1818 Aug. 26.

Things as they are

§.5. Matter of Corruption

5

In the case where the power bestowed in this way by the Monarch is in name and shew as above coordinate to his own, he loses /parts with/ nothing by the bestowal of it: it is not at his own expence but at the expence of those who share in it under the same name that it is thus bestowed In the case of the Lords Spiritual, {so called because all of them are by Act of Parliament full of the Holy Spirit otherwise called the Holy Ghost,} the number being by usage limited, it is all profit to him and without loss, as often as the occasion arrives /comes/ for filling it up. In the case of the Lay-Lords, by which is meant those who have not the benefit of being impregnated by any such gas, a loss /an expence/ there is, but among the persons suffering it /on whom it falls/ the Monarch is not to be found: they are the already existing Lords, in whose company the new one is intruded.

By corruption in this shape are kept in subjection all those men, if any such there are, who are not capable of being kept in subjection by money or ribbons: all the Lords themselves with the exception of those who being already on the highest level can not be raised any higher: all those future contingent Lords who under the unassuming name of country Gentlemen, avenging themselves upon their dependants in /for/ the prostration manifested by them towards the Monarch and his acting servants /advisers/, cease not till the sale is completed to boast of that independence which the nature of their situation and their prospects have /designed[?] to/ banished for ever from their hearts.