JB_129_457.xml

Title: [[129b-457] 25 April 1817 Plan]

Description: [129b-457]

25 April 1817

Plan Cat

Conclud g Note

Introd

§.18

3

I speak of the practice: /exercise:/ for as to the use of it – that is gone already. For any use they can now be of Petitions may as well be sent to Kamchatka or Botany Bay as to Honourable House. By Petitions the people of every part of the country might and /could and did/ without danger converse with every other: now all that converse is at an end.

From the Chair but t’other day a proposal of measure of economy – a grand measure of economy having for its subject the Voter, the excessive and useless voluminousness of which had become evident /manifest/ to every Honourable eye. Proposition acceded to force and from both sides of the House. Of this measure of economy what was the object let any one say that please. Behold here one of the effects. Of Petitions for reform in any shape the existence mentioned: of the lines of the purport not a syllable. Till now Petitions for reform had if received been printed at length: and at so reasonable a price as that of preserving the forms of respect & Petition for any purpose might have been made receivable. Now if to the people in the character of Petitioners what were the minds of the state of which through such a channel any useful intelligence /information/ could be obtained The mind of Honourable House: no: what that has been is and will be is abundantly known without the being declared but the minds of one another. Through that channel though still as it were in a whisper they could thus communicate one with another without much danger from the Habeas Corpus suspension, and without any danger at all from libel-law

JB_129_308.xml

Title: [8 Feb 1817 Plan Cat 2 o]

Description: 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.

132-181.xml

Title: [nd [wm 1818] + To Erskine ult]

Description: nd [wm 1818] +

To Erskine

ult o

Lett. 6. E. Anti Reformist

§ 7.5. Petitions rely on

5

3

47

6

{Had I a petition to draw /for refer/ for the people of Britain and Ireland I would drench Honourable House the beverage it insists on till its gorge rose at it /it cried mercy/: till every /each/ Honourable cheek turned pale at the real reproach seen through the extorted covering { Satis te eo quod satiste satiate yourself /surfeit yourselves/ with that poison for which alone you have any relish.} Nor would /could/ these after this declaration plain as it is, in any such perfect excess so much as “colourable could any pretence be found for that rejection pretences for which are looked out for so persevering an eagerness: since /for/ nothing hinders an address[?] pursued with one sort of affection /in one view/ /of one sort/ may be adopted and joined /signed/ in a quite different one}

For these fifty years and more, with eyes more or less comprehensive and attentive, I have looked into the {state of} laws and government in most civilized countries, in times past and present: and in no one instance have I ever descried the marks of any such well-considered as well as passionate attachment to falshood, as in this country the book of law and government displays in every page of it.

If to hate falshood is to hate the constitution, whose fault is it?

Knowing all this {falshood} – seeing all this falshood – all this falshood continually staring him in the face, up gets a man with a grave face, and thinks he is covering another with merited opprobrium when he says to him “Sir, You are an enemy to English institutions.” To any /every/ such person the answer may be – So then, Sir, You think it matter of reproach to a man to be an enemy to English institutions, but not so to be an enemy to truth /sincerity/, to justice, to good government, virtue public and private, and all those blessings that depend on it.