1823 Feb. 21

Greece. J.B. to Greek Legislators

J.B. to Greek Legislators

Regeneration

Legislators of Greece

You enter upon your career under the most favorable auspices /auspicious circumstances/. Nothing to match them is to be found in history; Nothing to match them is to be found in present times. Obstacles which in other nations set up a bar to good government, and that bar an insuperable one, have no place in yours /your case/ You are not cursed with Kings You are not cursed with Nobles Yor minds are not tyrannized by /under the tyranny/ Priests. Your minds are not under the tyranny of Lawyers

Legislators! It is now more than five and fifty years since he now addresses you first devoted himself to the service of mankind. He has served faithfully: he has toiled hard: he has suffered something /had his sufferings/ and he has not gone unrewarded! He complains of no man. he is contented with his lot © he has no complaint to make. The [...?] is never out of his sight: [...?] his cheerfulness [...?] diminished by it.

The sort of attention which on pain of not serving /in his endeavour to serve/ you, he must call for at your hands, others in your place in place correspondent to yours, have given to him before

In whose /Never/ is the day labourer, never is the helpless pauper an object of contempt to me: I can not say the same thing of the purse proud noble /aristocrat/ I can not say the same thing of the ancestry©proud noble /aristocrat/: I can not say the same thing of the official bloodsucker: I can not say the same thing of the man loaded /covered/ with the tokens of factitious honor least of all can I say the same of the /a/ Kings. When a Monarch has thought to enslave /corrupt/ me and delude me, to degrade me to a level with the Castlereaghs the Metternichs the Hardenbergs and the Gentzs, you may see at any time what he has got by it