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OFFICIAL APTITUDE 
 MAXIMIZED; 
 
 EXPENSE MINIMIZED: 
 
 AS SHEWN IN THE SEVERAL PAPERS COMPRISED 
 IN THIS VOLUME. 
 
 BY 
 
 JEREMY BENT HAM. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR, 
 
 AND 
 
 PUBLISHED BY ROBERT HEWARD, 
 
 AT THE OFFICE OF THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW, 
 2 WELLINGTON STREET, STRAND. 
 
 1830. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY C. AND W. REYNELL, BROAD STREET, 
 
 GOLDEN SQUARE. 
 
CONTENTS OF THIS VOLUME. 
 
 •£. 
 
 Paper I. Preface to the whole. 
 
 Paper II. Introductory View. 
 
 Paper III. Extract from the Constitutional Code. 
 
 Paper IV. Supplement to the Extract. 
 
 Paper V. Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 Paper VI. Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 Paper VII. Observations on Mr Secretary Peel's House of 
 
 Commons' Speech on the Pol ice- Magistrates' 
 
 Salary-Raising Bill. 
 Paper VIII. Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 Paper IX. On the Militia. 
 Paper X. On Public Account-Keeping. 
 Paper XI. Constitutional Code Table of Contents. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 To the whole of the matter, which, under 
 nine or ten different heads*, is now, in the 
 compass of one and the same volume, 
 published under the same general title, — 
 belongs one and the same design, and, it is 
 believed, one and the same result. But, it 
 bring composed of no fewer than (besides this) 
 nine different papers, published mostly at 
 different times, on different occasions, and 
 under titles by which no intimation of 
 such unity of design is conveyed, — it has 
 occurred that that design may in no small 
 degree be promoted, by holding up to view, 
 in this Preface, the way in which they are 
 regarded as being respectively conducive and 
 contributory to it. 
 
 The work, from which they take their com- 
 mon origin, was an all-embracing system of 
 proposed Constitutional Law, for the use of all 
 nations professing liberal opinions : Volumes, 
 
 * Since this Preface was committed to the press, some change 
 having been made in the list of the Papers originally intended 
 to be inserted ; hence some uncertainty and mis-statement in 
 the numerical designation of them. But, as by reference to the 
 list of contents, things may be set right, the benefit of correction 
 would not (it has been thought) pay for the trouble. 
 
Vlll OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 three ; the first of which, after having been 
 some years out of the press, is at this time 
 now first published. Of this work, a main 
 occupation was, of course, the shewing by 
 what means the several members of the 
 official establishment — in other words, the 
 public functionaries, of the aggregate body of 
 whom, what is called the Government is 
 composed — might be rendered, in the highest 
 degree well qualified, for rendering to the 
 whole community the several services which 
 are or ought to be looked for at their hands : 
 or say, for giving fulfilment to that, which is 
 or ought to be the end of their institution : — 
 namely, the maximization of the happiness 
 of the whole community under consideration. 
 
 In any one of these forms of words, may be 
 seen expressed the whole of the benefit in 
 view. 
 
 But, in the very nature of the case, con- 
 nected with this benefit, is a burthen, without 
 which the attainment of this same benefit is, 
 in all places, and at all times, utterly impos- 
 sible. Of this burthen the principal and 
 most prominent part, being of a pecuniary 
 nature, is designated and presented to view 
 by the word expense. 
 
 Hence it is — that, with the object desig- 
 nated by the words Official aptitude, becomes 
 inseparably associated the object designated 
 by the word expense. 
 
 Of whatsoever benefit comes to be esta- 
 blished, the net amount will be — that which 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 remains after deduction made of the amount 
 of the burthen. 
 
 A notion, which, in the course of this in- 
 quiry, whether really entertained or no, I had 
 the mortification of seeing but too extensively 
 endeavoured to be inculcated, was — that the 
 net amount of the benefit reaped would, in this 
 case, increase, and as of course, with the 
 amount of the burthen imposed : and — to 
 speak more particularly, that the aptitude of 
 official men for their several situations would, 
 in a manner of course, receive increase with, 
 and with every practicable degree of exact- 
 ness in proportion to, the expense employed 
 in engaging them to enter upon, and continue 
 in, their respective situations. 
 
 On the contrary, for my own part, the 
 more closely I looked into the matter, the 
 more thoroughly did I become persuaded — 
 not only that this opinion is erroneous, but 
 that the exact reverse of it is the real state of 
 the case. 
 
 In regard to each of these so intimately 
 connected objects — maximization of official 
 aptitude, and minimization of official expense 
 — to show by what means the best promise of 
 the obtain ment of them might be afforded, 
 was of course an object of my inquiries. 
 From the words Official aptitude maximized, 
 expense minimized — from these five words 
 might this design receive its expression : and, 
 of the design or purpose of this work, might 
 intimation be thus afforded bv its title. But, 
 
X OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 in addition to this, a further idea, which it is 
 my wish to see associated with these words, is 
 — that of these two states of things — these 
 two mutually concomitantly desirable objects 
 — one bears to the other the relation of cause 
 to effect; for, that from the same arrange- 
 ment from which the expense so employed 
 wall experience diminution, the aptitude in 
 question will, in the natural order of things, 
 receive increase: in a word, that cater is paribus, 
 the less the expense so bestowed as above, 
 the greater, not the lesser, will be the 
 aptitude. 
 
 Now for the painful part of this inquiry : 
 Never, to any subject-matter,— -considered 
 as a source of happiness or unhappiness, or 
 both, — have my labours on any occasion been 
 directed, but with a view to the giving increase 
 to the net amount of happiness. But, so in- 
 timately blended and intermingled, through- 
 out the whole field, are those two fruits of 
 human action, — never could the sweet be 
 brought to view, but the bitter would come 
 into' view along with it : and, as the sweet 
 would, in great measure, come into view 
 and be reaped without effort, — the conse- 
 quence was — that in clearing away the bitter 
 consisted the great part of the labour neces- 
 sary to be employed. In such part of the 
 field, — for obtaining, of the bitter — in a word, 
 of the unhappiness — produced by deficiency 
 in the aptitude — a perception sufficient 
 to put me in search after the most effectual 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 mode of supplying that same deficiency, — a 
 very slight glance would commonly suffice. 
 But, this object accomplished, then has come 
 the task of shewing the needfulness of the 
 research that had been made : shewing this, 
 by shewing the bitterness of the fruit with 
 which the whole field was overrun, anil the 
 magnitude of the evil, actually and con- 
 tinually coining into existence, from the want 
 of the supposed discovered appropriate and 
 effectual remedy. 
 
 Painful (I may truly say) has, on every 
 occasion, been this part of my task : for, 
 never has it happened to me to witness suffer- 
 ing, on the part of any creature, whether of my 
 own species or any other, without experien- 
 cing, in some degree or other, a sensation of 
 the like nature in my own nerves : still less 
 possible has it been to me to avoid experi- 
 encing the like unpleasant situation, when it 
 has happened to myself to have been contri- 
 butory to that same suffering. 
 
 Yet, without bringing to view the evil, — ut- 
 terly incomplete would have been the good, 
 produced by the invention and description 
 given of the remedy : for, by all those, who- 
 soever they were, by whom, for the sake of 
 the benefit derived by them from the evil, the 
 existence of the evil would of course be de- 
 nied, and their endeavours applied to the 
 keeping it out of view,— correspondent ill- 
 will, harboured towards those by whom this 
 
Xll OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 source of the good is endeavoured to be 
 dried up, is a necessary consequence. 
 
