24 Jan y 1810

Parl y. Reform

Ch.15. Electors bribe

'.2. Mischief to Electors mind

1

'.2. Mischief to the mind of the bribed Elector.

The less a mischief really is, the less it is likely to be {- not to say sure to be -} in the eyes of any person exercised in the production of it.

Even When the votes necessary to the filling of a seat are all sold in the lump by the patron of the borough, even in that case /wholesale way of dealing/, unless the existing system of parliamentary representation be to such a degree bad, as to be fit for nothing but to be subverted, this way /mode/ of filling a seat, so far from being attended with any superior mischief is, for the reasons that have been given, less pernicious than the gratuitous[?] made: and if the system be bad, still this mode of filling a seat is of all modes of filling it but that which in case of the subversion of the system would be the universal one the least bad.

As /Seeing thus in the existing state of things/ I should not myself think that I myself was doing any thing bad, or that I need be ashamed of if wanting a seat and having money I bought a seat of the individual who had one to sell, or having a seat and wanting money I sold my seat to any man /a customer/ who wanted to buy one, so I should not expect to find that in the like case any such self condemnation in the breast of any one else /another bosom/.