7 Aug. 1809

Parl. Reform

Ch. Necessity Hume

6

6

To the people indeed it would be "easy" (in /to use/ the words of Hume) "to wrest from the Crown all those powers". To the people ever since the Revolution it always has been easy. Yet have they ever done so, attempted so to do, or even thought of it viz. by persevering in the practice of electing Members foreknown to be determined upon that course? Not they indeed. And why not? Only because they all along have been and still are, and so long as the constitution either remains undestroyed or appears to them so to do, in all human probability ever will be. /for any thing that appears to the contrary./

If then for want of the supposed necessary quantity of the matter of corruption and the habit of applying it - if from this or any other cause the constitution /government/ be destroyed by the destruction of the /that/ monarchy and aristocracy which are two out of the three component parts of it it can never be by the House of Commons alone it must be by the body of the people themselves, viz. either of themselves or through the medium of the House of Commons.

At present the people have no such inclination. No not even under the provocation offered viz by the dependence of the House of Commons and by the corruption and sham elections by which this dependence is produced. No such inclination have they; though from their birth accustomed as they have been to see Members pretended deputies of theirs, in the choice of whom they have no part, Members when[?] in such number by whomsoever chosen they see mere tools and puppets of /in the hands of/ the Minister - as ready to vote for one thing as for another - Members put into this state by vast masses of emolument capable of being taken away from them by the same advisers of the Crown at pleasure, and by that danger perpetually hanging over their heads, not to mention ill applied notions of gratitude and honour kept perpetually in that same abject and dependent state.