1819 May 15

I. Disfranchising – II Boroughmongers’ Apology.

Disfranchisement

§.2[?] […?] disfranchised

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2. In the next place, in the public mind a sort of antipathy is in the habit of pointing itself against every thing to which in the case of a public trust any such term as venality can be applied. You are a slave: you set yourself up to be sold in that quali /to serve in that character./ But at the command of his master a slave finds /may find/ himself under the obligation of making himself an instrument to the commission of all manner of crimes, be they ever so atrocious and mischievous. He who without is[?] consent is in this abject condition is an object of well-grounded contempt and commiseration: he who with and by his own consent is so[?] is an object of well grounded contempt and abhorrence.

Such are the ideas which in experience have become generally associated with the words venality and sale thus applied to a public trust.

But in the instance of the public trust in question it has been seen how inapplicable they are. The mischief of any would in respect of duration and frequency be confined to the time occupied in the giving of a single vote: from a vote thus given /the practice of giving votes in that mode/ it has been shewn that no real sensible /perceptible/ mischief ensues: and if there were any it there ends: as to all other purposes the conduct and character of the sort of person in question is as free from the /as that of any/ imputation of mischievousness in any shape