30 Dec r 1806

Scotch Reform │ │ To L d Grenville

III Facienda

3 Pleading

Codification

Another thing I have to say on his behalf (give me leave to whisper it in your ear, my Lord) is that he would come cheap: which in times as such as we live in, speaking with great submission, Bonaparte drawing upon us so hard, and so much merit to reward, especially if that merit which is above labour is a consideration not to be neglected.

There is one thing /perquisite/ to be sure which I doubt the nature of the case would render it not altogether practicable to keep him out of: and that is the credit of having done the work whatever it may be, which it might happen to him to have done. For to be sure he would never set about it in the way of commission, without some person whom he /employer whom a man/ could depend on, Your Lordship for example (with respect be it spoken) even to speak to him about it; and then, when he were set to work, he would have to ask questions of this and that and t'other person, to know how things were, and how they went on at present, whereby they would all see what he was about - then would be ready for it.

This perquisite therefore, I doubt it would be necessary to say nothing about, but to look another way, and let him put /while he was putting/ it in his pocket. But as to any more, my Lord, I would be bound for his not troubling you; nay that he would not accept of it, if you would give it him. To Your Lordship this may seem a sort of oddity; and so to be sure in some respects it is: but there he has reasons of his own. I know he has - which don't apply to other people: and when a man's actions[?] are innocent ones, and don't hurt any body but himself, nor himself neither, with submission, my Lord, I don't very well see what harm there would be in indulging him in them.

In the case of improvement, what I have known done, and with good success, is to give the trouble and the odium to the author, and the credit to some higher and consequently more deserving hand. In the present instance so well-approved a division would I doubt be hardly practicable, but the objection, how serious so ever, would I should hope, not be absolutely a fatal one.