[clxiv. 126]

1820 May 23

Emancipation Spanish

ult o

?.8. Corruptive influence

?.4. Rulers gainers

12. Self encreasing quality

12. Of the abovementioned instruments of felicity it has been seen that with little exception each operates as an instrument for the production and preservation of the rest. in the like manner and with as little exception power in all these its shapes tends /operates/ by the whole of its mass to give encrease to itself. But with what rapidity so ever the power itself encreases, the correspondent desire the desire of more encreases with still greater rapidity does the correspondent desire - the desire of having more, encrease. It is absolutely satiable. In the breast of the ruler himself it has no bounds and is essentially incapable of ever having any - what bounds are set to it are set to it by the condition - the unchangeable condition of the people: in the first place by their disposition to patience; in the last place by their capacity of endurance.

The greater the quantity of power in all its shapes which the rulers have in their possession, the greater is the facility they have for effecting - what is sure to be their desire and their endeavour - the sacrifice to the utmost degree possible in every shape the universal to their own particular and sinister interest.

But the greater the extent to which in respect of territory and population the dominion of the rulers of Spain stretches itself over the several provinces of Spanish America, and the greater the amount of the power possessed and exercised by them in or over each province, the greater is the facility they have to sacrifice each to his own personal interest and the other particular interests of the several /whichever different/ classes he belongs to, the universal interest: the greater the facility, and therefore as hath been the stronger the desire.