17 Dec r 1809

Parl y. Reform

Ch.2. Dependence

'.3. Modes and Degrees

12

7

All this while his /the/ advantage such as it is, is so only with reference to the Member of parliament /the interest/ /the party/ to whom it is proposed to place in dependence, not with reference to the higher interest, viz. that of the King, by whom and for whose benefit the agent of the people ought to be kept in that convenient and useful state. For to the Member's share as against the King falls in this case a degree - not of dependence but of comparative independence in comparison of the state in which by the acceptance of the revocable office in his own person he would be placed.

Accordingly in any such view as that of creating dependence, to bestow any such revocable office upon the friend of a Member would never be worth the King's while, were the dependence created, and consequent obsequiousness secured by that one single and individual transaction the only benefit of the kind capable of being drawn from it. Thus[?] bestowed no greater fund /stack/ of obsequiousness is capable of being extracted from a revocable office or other benefit than would be from the same if it were an irrevocable one. But once more, be the nature of the benefit what it may, and whether by the possession /if it were in possession/ of it any dependence would or could not be created, by the expectation of it if it be good for anything dependence may always be created: and for one possessor there are expectants always by dozens and by scores: and so many of these expectants as you have, so many dependents, so many proper and loyal gentlemen, on whose obsequiousness a Gracious King may count.