 Here then, in connection with every par- 
 ticle of the good endeavoured and supposed 
 to be done,— come three distinguishable par- 
 ticles of evil : evil, from the contemplation of 
 the suffering endeavoured to be prevented ; 
 evil, from the contemplation of the suffering, 
 producible, on the part of the evil-doer, by 
 the application made of the remedy ; evil, 
 apprehended from the desire of vengeance, 
 produced, in the mind of the evil-doer, by 
 the loss of his accustomed benefit. 
 
 Happily, it follows not in this case that, 
 because the particles of evil bear in number 
 to those of the good the ratio of three to one, 
 they must in the aggregate be superior in 
 value to the good. Happily : for, if such 
 were the consequence, — scarcely where, be- 
 tween man and man, contention had place, 
 would good to any net amount be ever pro- 
 duced. 
 
 Moreover, a few hints there are, to which, 
 coupling together two considerations, namely, 
 that of the extent of their usefulness, if any 
 they have, and the narrowness of the space into 
 which they may be compressed, I could not 
 refuse admittance : and, for such admittance, 
 no other place than the present could be 
 chosen with any advantage. 
 
 Disappointment-prevention, or say non-dis- 
 appointment, principle. For the purpose of 
 
PREFACE. Xlll 
 
 retro-susception or say resumption, as well as 
 for that of original distribution, — in this prin- 
 ciple may be seen the chief and all-directing 
 guide. In this may be seen, on the ground 
 of utility and reason, the foundation of the 
 ■whole law of property, penal branch as well 
 as civil. In another place* application has 
 already been made of it, to the subject of 
 what is called real property : — and thereby ex- 
 planation given of it. In the present volume 
 may be seen ulterior application made of it, 
 and explanation given to it: namely, in the 
 immediately ensuing Paper, intituled Intro- 
 ductory View. 
 
 In the train of it come now r a few proposed 
 rules and observations : — 
 
 1. Rule I. — So long as expenditure con- 
 tinues running through any pipe or channel, 
 which can be stopped without production of 
 disappointment — disappointment to fixed ex- 
 pectations already formed, — forbear to stop it, 
 in any pipe or channel by the stoppage of 
 which such disappointment will be produced. 
 
 2. Rule II. — On this occasion, by appro- 
 priate delineation draw a clear and express 
 line of demarcation between^red and floating 
 expectations. 
 
 Every solicitor, who sends a son of his to 
 one of the Inns of Court, expects to see that 
 same son on the Chancery Bench with the seals 
 before him ; as the Lord Bathurst, of Queen 
 
 * [Another place] — Westminster Review for 1S26, No. XII. 
 
Xiv OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 Ann's creation, saw his. Behold here a. 
 specimen of floating expectations : corres- 
 pondent to fixed expectations in ordinary 
 language, are vested interests in technical 
 language. 
 
 Rule III. — The amount of the sum pro- 
 posed to be retrenched being given, and the 
 amount of suffering of every sufferer by it 
 being the same, the less the number of the 
 sufferers by it the better. 
 
 Application. Case supposed : In the de- 
 partment in question, mass of expenditure 
 proposed to be retrenched, 1000/. a year : one 
 sum of 1000/. a year forms the salary of one 
 Commissioner of a Board: another sum of 
 1000/. a year, the aggregate of the salaries of 
 ten Clerks. These situations, all eleven of them, 
 are, on examination, deemed needless : but, 
 without production of disappointment they 
 cannot, any one of them, be struck off. Di- 
 rection in consequence : strike off the one 
 Commissioner, rather than the ten Clerks, 
 or any one or more of them. 
 
 4. Rule IV. — Remember always, — that, 
 on both sides, the amount of the provision 
 probably obtainable by each such dismissed 
 functionary, in lieu of what he thus loses, 
 requires to be taken into consideration. 
 
 5. Example of a channel of expenditure 
 capable of being stopt up, without disappoint- 
 ment of fixed expectation, this : namely, Sala- 
 ries of the ostentatious class of functionaries 
 sent on foreign missions : Secretaries of Lega- 
 

 PREFACE. XV 
 
 tion, Consuls, and Vice-Consuls, not included. 
 Offers of service at reduced salaries to every 
 diversity of amount — offers of gratuitous ser- 
 vices, not to speak of offers of purchase — let 
 all such offers be called for and received, be- 
 fore choice is made. Of purchase ? Yes. For, 
 if a fit man there be, who, instead of being 
 paid for taking upon him the burthen, is wil- 
 ling to pay for the permission to bear it, — why, 
 even against any such offer should the door 
 be closed ? 
 
 As to the general indication afforded, of 
 aptitude for a political situation, by the proof 
 given, of relish for it by the smallness of the 
 sum required for taking it, or the largeness 
 of the sum ready to be given for it, — see on 
 this head what is said in Paper III — Extract 
 from the Constitutional Code. 
 
 6. Note, that — by striking out any indivi- 
 dual, in whose instance fixed expectation, 
 either of continuance in possession, or of ac- 
 quisition of possession, has place, — nothing 
 is gained, upon the whole, by the community 
 of which he forms a part. Not more is the 
 community thus benefited, — than, by the re- 
 moval of a weight from one side of a ship to 
 another, the ship is lightened. 
 
 7. As often as, at the public expense, mo- 
 ney is given in the name of indemnification, 
 complete or incomplete, for loss, sustained by 
 him without his default, — sooften is acted upon 
 a principle, the reverse of that which would 
 produce the disappointment of a fixed expect- 
 
XVI OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 ation, by the uncompensated extinction of a 
 profit-yielding office. 
 
 To apply this observation to the matter of 
 the present volume. In the three first of these: 
 Papers will be seen nearly the whole of the 
 sweet part of the compound task : in the 
 four next will be seen predominating the bit- 
 ter. The first thing done will consist ac- 
 cordingly in laying down, all along, what, in 
 my view of it, is right ; that, to this, as a 
 standard, for the purpose of detection and 
 exposure, may all along be applied that 
 which, in my view, is wrong. 
 
 As to the ninth of these Papers, — of the 
 subject of it (the Militia) the extent is com- 
 paratively narrow, — and the relation of it to 
 the rest must wait for its explanation till some 
 other matters have been brought to view. 
 
 Occupied principally in shewing how the 
 aptitude in question may be maximized and 
 the expense minimized, and that by every 
 diminution effected in the expense, augmen- 
 tation may be given to the aptitude — are the 
 three first and the eighth of the ensuing 
 papers : occupied in shewing that in fact, on 
 the part of the rulers of the British Empire in 
 its whole vast mass, and of the English part 
 in particular of them, the endeavour has been, 
 and continues to be. and so lonsj as the form 
 of government continues to be as it is, never 
 can cease to be — to maximize the expense 
 and minimize the aptitude — occupied in the 
 establishment of this position, are the remain- 
 
PREFACE. XV11 
 
 ing numbers ; that is to say, the 4th, oth, Olh, 
 and 7th of these same Papers. 
 
 Specially connected with one another will 
 be seen to be Papers 4 and 5 ; mutually con- 
 nected in like manner with one another, 
 Papers 6 and 7- 
 
 In Papers 4 and 5, may be seen occupied 
 the leading minds of the two parties between 
 which the statesmen of those days respec- 
 tively were divided, years 1780 and 1810, — 
 occupied in the endeavour to obtain the 
 approbation of the community, for prin- 
 ciples, by which, if carried into practice, 
 not an atom of the fruits of human labour 
 over and above what is necessary to bare 
 existence, would be left in the hands by 
 the labour of which it was produced. So 
 much for principles : — or if another word be 
 more agreeable, theory. 
 
