2 Jan y 1810

Parl y Reform

Ch.14. II. Electors

4

2

If the above position be just /true/, then it is in the case and by the existence of the pocket boroughs that the freedom of election is most harshly /badly/ trenched upon, and most mischief done: next to them, in the case and by the existence of the close boroughs: lastly, perhaps in the case, viz. by accident, but not at all by the existence, of the open boroughs.

Unfortunately, I mean for the credit of this argument such a weight /so formidable a weight in the shape/ of authority to contend against, the order in which these several results /state of things/ in the scale of mischievousness these several states of things appear to range themselves in the scale of disreputableness is directly the reverse, in the scale of mischievousness or at least of disreputableness as marked out /laid down/ by the highest authority directly the reverse.

1. The Borough being an open one, such as Norwich for example, suppose the taunt of bribery /undue influence/ to have found its way into it. bribery in the shapes in which it will make its appearance. Behold the whole number of Electors, or at least the whole majority, and half a guinea a piece the sum at one time rumoured the bribe. Here we see gain gain of the "driest and most sordid" kind raining down in a vast shower: a number of drops not fewer than 4000 or 5000: laps, not fewer than that number to receive it: pairs of eyes not fewer than that number over and above bended[?] importunate[?] viewing it. Here then is not only the very driest and most sordid kind it being the nature of gain to be the more sordid the less there is of it, but the "scandal great": so great that it seems difficult to conceive how even by such an instrument even as a public auction it could have been made greater.