20 Aug 1809

Parl y Reform

Corruption

Members

Matter

4

 Add false moral sanction be [...?] to be in a state of the most abject indigence[?] is sad[?] to be ousted, bound in the chains of absolute dependence.

Corruption[?] 1. course[?] 2. allowing[?].

Much more really afflictive than this may be the lot of the man who has placed himself in that state of dependence which is created by the acceptance of a lucrative office. The cloaths on his back and in his chest of drawers excepted, The furniture of his house {and those other little articles of property which are as so many necessary appendages to every man's person excepted,} /excepted or not excepted/ it is no rare case /by no means an uncommon situation/ even in the instance of a Member of Parliament for a man to have no other source of livelyhood /means of living/ than that which is attached to such his office.

The utmost degree of dependence which a man can be placed in by a bribe, even while still but in expectance much more when already in possession is it not independence itself when compared with a state which takes from a man so compleatly all power of resistance.

Even when the emoluments of the office form but a supplement to the independent mass of his property still his condition {under the Minister} is such that it is constantly in the power as well as in the will of the Minister /he beholds in the Minister who has it constantly in his power, and as constantly in his will/ to punish him for fulfilling in the course of his duty to the /his/ country by a pecuniary punishment heavier than any that in that shape is ever inflicted by the severest Judge for the violation of it.

 Add illustrations, compare the loss of an ousted placeman with Davison's[?] punishment - Melville's probable punishment under Ellenboro' &c.