 In Papers 6 and 7 may be seen — with what 
 consummate consistency and perfection those 
 same principles have been, and down to the 
 present time continue to be, carried into 
 practice : to how enormous and endless an 
 amount has been swelled the mass of expense, 
 employed under the notion of securing ap- 
 propriate aptitude on the part of the head 
 functionary in one of the departments ; 
 namely, in that of Justice; — and the degree of 
 perfection, in which, in that same instance, 
 the quality of inaptitude has had place : and 
 how effectual the provision that has been 
 made, for addition altogether boundless to 
 
 B 
 
XV1H OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 that same expense. Moreover, in Paper 7 
 may be seen — how, by the head functionary 
 in another department, namely that of the 
 Home-affairs — not only was support given to 
 the system of predatory exaction, and 
 thereby of expense, just mentioned, — and to 
 the continuance of the official inaptitude also 
 just mentioned, — but in his own department 
 an addition, with (it is believed) unexampled 
 wantonness, made, to the expense of offices 
 subordinate to his own, and thereby to his 
 own emolument ; coupled with the inexorable 
 establishment of a set of regulations, having 
 for their most obvious and incontestable 
 effect, not to say their avowed object, the 
 exclusion of every efficient cause, and assign- 
 able presumptive proof, of official appro- 
 priate aptitude. Sole qualification required, 
 eating and drinking ; qualification decidedly 
 rejected — of the several powers belonging to 
 the very office in question, the habitual 
 exercise. 
 
 Thus then may be seen — not only re- 
 stricted, but by every day's practice continu- 
 ally confirmed and acted upon, — the theory 
 to which expression may be given by the 
 words — official expense and official inaptitude, 
 both maximized, 
 
 When, in the career indicated by the words 
 expense maximized, aptitude minimized, the 
 ruling powers have proceeded for a certain 
 length of time, — it will sometimes happen — 
 that, by the fear of seeing their power drop 
 
PRE FA CI-;. \1X 
 
 from under them, they will be induced to 
 stop ; and even not simply to make a stand, 
 but actually to make a retreat ; and that 
 this retreat, when applied to expense, will be 
 declared under the name of retrenchment. 
 
 All this while, the original opposite design, 
 — the design of advancing in that same career, 
 — continues, of course, in unabated force. For, 
 the same cause which first gave birth to it, will, 
 so long as man is man, make it grow with his 
 growth, and strengthen with his strength. The 
 design, however, not being altogether so ac- 
 ceptable to the people at whose expense, as it 
 is to their rulers by whom, it is entertained and 
 pursued, — hence the endeavour to impress on 
 the minds of the people — instead of the appre- 
 hension of its existence— the opposite confi- 
 dence. But, such is the force of truth, and of 
 the nature of things, that whenever a design 
 of this sort really has place, so it is that, by 
 means of the very endeavours employed to 
 dispel the apprehension of it, it is liable to be 
 brought to light. 
 
 Whether, in the several instances of Ed- 
 mund Burke and George Rose this result 
 has not had its exemplification, — is among 
 the questions,on which the reader will have to 
 pronounce, should his patience have carried 
 him through Papers the 4th and 5th. 
 
 Not unfrequently, those who, by delusive 
 arguments, are labouring to inculcate an 
 erroneous opinion, have, by those same or 
 some other considerations, been themselves 
 
XX OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 involved in the like delusion ; such is the 
 influence exercised on the judgment by the 
 affections. In the mind of George Rose, the 
 existence of the power of self-deceit, in quan- 
 tity more or less considerable, presented itself 
 to me (I remember) as not improbable: in 
 the mind of Edmund Burke, not a particle. In 
 the mind of George Rose (means for obser- 
 vation not being wanting) there seemed to me 
 to be no small portion of downright honesty 
 and goodness of intention ; in that of Edmund 
 Burke, nothing better than matchless artifice. 
 
 To return to the subject of retrenchment. 
 Just now, a shew of a design of this sort hav- 
 ing been made, and in that track even some 
 short steps taken, — among the topics, for 
 some time proposed to be included in this 
 miscellany, was that of retrenchment. But, 
 after some progress made in relation to it, 
 came into view, what ought to have pre- 
 sented itself from the first; namely, that the 
 field of retrenchment is no other than the 
 whole field of expenditure : the only difference 
 being — that the points of view, in which that 
 same field has to be contemplated, are, on 
 the two occasions, opposite. This being borne 
 in mind, time and space were seen joining in 
 putting a peremptory veto upon any regular 
 progress in that track : any progress, present- 
 ing, upon the face of it, any pretension to the 
 character of a comprehensive one. 
 
 Seeing however, as above, one supposed 
 proper seat and source of retrenchment — the 
 
PREFACE. XXI 
 
 militia, in relation to which what had occur- 
 red to me had already assumed a determinate 
 shape, — the quantity ot" space occupied by it 
 being but small, admittance (it seemed) need 
 not be refused to it. It forms accordingly the 
 matter of Paper 9- 
 
 8. What is the Navy good for? Answer : 
 to help defend Colonies. What are Colonics 
 good for? Answer: to help support the Navy. 
 Quere, what part of the national expenditure 
 is kept up on the ground of this circle? 
 
 9- On the question — by the metropolitan 
 country shall this or that distant dependency 
 be kept up, — there are two sides — two inter- 
 ests — that require consideration : that of the 
 metropolis herself and that of the dependency. 
 To Great Britain and Ireland — say in one 
 word to Brithibernia — would it be matter of 
 advantage or disadvantage to surrender the 
 dominion of British India to the inhabitants, 
 as it surrendered to the inhabitants the domi- 
 nion of the new A nolo- American United 
 
 O 
 
 States ? On the question whether it would be 
 for the advantage ot Brithibernia, much might 
 be said on both sides. On the question, as ap- 
 plied to the nation of British India, — in the 
 minds of those who have read the documents, 
 and in particular the work of the so well- 
 informed, intelligent and incontestably well- 
 intentioned Bishop Heber, — scarcely can there 
 be a doubt. By the withdrawal of the English 
 regiments from British India, in what respect 
 or decree would Hindoos or Mahometans 
 
XX11 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 profit? Answer: In much the same as did 
 the ancient Britons by the withdrawal of the 
 Roman leoions. 
 
 10. If, in the case of the several European 
 powers, and other civilized nations and govern- 
 ments, security against one another were all 
 that were sought for, at the hands of 
 standing armies and permanent navies, — no 
 less effectually might this security be procured 
 and retained, by proportional diminution than 
 by proportionable augmentation. But, by all of 
 them, permanent military force, in one or both 
 branches, whether needed or not, is prized at 
 any rate as an instrument of security for them- 
 selves against their own subjects : security by 
 means of intimidation : and security by means 
 of delusive show and corruptive influence. 
 
 11. Now for dead weight. After having so 
 much too long had its habitation, it has at 
 length received its name. It was on the shoul- 
 ders of the good woman who used to figure 
 upon a halfpenny, a wen, or a millstone about 
 her neck : either emblem may serve. But 
 should the first be preferred, let not imagina- 
 tion take place of reason, — and, turning her 
 back on the herein-above-proposed non-dis- 
 appointment principle, — go on to say, imme- 
 dicabile vulnus ense reddendum est. 
 
