9 Oct r 1809

Parl y Reform

B. I. Necessity

Ch. Occasional inadequate

§.3. Burke advocates occasional

3

A curious sort of remedy it must be confessed is this which he recommends—or to

speak more properly curious the conjuncture—the only conjuncture at which he can

endure the idea of its /that this remedy of his own prescription/ being applied.

The signal for the application of it must be some particular ‘ act’: and of what description must that act be? It must be not only ‘ flagrant’ but ‘ notorious’: this flagrant

and notorious act must moreover be an ‘ innovation’: that

/this/ innovation must be a capital one: this capital

innovation must be such as shall have made it ‘ appear’, that

‘ these Representatives are going to over-leap the fences of the

law:’ and this intended over-leaping of the fences of the law must have had

for its object or its effect or both nothing less than ‘ to

introduce an arbitrary power.’

[In margin:] so it keep to its old shapes misgovernment swell to what bulk and

continue for what length of time it pleases

In the eyes of this Physician of the body politic, this remedy which with /under/

all these conditions he ventures to prescribe must be /have been/ not only a quack

remedy, but among the most dangerous and drastic of quack remedies. The patient must

be /is to be/ at death’s door, before the Physician who thus prescribes it will

endure to see it adminstered.

Be this as it may when once the proper Physician is called in, there is to be an end

of the remedy: it is not to be used in any such character as that of a diet [...?]

/it is not to be used./ It is to be used not as a succedaneum to his skill, but only

as an instrument in his hand: an instrument too which when once he is /has been/

called in, and has fairly taken his seat by the bed-side, is never more to be

employed or thought of.