1819 July 6

Defence of | | ag t Edinb gh Review

Horne Tookes Plan

1

As if to render the confusion so much the thicker, the arguments of the Reviewer brings in his hand /on the carpet/ of those[?] /Horne Tooke/ plans mentioned by them are by Horne Tooke || have[?] obtained from the Reviewer the greatest share of his approbation: “it is say they perhaps the least impowering.”

Horne Tookes views of the subject were incorrect and narrow: the true /only defensible/ end of government the greatest happiness of the greatest number was not /never/ present to his eyes: by opulence the […?] of his worship it was eclipsed. For the happiness of his fellow man at large he had no regard: the whole of it was engrossed by the ruling and influential few. Of a situation /place/ in the aristocracy of talent he was in possession: of a place in the aristocracy of wealth he was in expectancy. [1]

The great majority of the people his plan of representation want to exclude: opulence was the sole qualification he would admitt of: and the greater the opulence the greater the share a man was to possess in the faculty of naming the members of the ruling body, every man being to have as many votes as he could purchase. /being able he chose to purchase./

Ask him for a reason for this, he gives none, he has none to give: but instead of a reason in favour of this exclusion thus put upon all but the opulent few, he produces what in his eyes is an answer to those who claim the right for the majority that is for those whose means of subsistence are composed exclusively of the wages of labour.

|| p.184

p.191

[1] I take these from the extract given in the Edinburgh Review /on this occasion by the Reviewer/