9 Oct r 1809 + §.3

Parl y Reform

2 o

B. I. Necessity

Ch. Occasional inadequate

§.3. Burke advocates occasional

1

§.3. Occasional, to the exclusion of constant, interposition pleased for

/advocated/ by Burke

Occasional interposition—(it must be confessed)—‘ interposition’ indeed, but that not more nor other than occasional—was what was

desired and pleaded for, on the part of the people by Edmund Burke.

‘Indeed’ (says he +) ‘in the situation in which we stand, with an

immense revenue, an enormous debt, mighty establishments, Government itself a great

banker and a great merchant, I see no other way for the preservation of a decent

attention to public interest in the Representatives, but the

interposition of the body of the people itself’ (the words italicized here

are italicized in the original) ‘of the body of the people itself—Yes—but when?

{Periodically and regularly and} at {stated and} pre-appointed and foreknown

times?—No: but on some very particular occasion or occasions, when the purpose of a

very particular and meritorious connection of Noble Lords and Gentlemen may be

answered by it, things being at that pitch that for giving the country the benefit of

their services, nothing less, nothing else will serve—‘whenever’ (continues he) ‘it

shall appear, by some flagrant and notorious act, by some capital

innovation, that these Representatives are going to over-leap

the fences of the law, and to introduce an arbitrary power’;—a state /juncture/ of

things the arrival and continued existence of which the ninety-nine preceding pages

had been employed to prove.

+ Thoughts on the causes of the present discontents. p. 100.