 12. Millstone or wen — it is among the 
 blessings for which Brithibernia stands in- 
 debted to Matchless Constitution. In the 
 Anglo- American United States, no such ex- 
 crescence is known. Pensions, in compensa- 
 
PREFACK. XXI11 
 
 tion for wounds received, — and thence for the 
 encouragement necessary to the engaging of 
 men to expose themselves to such casualties, — 
 Yes. But, pensions of retreat, — pensions for 
 widows or orphans, — remuneration mis-seated 
 or extravasated, in these or any other shapes, — 
 none. As to extravasated remuneration, see 
 Paper III, Extract from Constitutional Code.* 
 
 13. Exactly as necessar}', exactly as rea- 
 sonable, are pensions of retreat, et camera, at 
 public expense, for official men, — as for pro- 
 fessional men they would be, or for artists, or 
 for tradesmen, or for labouring men engaged 
 in any other profit-seeking occupations. 
 
 14. Once upon a time, — in the Senate 
 House of Gotham — a motion was made, to 
 impose upon everybody a tax, and put the 
 whole produce of it into everybody's pocket. 
 Hear him ! hear him ! hear him ! was the cry. 
 The motion passed by general acclamation. 
 
 * [Mis-seated and extravasated.] To men conversant in the 
 medical branch of art-and-sciencc, the use and importance of 
 nosology is no secret. Be the disorder what it may, — to it how 
 can any cure, under it how can any relief, be administered, — 
 unless it be spoken of ? And, how can it be spoken of with best 
 cffect.unless a name, and that an appropriate and characteristic 
 one, be given to it? As little to the practitioners in the body 
 politic is this a secret, as to those in the body natural. But, 
 under matchless constitution, the practitioners — having: and being 
 actuated by an interest at. daggers drawn with that of the 
 patient, — hence every idea and every expression, which contri- 
 butes to throw light on the nature of the disorder, is, in propor- 
 tion to the strength and clearness of that light, necessarily and 
 uniformly odious : hence the endeavours to cause it to be 
 re^ard*>d as ridiculous. 
 
XXIV OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 Quere, of the Gotham senate-house what was 
 the distance from St. Stephen's ? 
 
 15. Account to be taken. Account of the 
 annual amount per head, of an average pauper 
 on the Aristocratical pauper list called the 
 Dead Weight, in each of its several classes, 
 from the 50/. a year class to the 4000/. a year 
 class inclusive, compared with the expense of 
 the Democratical pauper list called the Poor 
 Rates. Quere, how much longer will the real 
 poor — the vast majority of the community — 
 endure to see five hundred times as much thus 
 bestowed upon one of their betters (and such 
 betters!) as is bestowed upon one of them- 
 selves ? 
 
 One of these days, two comparative ac- 
 counts will be made up by authority ; one, of 
 the expense bestowed upon the democratical 
 class of paupers ; the other of the expence 
 bestowed upon the aristocratical. How 
 much, if anything, does the aggregate of the 
 last-mentioned expense fall short of that of 
 the former ? Next to nothing. Think too of 
 the length of time, taken by the one and the 
 other, for arrival at their present magnitude. 
 Calculate the length of time, at the end of 
 which, while the democratical continues sta- 
 tionary, the aristocratical pauper-list will have 
 out-run the interest of the national debt, 
 as much as that same interest has out-run 
 the annual sum applied to the maintenance 
 of Government! 
 
 Look at him ! there he sits ! Prince of the 
 
PREFACE. XXV 
 
 Aristocratical pauper-list, at this moment! 
 Conservator of everything that is evil! Im- 
 placable enemy of every new thing that is 
 good ! Loaded with the spoils — of the injured, 
 the afflicted, the helpless, the orphan, and 
 the widow ! 
 
 What is the number of Clerks, who after 
 any number of years' faithful service, would 
 not, with less compunction, be turned a-drift 
 pennyless, than this man deprived of the 
 addition thus made to so many hundred 
 thousand pounds, accumulated by the delay, 
 sale, and denial of justice*. — By disturbing 
 
 • Mode of connection between official service and official 
 remuneration. In the character of a Supplement to the section, 
 on Official Remuneration, as reprinted in the extract from the 
 Constitutional Code, — matter under this head has for some time 
 past been collecting. But, no great progress in ithad been made, 
 when the observation was also made, that this is but one modi- 
 fication, of the manner of bringing into coincidence the line of con- 
 duct prescribed by private interest, and that prescribed by public 
 duty ; and that — to complete the problem, what was requisite was 
 the establishing the correspondent closeness of connection be- 
 tween maleficence on the one part, and punishment on the 
 other part : — punishment, together with the several other 
 remedies, which the nature of things admits of: — namely, satis- 
 factive, suppressive, and preventive. Desirable and requisite 
 is this coincidence in the case of official men, — true: but 
 not more so than in the case of all other persons whatsoever. 
 
 These things observed, what was further observed was — on the 
 other part, that the head to which this disquisition belongs is that 
 of Nomography in general. But, in the collection of matter under 
 this head, considerable progress had been already made. The 
 art-and-science of clothing, in the best adapted form, the several 
 modes of giving expression to the dictates of the will, may be 
 considered as a hitherto unobserved branch of Logic : the 
 
XXVI OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 the peace, for the purpose of plundering the 
 property, of families ;-— by setting children 
 against parents, and parents against children ; 
 — by giving, of his own single authority, origi- 
 nation, execution, and effect, to institutions so 
 
 branch of art-and-science as yet designated by the name of 
 Logic, being, as to its subject-matter, confined to the dictates of 
 the understanding — a faculty not exactly the same with the will, 
 though not far distant from it. 
 
 Nomography — (from a Greek word which signifies law, and 
 another which signifies to write, or say give expression to) — 
 is an appellation, which presented itself as capable of be- 
 ing made to serve, with most convenience, for the designation 
 of the logic of the will. True it is, that between the will 
 operated upon, and the will operating upon it, degree of relation 
 in respect of power, there are three: namely, superiority, 
 equality, and inferiority ; and that, in the case of nomo- 
 graphy, the relation borne by the operating will to the will 
 operated upon, is no other than that of superior to inferior : 
 and, as in the case where the will operating is that of the supe- 
 rior, the mode of address has its appropriate denomination ; 
 namely, in private life command, in political life, law, ordinance, 
 and so forth, — so has it in the case where it is that of an equal ; 
 as for example, proposal or proposition ; so likewise in the 
 case where it is that of an inferior ; as for example, petition, not 
 to mention other appellations of a less decided character. 
 
 These things notwithstanding, — no sufficient cause presented 
 itself to view, for considering the matter of this branch of art 
 and science, as distributed under those denominations corres- 
 ponding to the arithmetical distinctions, or for looking out for 
 any other denomination than this of nomography ; Why ? 
 Answer: — 1. Because, in comparison of the occasions on which 
 the expression of will receives the name of law, those on which 
 it receives the two other denominations, are, when taken toge- 
 ther, so much less important : the interest at stake being so 
 much less considerable : 2. Because the motives, or say induce- 
 ments, by which compliance (the effect aimed at) is produced, 
 are not, in those cases, at bottom so different, as to a first glance 
 they will be apt to appear to be : 3. Because, in respect of the 
 
PREFACE. XXVU 
 
 shockingly immoral, that neither he nor any 
 other man in his place, would have dared so 
 much as attempt to introduce the proposal of 
 them, into either House of Parliament ? 
 
 Of one of the states of things, held up to 
 view in and by the Defence of Economy against 
 
 rules, having for their object and effect the securing the coin- 
 cidence between the mode of conduct which it is the desire of 
 the operating will to produce on the part of him whose will is 
 operated upon, and the conception thereby entertained of that 
 same will, the difference in the several cases is comparatively 
 inconsiderable. Supposing the assortment of rules for this 
 purpose correct and complete as applied to law, — nothing, or 
 next to nothing, will require to be done, in the view of providing 
 rules for those two other cases. 
 
