1818 June 23

Parl. Reform Bill

Prefat

Advantage recommend not

3

Not so the Whigs. In this article such as it is, it is impossible to them not to be

feeling /experiencing/ on every occasion an object of annoyance. But the use of it

not being less necessary to them than to their more factional /overbearing/

opponents, hence[?] it is that the person itself and the only antidote to it and that

a most effectual /indisputable/ one are inveighed at: inveighed at perhaps in the

same breath.

Before me lies a Whig Newspaper: on the Wednesday influence a bad /sad/ thing: a sad

obstacle to /in the way of/ the otherwise indubitable success of one of his heroes

But Two days before this in this same paper and in this case too as in the former

from the mouth /pen/ of the Editor comes /had come/ out a prose Epigram in which the

ballot /secresy of suffrage/ is consigned to scorn, and to render it the more

poignant it is put into the mouth of the second Bill

Had the ballot been in use I should have I should have had the seat without fail –

how often have I not /will you not/ heard the observation from a Whig mouth. Well

then this security for free suffrage would you wish to see it adopted /in actual use/

and applied to every seat? Oh no, that’s another thing.

Why not wish to see it adopted? Because so sure as it were, so sure would it kill[?]

all influences. Now /of influence/ there are two sorts of influence: there is

sinister influence and there is legitimate influence. Sinister influence is the

influence that is employed against us: this is bad, and ought to be destroyed.

Legitimate influence is the influence that is employed for us. This is good: and so

good that the salvation of the country depends upon the preservation of it.