24 Dec r 1809

Parl y Ref m

Ch.15 Electors Contin

'.1. Mischief to the State

6

8

8

Such is the supposition of an equal chance as between a King's slave and a free man /member/ - such viz. 50 per cent would be the gain to independence and real parliamentary virtue, by the substituting to what in the language /interpretation/ of some men might be meant by "the legitimate rights of influence" what in the language /interpretation of the same man might be meant by "dry and sordid gain". The clause in favour of independence /parliamentary virtue/ would it be greater than an equal chance? is it more likely that the successful briber should be /{prove}/ an independent Member than a Court dependent? the more the chances thus exceed an equal chance, the greater then would be the advantage given to parliamentary virtue.

Is it that independence and parliamentary virtue have not in this case an equal chance - and is it then that the gain to them by the substitution of gross and dry bribery to legitimate rights of influence would not rise so high as 50 per Cent? Then so it is that so fast the chains of corrupt dependence bound upon the neck of parliament and that of the country, that taking the House throughout, the odds are in favour of corrupt dependence: that there are habitually more members in that state than in a state of freedom and purity: in a word /other words/ that the King is absolute: rendered absolute, not as formerly he now and then was by the precarious /odious and precarious resistible and continually resisted/ instrument of prerogation, but by the rare and irresistible and unresisted instrument of influence.

[Marginal note:] 10 June 1809. p.167.