 Should the papers thus denominated arrive at a state in 
 which they will have been deemed fit to see the light, — it will 
 then be seen — in what a variety of ways the effects of imperation'm 
 its two shapes, positive command, or say jussion, on the one 
 hand, and prohibition, or say inhibition, on the other, are pro- 
 ducible. Consequence of this variety, difference — in some cases 
 between the effect intended, and the effect produced; in 
 other cases, between the effect appearing to be intended, and 
 the effect in realittj intended. Cause of the difference — in the first 
 case, want of discernment ; in the other case, discernment 
 applied to a sinister purpose. 
 
 Here then, in the political melo-drania, are so many dramatis 
 persona 1 , who enter upon the stage in masquerade. Prohibition, 
 disguised under the cloak of Positive Command ; Positive Com- 
 mand or Permission, under the cloak of Prohibition ; Permis- 
 sion, Remuneration and Encouragement, under the cloak of Pu- 
 nishment. Of this masquerade, under the head of Indirect Le- 
 gislation, some intimation may be seen given, as long ago as the 
 year 1802, in the Traitc de Legislation Civile et Penale, — in what 
 is said of the effect of fixed penalties, in the Introduction to 
 Morals and Legislation, titles Properties desirable in a lot of 
 punishment, and Proportion between Crimes and Punishments, — 
 in what is said under the head of Blind fixation, &;c. in the Peti- 
 tion for Justice, Device the 8th; and in the work still in the 
 press, intituled Equity Dispatch Court Bill, § 6. Judges Powers. 
 
XXV111 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 Burke, namely, the state of the Crown Lands, 
 a curious enough and highly instructive appli- 
 cation may be made, to the now existing state 
 of things, in the same quarter, as brought to 
 light in and by the admirable speech so lately 
 made in the Honourable House, by Mr 
 Whittle Harvey. Estimated annual value of 
 the Crown Lands obtained by Somers when 
 Lord Chancellor, for his own use, year the 7 th 
 William the Third, A.D. 1 695, or thereabouts, 
 2,100/. per annum. Of what remained after 
 this grant, — produce, upon an average of 
 fifteen years ending in 1715? 1,500/. a year, and 
 no more ; according to Mr Secretary Rose's 
 pamphlet, intituled " Observations respecting 
 the Public Expenditure and the Influence of 
 the Crown. 2?id Edition. 1810." Of the 
 present remnant of that same remnant, an- 
 nual value, according to various estimates, 
 made by various members, varying between 
 500,000/. and 800,000/. Motion being made 
 for a Committee of the Honourable House* 
 to enquire by what means this portion of the 
 national property " might be made most 
 available for the public service," what was the 
 course thereupon taken by the Honourable 
 House? Ansxver : — That which, without the 
 
 * March 30, 1830. Motion for " a Select Committee to en- 
 quire into the Land Revenues of the Crown, under the manage- 
 ment of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, and to 
 report their opinion as to the means by which they may be 
 rendered most available for the public service." 
 
PREFACE. XXIX 
 
 imputation of rashness, a man might, by 
 the wager of " ten thousand pounds to one 
 penny/' have pledged himself for its taking : It 
 declined giving the Honourable Mover the 
 trouble of any ulterior enquiry. " No en- 
 quiry" was the language : bring " Your 
 charge;" that is to say — call for the punitive 
 remedy, and not either the preventive, or the 
 suppressive. Hear and determine without 
 evidence ; we being determined that you 
 shall have none. 
 
 To this case, as to all others, applies one of 
 the fundamental, characteristic, and distinc- 
 tive principles of Matchless Constitution ; 
 namely, the Judica-teipsum principle. To 
 enquire into the conduct of the Servants 
 of the Crown belongs not to any men but 
 themselves. 
 
INTRODUCTORY VIEW, 
 
 The following tract, as the title of it imports, 
 has for its subjects the appropriate aptitude of 
 public functionaries, and the expenditure employed 
 at the charge of the people in engaging persons to 
 subject themselves to the obligation of rendering 
 the correspondent services. It is composed of 
 four sections, detached from the ninth of the thirty 
 chapters, or thereabouts, of a proposed Constitu- 
 tional Code, the entire of which, wanting little of 
 completion, will be published as soon as circum- 
 stances permit. A table, composed of the titles 
 of the chapters and sections of it, is hereunto 
 annexed. 
 
 The class, composed of the members of the offi- 
 cial establishment taken in its several branches, 
 was the only class in contemplation when the 
 plan here delineated was taken in hand. In the 
 progress of the work, the idea occurred that, sup- 
 posing the plan well adapted to its purpose in 
 the case of the class thus distinguished, it might 
 be so, in no small degree, in the case of any other 
 persons whose situation in life would, without 
 
2 Official Aptitude maximized, fyc. 
 
 any particular view to office, admit of the expen- 
 diture of the quantity of time and mental labour, 
 which, with that view, is here proposed to be 
 employed. But, what further may require to be 
 said in relation to this secondary, and as it were 
 collateral, subject, will be rendered more intelli- 
 gible, by being postponed till after everything 
 which belongs to the primary, and sole relevant, 
 subject, has been brought to view. 
 
 Such being the subjects, now as to the objects, or 
 say ends in view. These are, as the title of these 
 pages intimates, maximization of the degree of 
 appropriate aptitude in all its branches on the 
 part of the functionary in question, and minimi- 
 zation of the expense employed in the creation 
 and purchase of that same aptitude. 
 
 In this same title, a proposition fully expressed 
 is — that, in the plan to which it gives denomination 
 both these objects are endeavoured to be accom- 
 plished : a proposition not so fully, if at all ex- 
 pressed, but which will be seen maintained, is, 
 that the accomplishment of the financial object, 
 far from being, as seems but too generally sup- 
 posed, at variance with that of the intellectual and 
 moral, is, on the contrary, in no small degree, 
 capable of being made conducive to it. A notion but 
 too extensively entertained is — that, whatsoever, 
 quantity of public money is employed in engaging 
 individuals to step into official situations, relative 
 aptitude in proportionate degree will follow as a 
 matter of course : and that, for example, if, in the 
 case of a chief judge, for 5,000/. a year salary, you 
 get a certain quantity of appropriate aptitude, 
 double the salary, and, without anything further, 
 you double the aptitude. Such, at any rate is the 
 opinion which, in England, whether inwardly en- 
 
Introductory View. )S 
 
 tertained or not, is outwardly and generally acted 
 upon . 
 
 With this opinion, that which gives direction to 
 the here proposed arrangements, so far from 
 harmonising, approaches' more nearly to the re- 
 verse : insomuch that, supposing a number of 
 competitors, so far as instruction will go, endowed 
 with equal degree of aptitude, — a man, who, if any 
 such there be in the situation in question, is willing 
 to take upon himself, without emolument in any 
 shape, the performance of the duties of an office, 
 is likely to perform them better, than another man 
 who would not undertake it for less than 5,000/. 
 a year : or even better than he himself would 
 have done, if, on stipulating for that same sum, he 
 had obtained it. In the course of the section en- 
 titled Remuneration , being the first of the four 
 sections of which this tract is composed, this 
 opinion, together with the grounds on which it 
 rests, may be seen developed. 
 
 First comes the appropriate aptitude: and the 
 problem is how to maximize it. 
 
