1819 June 16

To Erskine

Lett. 7. Whigs AntiReformists

§.5. Pos. 4. Whig Excellence

6

Thieves hate Gass-lights

Burke hated Metaphysics.

After all /Meantime/ What is a Whig? Who have been? who are? who have been? the Whigs? The existence of an excellent body of men in such sort and degree as to have always been actuated by this generous desire this desire of reform and self-sacrifice, who have been the individuals of which from time to time it has been composed? To my argument /notions/ the question is a matter of indifference. I say no creature born of woman could ever have entertained any such desire. this being granted the questions what a Whig is and of what individuals compose the body called the body of the Whigs is composed are questions /matters/ of indifference. /nothing to the purpose./ though[?] I have been saying and I think proving that the Whigs have had no desire of reform the Whigs have had no desire to sacrifice their suits[?] But to Your Lordship /Lordships argument/ these are vital questions. On each occasion where confidence is to be reposed, at a parliamentary Election for example, the question is in what individuals is the confidence /it/ to be reposed. Suppose M r Lamb for example coming a second time on the Hustings and saying I am a Whig: I am a Whig as such I am entitled to your confidence. Then comes the question how do you know /know you/ that you are a Whig? if it be worth knowing, how are we to know it? Have you any thing to shew for it? Have you any such thing as a register book in which the names of all Whigs have been entered? Do you know D r Galt[?]? Has he discovered an organ /for you an appropriate organ/ of Whiggism a protuberance that may be seen or felt growing out of your skulls? or is it no other than the general organ of disinterestedness, correspondent and opposite to the organ of rapacity, for the discovery of which we are so much in his debt /which we are one of the discoveries for which we are his debtors?/