[copyist’s hand]

1819 Mar. 21.

To Erskine

Lett 1. Plan

5.

intention that indeed may have place without actual service rendered. How then as to Whigs. That of which neither in these nor in any other of their good deeds have I ever been able to discover the least particle of, is this same sort of a thing called self-sacrifice. So far as in their view of the matter, the | | pursuit of the people’s interest would have led their course into a direction adverse to the interest of the party, the direction pursued by it has been that which has been conducive to the interest of the party; adverse accordingly to the people’s interest.

Such being my opinion, yet do I not find myself necessitated – and not being necessitated, neither am I disposed to seize and apply to my own use, and cast back upon your Lordship’s Whigs any of the contents of the dark coloured packet of your Lordship’s flowers. If they had not been better than others would have been – the Tories for example – in the same situation, yet neither have they been worse. Considering men in the abstract whether taken in bodies or taken singly, conduct depends on situation, that is on the state of interests: on the state of their supposed interests; and thence in so far as nothing appears to make an exception, on the state of their real interests. Such my Lord is my creed. This creed I have already confessed and as above applied. This in a work entitled Plan of Parliamentary Reform &c. A o 1817, to which I may have further occasion to make reference. But the work having no eloquence in it your Lordship notwithstanding the scene it gives rise to in Honourable House never knew of its existence: and now it is out of print.

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