 When, for the performance of a certain work, 
 an individual finds himself in need of a helper, 
 before he fixes upon any one, he naturally puts 
 questions to any one that offers,' — questions hav- 
 ing for their object the obtaining satisfaction, as to 
 the relative aptitude of the candidate : if, instead 
 of one only, a number more than one presented 
 themselves, he would, as far as time permitted, 
 put those same questions to them all : and, in the 
 putting of these questions, he would address him- 
 self to them separately, or all at the same time, as 
 he found most convenient. In either way, by so 
 doing, he would examine them ; he, the examiner ; 
 they, the examinees. In private would the exami- 
 nation be of course performed in this case ; for, on 
 
4 Official Aptitude maximized, £fc. 
 
 this occasion, of no person other than the indi- 
 vidual himself, would the interest or convenience 
 be in view : by publicity, if obtainable, he would, 
 and in proportion to the number of persons pre- 
 sent, be embarassed, and in no way benefited. 
 
 To the functionally in chief, who, for aiding him 
 in the business of his department, feels the need 
 of helpers in the businesses of the several sub- 
 departments, their aptitude cannot in the nature 
 of the case be a matter of indifference. His pro- 
 perty will not, it is true, as in the case of the 
 individual, be at stake upon the aptitude of his 
 choice. His property, no ; but his reputation, 
 yes. If the subordinate chosen be to a certain 
 degree unapt, the reputation of the superordinate 
 will suffer in two distinguishable ways : by the 
 badness of the work done under his orders, and by 
 the weakness, or something worse, evidenced by 
 the badness of the choice. 
 
 Under these circumstances, what can he do ? 
 For making, in his own person, any such exami- 
 nation as that which the individual, as above, has 
 it in his choice to make, power is altogether want- 
 ing to him, for time is altogether wanting. To 
 some person or persons other than himself, he 
 must therefore have recourse for the formation of 
 his opinion, and the determination of his choice. 
 Who, then, shall they be ? If, in each instance, 
 the reporter, who in this case will be the recom- 
 mender, be this or that individual, — what is not 
 certain is, — that the giver of the advice will have 
 had any better grounds for the choice than the 
 asker : what is certain is, that he will not have 
 had so great an interest in the goodness of the 
 choice. For the goodness of his choice, the indi- 
 vidual employed is not responsible to anybody but 
 himself: the functionary is responsible to every- 
 
Introductory View. 5 
 
 body. In so far as he is proof against the tempta- 
 tion to serve his own particular interests and 
 affections at the public expense, his wish will, 
 therefore, be, to see located, in each situation, 
 the individual in whose instance the maximum of 
 appropriate aptitude has place. Unable as he is 
 of himself to perform the examination, the persons 
 to whom it will be his desire to assign the task 
 will, in consequence, be those, in whom the max- 
 imum of appropriate aptitude with relation to this 
 same task, is to be found. By this most general 
 description the next most general description is 
 settled : they will be the persons that are most 
 distinguished in the character of instructors in the 
 several branches of art and science in which it is 
 requisite the persons to be located should be pro- 
 ficients. 
 
 In regard to the number of the persons present, 
 the examination must, in this case, be either pri- 
 vate or public. Which shall it be? Private, it 
 might or might not be as satisfactory as if public, 
 to himself ; to the public, it would not be. But, 
 supposing him wise, itwould not be so satisfactory, 
 even to himself. For, the more complete the cog- 
 nizance taken of the proceedings of these exa- 
 miners by the public, the stronger the inducement 
 they would have, each of them, for rendering his 
 proceedings as well adapted to the purpose as it 
 was in his power to render them. Thus, then, we 
 have the maximum of publicity as a necessary 
 condition to the maximum of appropriate aptitude : 
 of appropriate aptitude — in the first place on the 
 part of the examiner,?, in the next place, on the 
 part of the examinees', in their quality of persons 
 locable in the several situations, say in one word, 
 locables. Evidenced by the answers will be the 
 
6 Official Aptitude maximized, 6fc. 
 
 aptitude of the examinees : by the questions, that 
 of the examiners. 
 
 Such, then, should be the examination judica- 
 tory. As to the examinees, by the opinion ex- 
 pressed by the votes of the members of this same 
 judicatory, they will at any rate be placed in the 
 list of persons more or less qualified for being 
 located in the several official situations : as to 
 their respective degrees of aptitude, in the judg- 
 ment of the judicatory taken in the aggregate, 
 they can be expressed by the several individual 
 members. As to the manner in which the deduc- 
 tion may be made, it will be seen in § 2, of which 
 Locable who, is the title. 
 
 Next subject, the expense : problem, how to 
 minimize it. First expense, that of the instruc- 
 tion : next expense, that of remuneration for the 
 services to be rendered by those by whom the 
 instruction has been received. 
 
 For the instruction there must be the necessary 
 apparatus of instruction: lands, buildings, furniture 
 for every branch : appropriate implements accord- 
 ing to the nature af each branch. 
 
 For administering the instruction there must, 
 moreover, be instructors, and, for the instructors, 
 subsistence, and remuneration in quantity suffi- 
 cient to engage their services. As to the pockets 
 from whence the expense is drawn, so far as re- 
 gards subsistence — bare subsistence, together with 
 the apparatus — they must, in the first place, be 
 those of the public, for in this way alone can the 
 sufficiency of it be secured. This being thus 
 settled, such part of the remuneration as is over 
 and above bare subsistence, — from what source 
 shall it be drawn ? Answer : from the pockets of 
 those by whom alone the most immediate benefit 
 
Introductory View. 7 
 
 from the instruction is reaped : those, to wit, by 
 whom it is received. From them it cannot come, 
 without being accompanied with willingness, and 
 followed by retribution ; and the quantity of it 
 will of itself increase in exact proportion to the 
 number of those benefited by it : in which case it 
 will, in the same proportion, be a bounty upon in- 
 dustry on the part of the instructors. Drawn 
 from persons other than those by whom the imme- 
 diate benefit is reaped, it would neither be accom- 
 panied with willingness, nor followed by retribu- 
 tion. And, if it were, as it naturally would be, 
 a fixed sum — a sum not depending for its quantity 
 on the exertions of the instructor to whom it is 
 given — it would be a bounty upon idleness. 
 
 Next comes the expence of the remuneration 
 to the intended functionaries ; remuneration for the 
 time and labour requisite to be expended on their 
 part ; before location, in qualifying themselves for 
 rendering their several official services ; after lo- 
 cation, in the actual rendering of those same 
 services. 
 
 For this purpose, the nature of the case pre- 
 sents three distinguishable modes : 1 . In compli- 
 ance with appropriate calls, offer to take a less 
 salary than that which has been proposed ; 2. 
 Offer to pay a price for it ; 3. Offer to submit to 
 its being reduced to a certain less amount, and 
 then to pay such or such a price for it, after it 
 has been so reduced. The two first modes are 
 simple ; the third, a compound of the two : all 
 these will have to be considered. 
 
 A point all along assumed is — that, in each 
 office there is but one functionary: in a word, 
 that no such implement as a board has place 
 anywhere. Assumed, and why? Answer: for these 
 reasons : All advantages that can have been 
 
8 Official Aptitude maximized, Sfc. 
 
 looked for from a board are better secured by 
 other means : in particular, by maximization of 
 publicity and responsibility ; and because the ex- 
 clusion of this instrument of intrigue and delay is 
 not less essential to aptitude than to economy. 
 Moreover, these reasons may, as will be seen, be 
 applied with still greater profit, to the judiciary, 
 than to the executive, branch of government. 
 
 After all, neither by the intellectual competi- 
 tion, nor by the pecuniary competition, nor by 
 both together, can the individuals, by whom the 
 situation shall be filled, be finally determined. 
 For the formation of this determination, there will 
 still be need of some one person, or set of per- 
 sons, in quality of locator or locators. By rea- 
 sons, the essence of which is contained in the 
 word responsibility, the choice has, in this case 
 likewise, been determined in favour of number one. 
 
