insane and thoughtless /unlimited// transfer of the whole of the game to the gamekeepers was not as yet made: for the sake of depriving the grantees by fraud of a part of that grant which had been so madly made by law, Monarchy was not then /the Monarch had not then/ as since to engage in a course of piracy to plunder without previous declaration and with no other disguise than that afforded him by the lawyers by the phrase Droits of Admiralty, join himself to the goodly fellowship of pirates.

    When at the disposal of the Monarch, on condition of his acting the part of a pirate < > millions are to be /have been/ obtained by war, can there so long as he is a man be any need of looking a jot any further for the cause of it?
  • Title: [20 Jan y 1817 Necessity Cat]
    Description: 20 Jan y 1817

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    II. Application

    §.4. Constitution - present real state

    V. Corruptive mode of operating

    1

    1. His susceptibility. 2. he not being susceptible of any adequate restraint.

    Q. < >. V. Well. The view we have taken of the mass of the matter of corruptive influence capable of operating in that character in support of the separate and sinister interests of the Monarch and his adherents is pretty extreme, and can not it should seem be much if any thing short of being adequate. Now, as to the next[?] in which it operates or may be made to operate to /towards/ that end.

    A. It operates of itself so powerfully and effectually of itself, that to render it effectual and irresistible and sufficient for this sinister purpose, scarce is there any need of a directing hand.

    On this occasion among /of/ the classes of persons on whom it was capable of operating and is in use to operate to this end the first class to be considered if not the only class to be considered are the Members of the Houses and in particular the Members of the House of commons of the House in which the deputies real and pretended of the people have their seats: for in these are the acting powers /is a[?] whole of the self acting power/ of government: and so long as these are bent and moulded to the sinister purpose in question while they are there, it matters not by whom they are placed there.