Marg ls revised 1819 June 7 + + ┴

To Erskine

ult o

Lett. 7. E. AntiReformist

§ 7.5. Petitions rely on

1

42

1

To a man ever so little acquainted with parliamentary language, few tasks surely could be easier than that of laying over the inward sentiment, be it what it may, an outward covering of the opposite hue. So long as there remains any such thing as a King’s Speech neither a justification, nor a model can ever be wanting for such a work.

In the course of the debate on the Parliamentary Reform Resolutions, which, from a draught of mine, after such amendments as had been deemed expedient, Sir Francis Burdet did me the honour to propose to Honourable House, – of which Resolutions the basis was composed of the declaration made for these last three hundred years by the Monarchs of this country that the universal interest of the people was the object of their most anxious care – in the course of this Debate it was insisted that, Kings being the sort of persons by whom those things were said, they meant nothing, and ought not to be taken for true: at any rate to this or any other practical purpose. Such was the ground, on which It was the Resolutions were negatived: and, so palpable (it was intimated) was the falsity of all such declarations, that by my learned and Honourable friend M r Bingham, my Honourable friend Sir Francis as well as his obscure and unhonourable draughtsman were in the warmth of his eloquence, pointed to as if labouring under a sort of infantine weakness, as betrayed by the weakness of supposing, that any thing better than transparent hypocrisy had place in those most high and solemn of all high and solemn parliamentary declarations. Had it been such as could have stuck upon me, could I have been seriously suspected of having, at this time of life any the smallest tendency to regard them in any other light than that in which the Honourable House, following as above the lead set to it by my Honourable friend, testified its receiving them any such imputation would indeed have sufficed to call the blood into my cheeks.