 This one person can be no other than the func- 
 tionary in chief, under whose direction the functions 
 belonging to all the several situations in question 
 are to be exercised. As to his choice, it cannot but 
 be influenced, not to say directed, by information 
 which the examinations have put the public in 
 possession of, as to the merit of the respective 
 candidates ; but, it will not, because it cannot, be 
 determined by any positive rule. By all that has 
 been done, or can be done, towards divesting the 
 power — the patronage, (for that is the name of it,) 
 of the quality of arbitrariness, — it will not therefore 
 be by any means divested of value, or sunk be- 
 neath the acceptance of a person competent to the 
 task of exercising it. 
 
 In the annexed table of chapters and sections, 
 will be seen a list of the several ministerial situa- 
 tions to be filled. Prime minister will be the na- 
 tural appellation, of him by whom those are thus 
 
Introductory View. 9 
 
 filled, and by whom the exercise of the functions 
 respectively belonging to them is directed. In 
 § 3, intituled Located law, will be seen how this 
 consummation is proposed to be effected. 
 
 But, once more as to the instructors. After 
 whatsoever may have been done for engaging 
 them, remains still the question — where can they 
 be obtained ? Three sources of obtainment, and 
 no more, does the nature of case afford : they 
 must be found at home, they must be made at 
 home, or they must be imported from abroad. In 
 each of these three modes, invitation is necessary. 
 Formation is, in this case, an operation pre-emi- 
 nently tedious : and the formators, where shall they 
 be found ? To find or make them would be to re- 
 move a smaller, by a greater difficulty. Different, 
 according to the circumstances of the community 
 in question, will, in this particular, manifestly be 
 the eligible course. 
 
 Now as to the collateral subject, national educa- 
 tion, and the assistance which the arrangements 
 proposed for the instruction of official functionaries 
 would give to it. What is manifest here is, that 
 whatever is good, as applied to functionaries, will 
 not be otherwise than good, as applied to non- 
 functionaries : whatever promotes useful instruc- 
 tion in any shape in the one case, will promote 
 it in that same shape, in no less degree, in the 
 other. The only difference is — that, in the case of 
 national education, that is to say, in the case of a 
 youth educated at the charge of his parents, — for 
 occupations other than the exercise of a public 
 function, — there will be no service for the public to 
 buy, no salary for the public to sell : and, the taking 
 the benefit of the instruction provided will, on the 
 part of each individual, be — not matter of ne- 
 cessity, as in the case of an official situation, but 
 
10 Official Aptitude maximized ', Sfc. 
 
 matter of choice. It was of course with a view 
 to office alone, that the idea occured, of bringing 
 to view the several branches of instruction, that 
 appeared requisite to give to public men the 
 best qualification possible for the several classes 
 of offices. But, as far as it goes, this same ex- 
 hibition will be of use, with a view to no small 
 variety of private occupations. When proposing 
 for his child this or that occupation, the parent 
 will find in this table, if not a sufficient body of 
 information, a memento, at least, reminding him 
 of the need of his satisfying himself as to what 
 are the branches of instruction to which the mind 
 of his child shall be directed, and of his looking 
 out accordingly for an appropriate set of in- 
 structors. 
 
 As to instructors, — of whatsoever degee of apti- 
 tude will have been given to persons of this class, 
 for the purpose of the instruction to be given by 
 them to functionaries, the benefit will be open to 
 non-functionaries : they who are able and willing 
 to instruct the one, will not be less so to instruct 
 the other. 
 
 So much as to aptitude. And as to expence, — ■ 
 of the expenditure necessary to the instruction of 
 functionaries, a part, more or less considerable, 
 will have been employed in the obtainment of 
 means of instruction, which, without detriment 
 to the one, may be employed in the instruction of 
 the other. Of all such means the non-functionary 
 class may have the benefit, without paying for it, 
 any further than in their quality of members of 
 the whole community, they had necessarily been 
 made to pay, along with all others, for the in- 
 struction of the functionary class. 
 
 To a plan of this sort, various objections will of 
 course present themselves. These, as far as they 
 
Introductory View. 11 
 
 could be anticipated, are here collected, and such 
 answers as seemed sufficient, subjoined. 
 
 For conveying a general conception of them, 
 the few words following may, in this page per- 
 haps, suffice. 
 
 I. Objection to the publicity of the examina- 
 tion. — Timid aptitude excluded. 
 
 II. Objection to the probationary period pro- 
 posed for the instruction. — Time, thence aptitude, 
 insufficient. 
 
 III. Objections to the pecuniary competition : — 
 
 1 . Pecuniary responsibility diminished — thence 
 corruption and depredation probabilized. 
 
 2. Venality established. 
 
 3. Unopulent classes excluded, and thus injured. 
 
 In the perusal of the here proposed arrange- 
 ments, one thing should all along be borne in mind. 
 The sort of government supposed by them is a re- 
 presentative democracy : the time in question that 
 of the infancy, not to say the birth, of the state in 
 that same form : such being the state of things, in 
 which, in the largest proportion, the^ information 
 endeavoured to be conveyed, could have any chance 
 of being listened to. 
 
 But, in the several subordinate situations, even 
 supposing the highest to be filled by a monarch, 
 not inconsiderable is the number of those of the 
 proposed arrangements, which, in the eyes even of 
 the monarch himself, might be not altogether un- 
 suitable. For, setting aside any such heroic en- 
 dowment, as that of sympathy for the people under 
 his rule, — to a monarch, however absolute, neither 
 can appropriate aptitude on the part of his official 
 servants, nor frugality in respect of the pay al- 
 lotted to them, be naturally unacceptable. The 
 more completely security, in all its shapes, is given 
 to the subject many, the greater is the quantity 
 
12 Official Aptitude maximized, 5fc. 
 
 of wealth they will acquire ; and, the greater the 
 quantity they acquire, the greater is the quantity 
 that can be extracted by him from them, for his 
 own use : in particular, for the maintenance of his 
 standing army — that high-pressure, high-priced and 
 most supremely prized, engine, which is at once an 
 instrument of supposed security for the timid, of 
 depredation for the rapacious, of oppression for the 
 proud, of boasting for the vain, and a toy for the 
 frivolous and the idle : and, as to frugality, the less 
 is expended in the comfort of any part of the sub- 
 ject many, the more is left for the fancies of the 
 ruling one. 
 
 Setting aside the case of a pure aristocracy, — a 
 form of government no where exemplified to any 
 considerable extent, — one only form there is, in 
 which maximization of official aptitude, and mini- 
 mization of expense, are of course objects of con- 
 genial horror to the rulers. This is that, the com- 
 position of which is a mixture of monarchy and 
 aristocracy, with a slight infusion of democracy 
 in the shape of a sham-representative body, in the 
 formation of which the subject many have a minute 
 share. In this state of things, expense of official 
 emolument is maximized, and why ? That the pos- 
 sessors may be pampered by the receipt of it, the 
 people intimidated by the force kept up by it, cor- 
 rupted by the hope of it, and deluded by the glitter 
 of it. Aptitude is, at the same time, minimized, 
 and why ? Because, if the contents of the cornu- 
 copia were distributed exclusively among the most 
 apt, those j unior partners of the all-ruling one, with 
 their dependents and favourites, would have little 
 or no share in it. 
 
