21 Jan y 1817

Necessity Cat

{II Application} /I Theory/

Factitious dignity

13

United States no factitious dignity

If therefore any such desire should ever really be entertained as that excess, waste and peculation in this shape should be prevented - in the first place extra remuneration will be confined to extra meritorious service: in the next place no such extra remuneration will ever be conferred but upon proof made proof made of title to such extra remuneration as of title to an estate: made not only with equal publicity but with publicity more anxiously[?] and more effectually secured in this than it has ever hitherto been in that case. And in these conditions in the hands of a British Monarch the faculty of extra remuneration for extra meritorious service may with justice be /reason be/ regarded as being in a higher degree conducive than prejudicial to the universal interest.

At an immature state /stage/ of society and government every thing is arbitrary punishment as well as pardon and remuneration: as improvement advances which it will not which it will not do as much so long as sinister interest in high places which has everything to lose by the advance can help it, pardon and remuneration will be subjected to the rules of evidence, as punishment and title to property are at present: but by that time, to rules of evidence, somewhat less inconsistent with each other and with the ascertainment of truth than those[?] which are in use at present, and have had no such object /have not had for their /in a/ principal end of any degree for their end/, but on the contrary the sinister interest of those by whom they have been framed.