1822 Nov. 26

Tripoli. Securities against Misrule.

50

Preliminary Explanations

Securities against Misrule: being Ordinances and other Arrangements proposed to be established in the State of Tripoli, with a view to their serving in that character.

Preliminary Explanations: shewing what the nature of the case admitts of being done or attempted to be done in such a country in this view, without producing or endeavouring to produce any change in the form of Government.

Misrule is bad Government: it comprehends whatsoever is opposite to good Government. A Government is good, in proportion as it is contributory to the greatest happiness of the greatest number: namely of the members of the community in which it has place.

No government having any where had place that had for its main object any other than the greatest happiness of those among whom the powers of government have from time to time been shared, all governments that have ever had existence have had more or less of bad in them. Of all governments the worst have necessarily been those in which the powers of government have all of them been in the hands of one - because in that case each government has had for its object the greatest happiness of that one member: and to that object the happiness of all the other members has of course been made a continual sacrifice.

Take any government whatsoever, for rendering it less bad than it is, whatsoever means are capable of being proposed or so much as thought of are reducible to one or other of two heads: 1. arrangements by which a change will be effected in the form of the government: 2. arrangements by which a check will be applied to the power of the ruling functionary or functionaries, without any such change.

Arrangements which belong to the first of these heads constitute a separate subject of consideration: the set of arrangements herein proposed under the notion of serving with more or less effect in the character of Securities against misgovernment otherwise called misrule, require not any such changes: they are grounded on the supposition on which they are grounded is - that by one means or other, without any such change, the ruler or rulers may by one means /consideration/ or other be induced to lend their power to the purpose of giving to them the sanction of law.