[xxxvi. 50]

1821. May 14.

First Lines.

Constitutional Instruments.

Delusion

John Bull is Gulliver under Liliputian chains insensibly applied.

One great misfortune attendant on the use made of corruption and delusion is, the extreme facility with which the fabrication of these instruments of misrule is attended. Force and intimidation are not applied without special and strenuous exertions on the part of possessors of power, specially directed to the production of obsequiousness - the desired effect. Corruption and delusion are produced by him not only without any strenuous exertions, but without so much as any expence in the article of thought: are produced by him just as well when asleep as when awake.

To exercise corruptive influence to any amount - to produce corrupt obsequiousness to any amount - it is not necessary that either endeavour, or so much as desire so to do, should have place in his mind. All that is necessary, is - the desire and the endeavour which, in his situation, is of course followed by accomplishment - the endeavour to produce and of course the production of waste. In a word, all that is necessary to him is, on every occasion that presents itself, to yield to the appetite for money in his own breast, or in the breasts of any individual or individuals connected with him in the way of interestor sympathy: for the purpose of their individual gratification, the money is put into their pockets: thereupon, by the eventual expectation of the like benefit from the like source, corruptive obsequiousness is produced in the breast and conduct of ten, twenty, or perhaps fifty times as many breasts as those in which the gratification attached to the receipt and expenditure of the money was produced.