1819 May 9.

To Erskine

Lett. Es /Whigs/ Anti-Reform Labours

3

6

3

7. 4 Sacrifice of the advantage which in the character of a person holding an official situation invested with power in various shapes, and /enriched by emolument in various shapes and/ affording incitement and means to abuse coupled with the character of Members of Parliament professing to be at all times upon the watch for instances of abuse, for the purpose of causing it to cease and providing for the prevention of it in future, but entitled at the same time to sit in judgment in the character of judge on the occasion of every complaint of abuse suspected to have been committed either by himself or by any of those who are linked with him in power and interest – sacrifice of the advantage which by the means of these two repugnant characters of defendant and judge he possesses by being able to give effectual impunity to himself and them: thus securing to the conduct of all Members of Parliament, and to those of his own party and himself the faculty of exercising a tyranny at all times and on all occasions without any controul afforded by the nature and constitution of the Government: a tyranny void of all controul except such as may be applied by the apprehension of the effects of sudden and occasional and sudden exasperation on the part of the people without doors, void of all controul except that sort of controul which has place in Constantinople, and which is applied in and by fire a part of the inhabitants setting fire in various places /this or that place/ to the City to which the residence of the despot is contiguous

{A sacrifice of this sort it seems to be as reasonable to expect at the hands of any set of men having in possession and expectancy the power attached to administrative department of the Empire from any cause other than that of fear such as in the year 1783 produced in the shape of the emancipation of the Irish from the authority of the English Parliament a mitigation of the system of misrule in Ireland, any more than at the hands of a set of defendants in an ordinary suit or prosecution, civil or criminal, on the supposition of their composing a majority of the Jury or of the Judges of the judicatory by which they are to be tried, a voluntary surrender of that advantage.}