1819 Mar. 27 + § 2. ┴

To Erskine

Lett. 6. E. Anti reform labour

§.2. Corruption confessed

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§. 2. Corruption, of Parliament confessed by Lord Erskine.

{{When a man} /He who/ makes open profession of insincerity {he} has a right to be taken at his word. Whether in the following passages when compared with one another, a profession of /to/ this sort was not meant is a question my answer to which waits for such information as Your Lordship may be pleased to give me. /it may be Your Lordship’s pleasure to honour me with.}

1. In p. 27. what I find is, that in Your Lordship’s opinion, “imperfections and abuses .... which degrade the character of Parliament” are actually in existence. This is not merely asserted; what is much more it is assumed: assertion supposes the want of certainty: assumption the abundance of it. (a) The “ removal” of these same imperfections and abuses is on that /this/ same occasion spoken of as an object /subject/ for the “ consideration” of which it is your Lordship’s declared wish that “a motive”, and “encouragement” should be found.

2. In p. 28. I find Your Lordship returning to the subject, and speaking of in so many words “the imperfections and corruptions inseparable from its present structure”, and in the next line of its “ dignity” as a thing /lost sheep/, of the “ recovery” of which the demand /need/ is certain and present, the hope is remote and hypothetical as any one /man/ need desire, as an /a remote/ event, which in Your Lordships own words “may appear visionary, or rather as a kind of delirium.”

Note

(a) Speaking of the danger of a sanguinary resolution &c “and that” (Your Lordship adds) “ought to be a motive with, and encouragement to, the more intelligent part of the public to consider in what manner, and to what extent, unquestionable imperfections and abuses might be removed which degrade the character of Parliament, and become the most powerful weapons in the hands of wicked men to expose the legislature and government of this country to dangerous disaffection and contempt.”

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