1821 Feb. 25

Rid Yourselves

'.1. Interests concerned.

III. Creditors

How different is the cas of whatever is by contract dear to Public

Creditors!

If so it has that service special and indubitable service - rendered

to the public, a man is constituted a public functionary, Public Creditors are in

effect Public functinaries. But, though not commonly so stated, in effect so far as

service and choices[?] upon justice are considered more than circumstanced have

several titles to regard, by which they are not merely placed upon the same level

with, but upon a much higher level than any to which that title has commonly been

bestowed.

1. On an occasion of this sort by the appellation Public Creditors are commonly understood the protectors[?]

of [...?] sold by government. Of the whole mass of the money due by the government of

a country to individuals so large a proportion is every where in this case, that,

saving all due regard to particular exceptions, such if there is /are/ in this case

may be considered as representatives of the whole. See more than the titles of the

regard due to Public Creditors.

There can be no doubt either as to the fact of their having rendered

service to the public, or as to the question of that service.

2. So far as has depended upon them, this service has in every

instance been real and beneficial.

In the case of every other sort of public functionary, what may have

happened int eh instance of any number of individuals is - that in retribution of

that which they have received, they have either rendered no service at all, or in

accordance less in quantity or quality than they ought - or even that instead of

rendering useful service, the power stated in their situations has in a greater or

less proportion been employed in doing positive mischief.

3. The occasion has been rendered by them have always been such, on

which the need of it had place to an extraordinary degree.

4. For the service of those, whatever retribution has been allotted

to them has in every instance been the least for which the service could have been

obtained. In the case of any other sort of public functionaries, the retribution is

capable of being in one unlimited degree excessive.

In opposition to the thus established claims of those never

unfaithful public servants, an observation that has been made, is that the inducement

by which they have been led to because such has been no other there, in the instance

of each: a regard for his own private intersts.

1. If, in the instance of every one of them this time, it would

distinguish his case from that of any other public functionary: not in a word from

any individual, by whom in the ordinary way of [...?], labour, or commodities

produced by labour, are bestowed upon brothers[?] for an equivalent. The observation

how true so ever, is therefore nothing to the purpose.

2. What is more, it has in this case less truth in it than in any of

those other cases.

In this situation of the original leaders[?], there has commonly been

a number more or less considerable in whose instance regard for the universal

interest, at any rate for what in their eyes has been the universal interest, been

constituted, put more or less considerable of the inducement, by which their conduct

as to this matter has been determined: and unless the existence of social affection

having the universal interest for its object be deemed altogether incredible the more

extraordinary the pressure, the greater is the proportion in the aggregate mass of

the inducement has been constituted by this part.