date

[clxii. 70] 1820 May 13 Emancipation
[clxii. 70]

1820 May 13

Emancipation Spanish

' 6. Rulers arguments

Virtues no security

Rulers continually cry Utopia! they fundatum /radically/ Utopians.

' 6,7. Rulers arguments continued - By no virtues that have been or can have been displayed is any security afforded against the compleat abuse of such power. These virtues good reason for trusting them with the maintenance of power over Spain: none for do. over Colonies.

In regard to these same virtues - all such of them as have manifested themselves - by no man can they be regarded with a sincerer pleasure than that with which they have been and continue to be regarded by me.

But by no virtues that have been manifested by them or any of them - even had the same virtues been manifested in the highest degree by all of them - is it rendered in any degree the more probable, that for the sake of the profit obtainable as above to themselves - whether individually or collectively taken they would not be at all times ready to subject the whole Spanish nation collectively, to loss to any amount, in the shapes above indicated, or any others, their own share in it being included as it could not but be.

Let us see what the virtues are that have been manifested, and what the persons by whom they have manifested and what the virtues that have respectively been manifested.

The persons of the ruling class by whom virtues have been manifested are 1. in the first place the army officers. 2. in the next place, members of the non-military part of the government, administration[?] department and legislature taken together.

1. As to the Army officers, the virtue most conspicuous and most transcendent is courage. In the ordinary state /case/ of military service, it is only from one source that military men expose themselves to danger of death and wounds and death namely that of ordinary military warfare: in the case in question in addition to danger from that source a danger which would only be occasional and temporary, they exposed themselves to death and /with/ pecuniary loss to their relatuives at the hands of a despotic government which on failure of the insurrection would have continued in encreased wrath as well as encreased power.
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    '9 Rulers arguments

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    Against the danger from corruption, you have for security the virtues of your deliverers. These virtues will accordingly be made the most of. I dispute not the existence of these virtues: I contemplate them with admiration, and with a pleasure with pleasure as sincere as beauty in any shape was ever contemplated by human eye. But against any such danger as that in question I can not behold in them any the least chance of security if now so long as they continue to seek to retain that dominion which it is the object of the address to persuade all parties to join in the remuneration of.

    The virtues of your deliverers are the virtues of our Whigs. I mean of our Whigs of 1688. You can find no reason to rate them much higher: it is impossible they /these or any man/ can stand[?] their[?] bridle[?] higher if you believe these namesakes of the present day these namesakes who because they have assumed the name, and a pair of them have in their view the blood, take credit for their virtues.

    In speaking of your deliverers I will name no names, I have no need of names, names are of no use to me. All I know of them all I want to know of them is they are men, and men in certain universally known situations. This is quite enough to make me to know that whatever /to any/ virtues which it is possible for them to possess it is not possible in the case in question to afford any tolerably trustworthy security.
  • Title: [[clxii. 51] 1820 June 12th]
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    ' 6. Rulers arguments

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    With reference to the matter in question, be the virtues of those rulers what they may, with reference to the matter in question the only use they can be of is the guarding the people against evil: against the evil in question, namely needless and excessive and endless taxation and the corruption of the peoples representatives, and thence the destruction of all the good which the constitution promises. But /Now/ if by direct evidence it is manifest that individually the evil of excessive taxation would have place, of what effect towards the destroying the conclusion indicated could any persuasion of the existence of all these virtues have. Money gained by the dominion money lost by it - all this is matter of account - matter of profit and loss: capable of demonstration in the strictest and most conclusive mode: the incorrect /dullest/ capacity, so that attention be not wanting the dullest capacity is not too dull for the comprehension of it. Such is the proof of the evil: but the proof of the virtues whence is that to be had.? to the imagination, and affections of the imagination there alone if any where is it to be found.

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