[clxvii. 89]

1821 March 23

Rid Yourselves

Anti Constitut

Corruptive influence

.. "nor solicit for another. What? A Member of the Cortes would he have no means of giving the King or any person in his dependence to understand that the appointment of such or such a person a son of his suppose to such or such an employment would be agreable to him? no means other than solicitation performed by himself and in express words? A female to whom service in that shape in which sexual desire is ministered to is a source of subsistence, does she never employ any means of making /it/ known her readiness to render that service, other than by making the tender of it in express terms?

This a bar to corrupt obsequiousness? Is it not rather a mask? But if a mask, what a transparent one! Is there a child in leading-strings /school boy/ that ought not to be ashamed, if found to have been deceived by it /covered with shame if detected in having been deceived by it/?

What then is it that by this article is forbidden? yielding to corruptive influence /prostitution/ in this shape? Not it indeed: all that is forbidden is the express offer of his services to the corruptor's use.

Can not solicit - a Deputy can not solicit. And, suppose he does make any /some/ such /a/ solicitation of this kind /has solicited/, what is he /in what can he be/ the worse for it? Is the appointment void? This is not said. Nor could it have been without injustice and absurdity: for were such the consequence, supposing a man about to be appointed to any such situation, it would be the power of any adversary he had in the Cortes, by so easy an act as that of soliciting for him, to prevent his having it.

The solicitor is he, for such his solicitation, in any way punishable? /The act - the act of solicitation - is any punishment appointed for it? None whatever of no punishment on this occasion is any intimation to be found./