167_118.xml

Title: [[clxvii. 118] 1821 March 31]

Description: [clxvii. 118]

1821 March 31

Rid Yourselves

'.10. No improvement or redress for Ultramaria.

But on that same occasion for the purpose of bringing to your view this additional mass of evil that would there be thus imposed upon you by the dominion of your rulers over Ultramaria supposing the claim successful, it has already been necessary for me to prove to you from the Code, that under it no act of legislation, not even of subordinate legislation, could consistently with the arrangements made by it in relation to this head, be exercised in and for your Ultramaria or any part of it.

When on that occasion the comparatively lawless state in which these vast territories with their inhabitants are /were/ thus undertaken to be placed were brought to view, it was for the purpose of shewing in what way the vast load suffering there could not but be heaped in a direct way upon them could not but fuel in a less direct way be pregnant with suffering to yourselves.

The purpose for which your attention is now requested for for which that same state of things is that some conception may be formed by you of an ulterior and perfectly distinguishable mass of evil that could not fail to be brought down upon you by the operation of that same cause. I mean the evil that you would have to suffer from that resentment on their part, which the sense of so all comprehensive and intolerable an evil as would be the result of their being placed for evermore in a state at once so helpless and so degrading and so hopeless could not fail to be productive of.

JB_116_477_001.xml

Title: [9. Feb y 1803 Two Letters (3 The more]

Description: 9. Feb y 1803 Two Letters (3

The more you have to deal with his two faces a face of gentleness and

smiles towards them from whom he

himself capable of having every thing to fear — a mask

face

of for those whom it is convenient to oppress, and against

whose resentment he looks upon himself as secure. As for you, you have been

too deeply injured ever to be forgiven for for you are kept in reserve

in these

of that of vengeance, which by having never been pounded by

provocation, is so much as the suspicion of provocation is but the more

implacable.

The choice you have is this: be patient and submissive to the last,

give up the strength of your cause abandon over the right of

self-defence all hope the right of ruling redress. You are

oppressed without a portion: prove your case — avail yourself of the

strength of your cause — Do not betray yourself, you are voted

set down for an angry man, you are oppressed with a

pretense: justice is denied you, and denied you upon this pretense .. Give

up your cause forbear availing yourself of the strength of your cause.

— give yourself up, be to give own ruin ruin offer your

throat to the knife, and you are oppressed still as certainly as before.

you are oppressed without a portion

Such at least is the picture drawn of them by their friends. I hear the

equivalent in black and white What worse could be said of a man

by his enemies?

JB_172_152.xml

Title: [1820. Decr. 21. Rid Yourselves]

Description: 1820. Decr. 21.

Rid Yourselves

Introduction

Jeremy Bentham to the Spanish poeple.

Rid Yourselves of Ultramaria!

'. 1. Anger deprecated.

Spaniards.

Demosthenes, (says the story) having to propose to the people of

Athens a measure he knew them to be set against by the strongest prepossessions,

entered the Assembly with a halter about his neck. "Strangle me" (he cried aloud)

"Strangle me, if such be your pleasure, but at any rate first hear me." Spaniards

this halter of the Athenian Statesman I feel as if I had it on my own neck; I feel as

if I had myself fastened it there, fastened it by the opinion which, thus at the very

first word, I have so undisguisedly placed before you. My friends, I am playing a

deep game. It is now as near sixty as fifty years since, /in the field of

legislation/ I devoted my labours to the service of mankind in the field of

legislation and it is by you that those labours have been sweetened with some of

their fairest hopes. Yes if I have not been strangely and abundantly misinformed

foreigner to you and Englishman as I am some place under all that disadvantage, I do

possess in your regard: this which is among the most honourable of my possessions,

this it is that I am thus staking upon one throw. Whoever among you is angry with me,

by the warmth of his anger let him judge of the ardour of that zeal, which has forced

me thus to expose myself to it. To expose myself to it? and for what? For no other

reward than this, how faint soever may be my chance for it, the satisfaction I mean

of seeing you rid yourselves of what, in my eyes, is the most oppressive of all your

burthens. When you have heard what in that hope I have to say to you, do to me then,

if you can find it in your hearts, do by me as the Athenian of old called upon his

countrymen to do by him. Turn the screw of your instrument of death upon these my

fondest hopes.

'. 1. Order pursued.

Meantime, if I am in error, see, in the first place, whether I am

singular in it: see whether, on this ground, I have not some claim upon your

indulgence.

Spaniards! what my opinion on the subject is now in 1822 was, in the year 1787, and,

I know not how long before, as I dare believe it has been since, the opinion of your

own rulers. Yes: their own declared opinion. And by what dictated? By their own

separate interests or interest-begotten prejudices? No: but by their own clear view

of the facts, and the conclusion forced upon them by those facts: not by any of those

instruments of seduction, but in spite of all of them. The opinion generally current?

Oh, Yes: - And at what time? at the time of