1821. May 14.

First Lines

Constitutional Instruments Delays

John Bull is Gulliver under Liluputian chains insensibly applied.

One great misfortune attendant on the use made of these instruments of

misrule is attended. Force and intimidation are not applied without special

and strenuous exertions on the part of possessors of power, specially

directed to the production of obsequiousness — the desired effect.

Corruption and delusion are produced by him not only without any strenuous

exertions, but without so much as any

expence in the outside of thought: are produced by him just as

well when asleep as when awake.

To exercise corruptive influence to any amount — to produce corrupt

obsequiousness to any amount — it is not necessary that either

endeavour, or so much as desire so to do, should have place in his mind.

All that is necessary, is the desire and the endeavour which, in his

situation, is of course followed by accomplishment — the endeavour

to produce and of course the production of waste. In a word, all that is

necessary to him is, on every occasion that presenting itself, to yield to

the appetite for money in his own breast, or in the breasts of any

individual or individuals connected with him in the way of interest or

sympathy: for the purpose of their individual gratification the money is

put into their pockets: thereupon, by the eventual expectation of the like

benefit from the like source, corruptive. Obsequiousness is produced in

the breast and conduct of ten, twenty, or perhaps fifty times as many

breasts as those in which the qualification attached to the receipt and

expenditure of the money was produced.