1819 June 7

To Erskine

ult o

Lett. 6. E. AntiReformist

§ 6. 4. Spontaneity rely on

2

35

2

and in particular on the occasion of the phrase “ it shall be the free spontaneous act of the House of Commons, or through respectful petitions” as above, after hunting through more than a page for the antecedent substantive, on which the import of the pronoun relative it depends, I have been forced to give up the pursuit as hopeless.

Be this as it may, in this condition I see a sort of alternative: the designation of two sets of operations or courses, by either of which the so highly desirable disposition may be brought into act. These are – 1. “the spontaneous act of the House of Commons; 2. “respectful petition of the people”, meaning, I presume, the acts respectively performed, in and by the presentation of such respectful petitions.

This I find in p. 29: and in p. 28. at more than a page distance, in the course, but still far removed from the beginning, of this breath-exhausting pair of sentences, in which all things imaginable are strung together, I observe accordingly these other words – “if Parliament should be disposed, either spontaneously, or in compliance with respectful petitions of the people, to consider &c and should fearlessly enact,” and so forth.

Here then are two causes /incidents/ presented to us, each of them as a cause likely to come into operation, each of them as an incident which we are called upon to regard as being to a certain degree probable: namely to such a degree, that the existence of one or other of them ought to be relied on by us as being sure to take effect; acted on; and that in such sort as to prevent our harbouring a thought of bringing about a state of things confessedly so desirable.

In this place that one of the two which calls for consideration is the alledged /supposed/ “free spontaneous act” of Honourable House. Why? – because the sort of instruments in question, namely petitions from the people, though easily spoken of, are, as I shall have occasion to remind Your Lordship, not quite so easily brought into existence and presented; and because if on the part of Honourable House any such […?] beneficent despotism really has place, it would be a loss to both parties if it were prevented from {manifest}ing {itself}, and ripening into act, and thus displaying before the eyes of – an admiring and grateful people.