date

8 Feb 1817 Plan Cat 2 o
8 Feb 1817

Plan Cat

2 o

Introd

60

1

60

1 Community[?] yet the prope[?]

2. A true[?] discussion then in a close Council[?] board; the Opposition are paid for

stating objections.

In this state of things habitually corrupt as it is and treacherous , what is it

that prevents the Commons House what is it that prevents Parliament itself – from

being a nuisance a pure nuisance, the extirpation of which, were it only for economy

sake and to save the expence of hiring it, /the hire of it,/ would be a public

blessing? it is this.

1. It serves spite of itself for a sort of channel of communication between the

people of one part of the country and the people of another. This is the use and the

sole use of Petition for Parliamentary Reform: Petition the labourers of the

Corrupter General to give up their hire? to give up that power or any other share of

that power without which they could not get their hire? Petition the Aristocracy to

give up their power? their seats their Boroughs pocket /proprietary/, close and open,

all those things /the only things/ with which they have to buy their places their

pensions their ribbons their Baronetages their Peerages their advancements

/promotions/ in the Peerage. Petition first the Pope to turn Protestant: and when you

have got that precedent, then come back and beg the /this new/ self-denying Ordinance

at the hands of the Honourable House

Matter which nobody would read if it came in the form of a book or pamphlet every

body reads when in the column of a Newspaper it is presented in the character /form/

of a Speech made in the course of a Debate

2 On the part /From the mouth/ of the few by whom the privilege is shared, it serves

as a sort of asylum from the tyranny of libel law. By one means or other that

instructive and unwelcome truth may then be made public, for which if published

elsewhere a man might be made to visit the King’s Bench.
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