1 Sep. 1809

Parl y. Reform

B.II. Ex

Ch.1. Explanations

'.5 Matter of corruption its force encreased

{16}

3

Discord?

Of all the shapes in which it is possible for the matter of corruption to present itself by far the most pernicious, by far the best adapted to the /every/ purpose of corruption is that of a sine-cure office.

1. In respect of the amount of the emolument annext to it, it is capable of swilling[?] to any degree of excess.

2. It involves on the part both of the donor and donee the vice of mendacity and fraud: the profit of it being so much money which in so many eyes washes out all claims, it would stain the character of both.

3. The quantum of it depending on events[?] altogether unconnected with meritorious service, it is altogether /radically/ incapable of being applied with propriety in the character of a reward for meritorious service.

In so far as the King has a particular interest of his own {separate from and} opposite to that of the /his/ people, it is his interest that the public mind, the mind of the people should both as to /in respect of/ the moral and the intellectual part of it, should be in a state as corrupt or debased and weak as possible: of the leading few /of the mind of the few who had the moral part, that they may be the better disposed to join with him in acting the part of the deceiver /deceivers/: of the mind of the many who are led, that they may be deceived and kept in a constant and perpetual state of delusion with the greatest security and ease.

Every institution and every practice by which the vice /disposition/ of mendacity can be cultivated and promoted and rooted in the breasts of his subjects of all classes, mendacity, the handmaid of all other vices and the instrument of all crimes, is in this way in a pernicious degree subservient to the King's {sinister &} /particular and/ separate interest.