1821 Sept. 26 B

To Toreno

2 o

Letter VI

§ 2. Code welcome

Apology

1. Personality[?]

J.B. glad to see their Code

10

2

Altogether different /opposite/ as you have seen, Sir, is the sensation produced in my mind by the view of their proposed Code. In more shapes than one their work is in my view of it of the greatest /no small/ use to me. 1. It gives me a compleat view of all that part of the field of legislation as it has place in Spain in which all the relative inaptitude that can justly be imputed to a foreigner as such has its force. 2. It enables me /puts me in a condition /in condition// in my endeavours to render my labours useful to your nation it enables me to touch with some confidence upon points I could scarcely have ventured to touch upon, and to penetrate further than I could otherwise have ventured to penetrate into the region of detail. 3 Nor can it appear wonderful to you, Sir, if out of the chagrin with which the idea of perpetuity or even long continuance as possessed by the work with which I have dealt with /so freely dealt with by me/ can not but affect me, I extract a proportionable satisfaction from the thought, that unless the bar to competition should in the event be as perpetual as in the design it appears to have been, such is the complexion of the work and the only work with which mine will have to contend,.