8 Oct r 1809 + §.2

Parl y Reform

B. I. Necessity

Ch. Occasional inadequate

§.2. Changes, inadequate

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§.2. Changes of administration are inadequate to the purpose

Thus it is that the habitual tide of despotism is subject to be stemmed for the

moment by occasional storms. But of this sort of security against misrule what is the

use or value?

For ten years together /the whole of these ten years/ the course of despotism and of

that misrule which is the consequence of despotism—of unchecked power—has gone on

without ceasing—all this time the business has been conducted /carried on/ by

unfit—by comparatively if not compleatly and absolutely unfit—hands Bad measures in

any numbers may have been carried into effect: good measures in any numbers remained

unthought of, or if thought of and brought upon the carpet, rejected or in some other

way frustrated.

Worn out or blunted /and become unfit for use/ the old set of instruments are now

discarded /thrown by/. But the people in what respect are they gainers? Then hand—the

invisible irresponsible, the uncontrouled and uncontroulable hand that worked with

the old instruments, the same hand and with the same power goes to work with the new.

To the old set of servants succeeds a new one: but the new servants are still in the

same set of dependence as the old ones were: what they succeed to is—not power—not

independence as against the King not dependence on the people but dependence on the

arbitrary will of the Monarch to the same yoke as that which kept pressing on the

necks of their predecessors. At so easy a price as that of dismissing an old set of

servants as soon as he is tired of them, the King rubs off his old scores: the tablet

washed clean, and now he is at full liberty to commence a new one. The people have

got that which is termed satisfaction: and which is all the satisfaction that in this

state of things they can have: the satisfaction of seeing the same sort of work going

on under /performed by/ a different set of hands. Hampshire can no longer be defended

in Hanover by M r Pitt or M r Addington: but it

may be, and is defended if not with equal success with at least equal energy by Lord

Grenville and M r Fox.