1822 June 12

Economy etc

Thus, /Take/ for /an/ example. Scene lies (say) in England. Excise man's lawful pay say ,100 a year. In consideration of a present ( a bribe in this case the language is) received by a manufacturer at whose hands it is his business to cause the produce of his proportion of a tax upon the manufactory to be received in the account of the Government, the Exciseman has connived at a fraudulent operation or state of things by which the manufacturer has gained ,100, the government which in this case is as much to say the /whole/ community at large suffered a loss to that same amount. Bribe-giver or Corrupter, the manufacturer: bribe-taker or functionary corrupted, the Exciseman.

So much for the Exciseman the functionary on the lowest stage of the department of finance /in question/, in the lowest degree /stage/ /level/ in the scale of subordination.

Come now to /Take in hand now/ the Monarch. Rise /Mount/ /Ascend/ now to the highest level. Take in hand the Monarch. Pay of the Chief of the State in the case of the Anglo-American United States, ,5,000. a year. Whether there be in it or be not any thing of superfluity, is at any rate sufficient. On no occasion has any demand for any addition been ever made: on no occasion has any public indication been afforded /given/ of preponderant evil in any individual shape as having been produced for want of an addition to such or such amount alledged to have been requisite. Pay of the Monarch say ,1,000,000 a year. intelligible and justifiable demand for any more than the abovementioned ,5,000 a year none ever brought to view or ever capable of being brought to view. Source of this pay money exacted from unwilling contributors /the whole nation/. Here to those same contributors so much loss: and in a greater or less degree by all those who are capable of feeling it, the whole of the loss felt. This feeling being so much correspondent evil, it rests on all such as are disposed and regard themselves as competent to the task of producing justification for this excess, to produce it.