1819 July 15

To Erskine or Defence of Ballot

Lett. 5. Erskine Reform

or

Lett. 7. Whigs AntiReformists

2

Suppose the mode by ballot substituted to the open mode in regard to all the seats. Suppose it efficacious as above Not a shadow of reason /argument/ would be produced against it upon the universally professed principles. But in a number not on the present occasion worth enquiring into, the effect of it would be to shake[?] the existing seats. It would therefore be not only manifestly but universally unendurable: and the firmer the assurance of its innoxiousness and usefulness, the more inexorable /unsurmountable/ would of course be the resistance to it. For the rejection of it some phrase or other would be invented: and if nothing more appropriate could be found, the phrases absurd, visionary and useless /wild and visionary/ with their et cæteras upon et cæteras are always at command.

I will come therefore at once to such a mode and degree of its application as would make no change in any seats other than those in relation to which the desire of making a change is already professed: professed even by Ministerialists. I mean the applying it exclusively to the seats belonging to the boroughs proposed to be disfranchised.

Applied according to the existing practice, to the narrow Country Districts, it would to a full certainty extinguish terrorism.

It would not, to an equal degree of certainty extinguish bribery. For, suppose the bribe not receivable but in the event of the Election falling on the briber, it the interest of the bribe receiver would as effectually secure {the giving} that direction to the vote as effectually in the secret as in the open mode. The greater the number of the votes the greater the probability of treachery and consequent conviction or prosecution at least. But it is only by a very extensive number that even with the help of secresy of suffrage the danger of bribery could be effectually excluded.