167_080.xml

Title: [[clxvii. 80] 1820. Rid yourselves]

Description: [clxvii. 80]

1820.

Rid yourselves of Ultramaria

As its efficiency can at no time cease, while at all times it is susceptible of encrease, and by every encrease of dominion, and by every war, successful or unsuccessful, can not but increase sooner or later, unless stopt by violent however salutary change, it will, to a certainty, convert the mixt Monarchy into a government, in which more or less of the forms of the mixture will probably be preserved, but which will, in effect, be a pure despotism. Of course, the exact time is not capable of being determined. Thus much, however, is certain, namely, that, by every encrease given to the matter of corruptive influence, and in particular by every encrease given to publich expenditure, necessary or unnecessary, and in particular by every encrease given to the splendour of the crown, and to the tangible or visible supports afforded to royal dignity, or to the dignity of any situation subordinate to royalty,- by every encrease given to dominion, and by every war, and by every encrease given either to the extent or the duration of the war, be the quantum of the several articles at the outset what it may, it can not but be accelerated. compound elements of the corruptive mass at the outset what it may, the disastrous conversion can not but be accelerated.

To say that, in the hands of an irremovable functionary, money, in the view of a set of subordinates or co-ordinate functionaries, will not corrupt men,- is to say, that, when applied to them, water will not moisten them, fire warm them, or arsenic poison them.

In the following passage in Spanish history, as referred to by Townsend, may be seen a series of events by which one illustration of the above observations may be presented to Spanish eyes. In the first place the existence of the matter of corruptive influence in the hand in question, and its operation of the Cortes; in the next place, the resistance, which, before the quantity of it had swollen to a certain pitch, was capable of being opposed to it and the obstruction applied by that resistance to the consummation of despotism: and lastly the removal of that obstruction by the encrease given to the dominion of that King of Spain, whose more common appellation is the Emperor Charles the fifth.

Townsend II. 261, 319. 2 d Edition "I appears by the 5th article in the requisitions of the Santa Junta, (a) that the reigning Monarchs, ever watchful

(a). viz of Castile, addressed to the Emperor Charles 5th as King of Spain a o 1520 or thereabouts. Townsend I. 319. 2 d Edit. This Santa Junta was "an assembly composed of the deputies of the Cortes." The disregard shewn to the above requisition produced a civil war, which, after continuing two and twenty months, ended by the surrender fo Toledo to the King a o. 1522 in consequence of the defection of the Ecclesiastics and the Nobles: "and thus" (says Townsend I. 320) "the Nobles in Spain, as in all other countries, rather than give liberty to the people, submitted to receive the yoke."

JB_164_128.xml

Title: [[clxiv. 128] 1820 June 10 Emancipation]

Description: [clxiv. 128]

1820 June 10

Emancipation Spanish

? 8. Corruptive influence

I do not say that while there is one hand /any person/ able and willing to render it the interest of the representatives and other trustees of the people to betray their trust in such sort as to reproduce an absolute despotism /a despotic tyranny/, that trust will not be sure sooner or later to be betrayed accordingly, although no such distant dominion had place: I do not say and consequently that the abandonment /abdication/ of that dominion would of itself be sufficient for ever to prevent the breaking of that same trust. All I say is that by /from/ the preservation of that dominion, the consummation of the breach of trust in question, and the reproduction of that same tyranny will be in a prodigious degree accelerated. will receive certainty and promptitude.

JB_164_250.xml

Title: [[clxiv. 250] 1820 Aug. 8 Emancipation]

Description: [clxiv. 250]

1820 Aug. 8

Emancipation Spanish

Summary

Corruptive influence

By war the Monarch not only gains as above in the shape of patronage the matter of corruptive influence, but in case of extension given to dominion by conquest or otherwise, he gains an apparent necessity and thence a received pretence for the encrease of a standing army the instrument of coercive power, still more universally irresistible than the matter of corruptive influence: and at the same time pretences without bounds for the distribution of the ensigns /symbols/ and instruments of factitious dignity.

In England Government is so constituted /law is so arranged/ that not only by the most unjust war does the Monarch gain encrease of corruptive influence and coercive power as above, but by commencing it in a piratical manner he places at his sole disposal millions upon millions of that matter of depredation /plunder/ which had the war been begun by him in a regular manner would have gone into the pockets of those depredators whose lives were risked in /for/ the capture of it.

Hence the nations of the earth behold in a King of England not only the plunderer of his own subjects, but the remorseless pirate by whom the inhabitants of all other countries the earth in general are marked out for slaughter a Monarch who gives himself out for Monarch of the Ocean that on occasion soever he may be robber and cut throat of all human beings /creatures/ that dare /presume to/ attempt to avail themselves of the means of communication it affords

Government is so constituted that while with the spread of war the miseries of war encrease, and in the shape of plunderage under the name of plunderage, plunderage in the shape of the emolument uselss, needless, overpaid and sinecure offices and commissions, and contracts and ensigns of factitious dignity the sub-ruling few in general look for their profit from it, one man in /under/ the name of Judge of the Admiralty Court, another man under the name of Clerk of the Admiralty Court, and another again under the name of Chancellor preeminently [...?] and conspicuous receive special encrease.