[copyist’s hand]

nd [wm 1818]

To Erskine

5.

But your Lordship, or your Lordship’s Morning Chronicle friend may say – though in the middle of our paragraph the junto was “a miserable little one”, yet, at the commencement, it was “a junto who administer Westminster” to wit – “in the name of Sir Francis Burdett” and again moreover towards the close it is “the rump that govern Westminster in his name” and then his rump administration is an object towards which “the pliancy and subserviency of the Baronet finds it necessary to manifest itself”. How then says M r Perry – and here – through the mouth of this your Lordship’s | | honest, enlightened, independent intimate (p. 18. l. 17) whose “spirit and eloquence would have added lustre to the bar at any period” (p. 19. l. 5.) Your Lordship may perhaps remember not to forget, that whether the Rump govern the Baronet, or the Baronet the rump, here is a thing called power: and this said thing a good thing, which the said Rump have not only possessed but exercised, and by exercising it enjoyed: and forasmuch as in that “miserable little junto”, the appetite and relish for power is as sharp as in your Lordship’s Clients, it is regulated and subdued, thus it is that the number of that same Junto have had their reward | | all idea of self sacrifice: and therefore even according to your own notion theoretical as it is and therefore false, all merit is out of the question. Now of this argument the full advantage shall be left to your Lordship, and your Lordship’s said disinterested friends, who being so disinterested, might but for some inadvertence /the shortness of his memory/ have remembered to sell the Morning Chronicle gratis, while your Lordship was fascinating Juries with eloquence at the same price.

Unfortunately even of this argument, such as it is, the application goes no further than the Rump: for it is only that “junto” that can be not only a “ miserable” but a “ little” one.

Remains the great body of the 3883: and here again the learned and editorial eyes may look till they are dim before they can see any thing that can be called power: all they can there see is consumption of time danger of loss of custom, loss of the fruits bestowed by patronage – in a word, in an incalculable variety of shapes self-sacrifice: all this without a motive, unless sympathy for the public interest – in two words public spirit, or in one word patriotism have been their motive. Here may be some illegitimate and corruptive influence – influence of will on will may be seen the monster Terrorism by these self-devoted heroes in humble life, faced | | with and vanquished. But of this more in my next, when my humble labours

come