1821. Aug. 7.

Rid Yourselves

Lett. 2. Interests concerned.

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, in the instance of any number of individuals, is - that, in retribution of

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

service in any degree less valuable in respect of quantity

or quality than they ought: or even that, instead of rendering useful service, the

power attached to their situation has, in a greater or less proportion, been employed

in the production of positive evil.

3. The occasions, on which this service has

been rendered by them, have always been such, on which the need of it had place to an extraordinary degree.

4. For this service of theirs, whatever retribution has been allotted

to them, has, in every instance been the very 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 an unlimited degree excessive:

and in every government, in the instance of perhaps every department not to say in

almost every office, has hitherto been more or less so.

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 become such, has

been no other than, in the instance of each, a regard for his own private interest.

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

not distinguish his case from that of any other public

functionary: nor, in a word, from any individual,

by whom, in the ordinary way of dealing, labour, or commodities produced by labour,

are bestowed upon another for an equivalent. The observation, therefore, if admitted

as a justification for non-payment - whether of the whole, or of any the smallest

part of what was agreed to in the Contract, found out of the question would be an

equally good justification for an universal bankruptcy: for the cheating of every

private Creditor by his Debtor.

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

those other cases. In the situation of the original lenders, there has commonly been

an 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, has

constituted a part, 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,

which, in the aggregate mass of the inducement is likely to have been constituted by

this part.