21 Jan y 1817

Necessity Cat

{II Application} /I Theory/

14

Q. < > Well but still you have not told me how it is that in the sort of hands in question remuneration in the shape in question viz factitious dignity presents in its nature likely in any degree to be preventive of extra meritorious public service?

A. Fear not: your request /desire/ has not been forgotten. For extra-meritorious service rendered to the public you will allow /admitt I presume/ without much difficulty that natural reward is not altogether wanting?

Q. < > By natural reward you mean doubtless that esteem and respect which at the hands of the public soever extraordinary in kind or degree rendered to the public at large can scarcely fail to receive?

A. Of course I do: and this will in general, in so far as the service is known to the public, what at the most trifling expence it may in all cases be, will, run in tolerably /pretty/ exact /correct/ proportion to the magnitude of the service: and if not in every instance in the correct proportion, the public being composed of human beings and therefore to misconception and misjudgment yet in a proportion much more likely to be correct than if administered by a hand so much exposed to the misguidance of sinister interest as the Monarch or any of those who on this behalf are employed to act in his name.