1822 Sept 27

Tripoli. Securities against Misrule.

Preliminary Explanations

?.4. Misrule its authors

Considered in its application to assignable individuals, misrule may be termed vexation: the persons considered as the authors of it being persons clothed with power, the vexation may be termed oppression In so far as from the burthen thus imposed, benefit in any shape is received by the authors, or by any whom they are in this way disposed to favour, the oppression is depredation.

As to the authors, though, to a boundless degree and in a conspicuous and avowed manner, the only persons in whom oppression and thence depredation can have for its authors are those by whom in the state in question the supreme power is possessed, yet to a great and indeterminate degree /amount/ not only their several subordinates - instruments of and sharers in that same power, but the rich in general, possess as such and to an amount rising in proportion to their riches in addition to that desire which is in all men, the faculty of giving birth to those same evils. In this case are all countries in which the benefit of the protection afforded /proffered/ by the judicial establishment, is denied: denied either openly or virtually virtually, that is to say by not affording it to any but to the few who are able to purchase it at the price set upon it.