20 Jan. 1817

Necessity Cat

II. Application

4

Q. < > It is therefore part of the Monarch’s sinister interest to have the present laws as sanguinary and as cruel in every respect as possible, to the end that by remitting the punishment and thus violating the engagements taken by them in their legislative character /capacity/ they may obtain the more praise and popularity and thus be the more profoundly adored the more richly they desire to be execrated?

A. To be sure it is: nor doubt that there is any torture howsoever exquisite that a person so situated would not delight in having it in his power to inflict upon any and every of his subjects without cause: for the greater his power to do evil, the greater his mind[?] in abstaining from it, and the surer he is of the most prostrate[?] adoration whether he makes use or does not make use of it.

Q. < > Are not you too sarcastic? is there not somewhat of exaggeration in this

A. No: exaggeration at all: nothing but the clearest reasoning. During the reign of the present most gracious sovereign and certainly not without the good pleasure any more than without the connivance[?] of His Majesty /Royal clemency/ when a law the product of antique barbarity a law by which in countless multitudes in multitudes so indeterminate as to be absolutely undiscoverable till the day of execution should arrive individuals without shadow or suspicion of guilt[?] or formality of trial in the instance of any one of them were consigned to ruin (all this was effected in old times by the King’s blood kind prerogative lawyers by the phrase corruption of blood) when a law to this effect was for lack of matter[?] to operate upon, on the point of expiring a fresh law was made for the revival of it.