 Four distinguishable sorts of matter may be 
 seen pervading the whole texture of this extract : 
 the enactive, the expositive, the ratiocinative, and 
 
Introductory View. 13 
 
 the instructional. Of these, the enactive, the ex- 
 positive, and ratiocinative, have already been ex- 
 emplified in the three-volume work, intitled, 
 " Traites de Legislation Civile et Penale," being 
 the first of the four works published in French, 
 from the author's papers, by M. Dumont. Had the 
 political state, to the circumstances of which the 
 codes in question were to be adapted, been, as 
 mathematicians say, a given quantity, — the instruc- 
 tional might not perhaps have been brought into 
 existence : at any rate, it would not have occupied 
 anything near the quantity of space, which it will 
 be seen to occupy here. But, the indeterminate- 
 ness of these circumstances impossibilized, on 
 many occasions, the giving to the matter the form 
 of a positive enactment, capable of standing part 
 of the text of the law, as in the case of a code 
 emanating from authority. Necessitated was there- 
 fore the expedient, of employing, instead of deter- 
 minate expressions, general descriptions, — for the 
 purpose, of conveying such idea as could be con- 
 veyed of the matter of the provision, which the 
 nature of the case presented itself as demanding. 
 By the instructional matter is accordingly meant 
 the sort of matter, the purpose of which is the 
 giving instructions to the legislator, if the tide of 
 events should ever carry into that situation a man, 
 or body of men, to whom it seemed good, to give 
 to such part of the matter as could not here be 
 expressed in terminis, a character conformable in 
 principle, to those parts, for which an expression 
 thus completely determinate, has already been 
 proposed. 
 
 Such being the distinctive characters of the parts 
 in question, by some minds, it was thought, it 
 might be found a commodious help to conception, 
 
14 Official Aptitude maximized, Sfc. 
 
 if, as often as they presented themselves, appli- 
 cable indication were given of them throughout, 
 by prefixing to each portion of matter its appro- 
 priate denomination as above. To any person, 
 to whom these additaments appear useless, they 
 need not offer any annoyance, — for he has but to 
 pass them by, and read on, as if no such words 
 were there. 
 
 Of a code, to which the stamp of authority had 
 been affixed, these distinctions would afford a com- 
 modious method of exhibiting so many authoritative 
 abridgments : abridgments of the only sort, on 
 which any safe reliance can be placed. By the 
 enactive part, if published alone, the most con- 
 densed of all the abridgments would be presented ; 
 by appropriate types and figures of reference, inti- 
 mation of the existence of the omitted matter 
 might be conveyed, without any sensible addition 
 to the bulk of it. In another edition, might be 
 added the expositive matter ; in a third, the expo- 
 sitive and the ratiocinative in conjunction. 
 
 In England, a highly laudable disposition has of 
 late shown itself, and from a quarter from which it 
 might be followed by effect : — a disposition to raise 
 the language of the legislator to a level, in respect 
 of propriety, somewhat nearer than that which it 
 occupies at present, in comparison with the worst 
 governed among other civilized nations, which- 
 soever that may be. A design so extensively 
 useful, would indeed stand but an indifferent 
 chance of being carried into effect, if the fraternity 
 of lawyers, professional as well as official, could 
 not find adequate inducement for giving it their 
 permit. But neither is such toleration altogether 
 hopeless. What that particular interest requires, 
 is — that the rule of action shall continue in such a 
 
Introductory View. 15 
 
 state, that, without their assistance, comprehension 
 of it, to a degree sufficient for the regulation of 
 conduct, should, to all other members of the com- 
 munity, continue impossible. But, such is the ex- 
 cess to which the bulkiness and disorderliness of 
 it have been carried ; — such, in consequence, even 
 to themselves, the difficulty of stowing it and 
 keeping it stowed in the mind, in a state capable of 
 being applied to use as wanted ; — that, for their 
 own relief under that difficulty, the risk of render- 
 ing the oracle too extensively and effectually com- 
 prehensible, may perhaps appear not too great to 
 be hazarded. 
 
 This being supposed, — a result, that seems not 
 altogether out of the sphere of possibility, is — that 
 even those to whom the matter of all such codes as 
 those here exemplified is — it need not be mentioned 
 by what causes — rendered the object of insurmount- 
 able abhorrence, — the form, as far as regards ar- 
 rangement and expression, may, in a degree more or 
 less considerable, be regarded as a subject for 
 adoption. To any person by whom it may have 
 happened to be viewed in this light, the intimation 
 conveyed by the words enactive, expositive, and ratio- 
 cinative, may perhaps appear not altogether devoid 
 of use. In the case of the series of codes to which 
 the present extract belongs, — in proportion as the 
 matter presented itself, the form in which it might 
 be presented, it was thought, to most advantage, 
 came along with it. Thus it was, that, as they were 
 committed to paper, explanations, belonging to the 
 head of form, became so many materials for a short 
 disquisition, which may perhaps be submitted to 
 the public in a separate state. But, even from the 
 small specimen here exhibited, it may be perhaps 
 in some sort conceived, how great would be the 
 contribution to condensation, as well as precision, 
 
16 Official Aptitude maximized, 6(c. 
 
 if the expedient were employed, of substituting to 
 the continued repetition of a portentous pile of 
 particulars, that of a single general expression, in 
 which they were all contained : the import of that 
 expression having, once for all, been fixed, — fixed, 
 by an appropriate exposition, in the ordinary mode 
 of- a definition per genus et differentium, — -or, where 
 that is inapplicable, in such other mode as the 
 nature of the case admitted of. 
 
 Between the several sorts of matter, distinguished 
 from each other as above, — the actual separation, 
 it cannot but be observed, has not, with any 
 approach to uniformity, been, on this occasion, 
 made. In one and the same article, two, or even 
 more, of these species, will not unfrequently be 
 found exemplified. In an authoritative code, this 
 want of symmetry might, supposing it worth while, 
 he remedied. In the present unauthoritative work, 
 the difficulty of separating the proposed enactive, 
 and the instructional from each other, was found so 
 great, that the necessary labour and time (which 
 would have been neither more nor less than that of 
 writing the whole anew), was felt to be too great, 
 to be paid for by any possible use. In like manner, 
 in other instances, the ratiocinative will be seen 
 blended with the enactive. In an authoritative code, 
 the labour might, perhaps, in this case, though this 
 does not appear altogether clear, be paid for by 
 the use : for example, for the purpose of an autho- 
 ritative abridgment, such as the one above proposed. 
 But, in the present unauthoritative sketch, a mix- 
 ture of the ratiocinative presented itself as desir- 
 able, not to say necessary, were it only to the pur- 
 pose of humectating the dryness of the enactive 
 matter, and diminishing the aversion, which a set 
 of arrangements, so repugnant to commonly-pre- 
 vailing notions and affections, would have to en- 
 
Introductory View. 17 
 
 counter, if inducements to acquiescence were not 
 in some shape or other mixed up with it. 
 
 In a civil, or say a right-conferring code (for civil 
 expresses so many different things that it expresses 
 nothing), and in a penal, or say a wrong-repressing 
 code, especially if made for a given political state, 
 the separation would be a work less difficult than 
 it has been found in the present one : accordingly, 
 in the Traites de Legislation, it may, in both in- 
 stances, be seen effected. 
 
 In that part of the present proposed code, which 
 regards the judiciary establishment the heads of 
 which may be seen in the annexed table, the sepa- 
 ration will be found much less imperfect. 
 
 Another particular, which will naturally call 
 forth observation, is the practice of adding to the 
 numerical denomination of a section when referred 
 to the title by which it is characterised. In au- 
 thoritative codes an additament of this sort is not 
 however without example. In the present unau- 
 thoritative sketch it has been matter of necessity. 
 By the author, nothing he writes, in the character 
 of a proposed code or law, can ever be regarded 
 as perfected, so long as he lives : in the proposed 
 code in question, alteration after alteration have, 
 in great numbers, at different times, been ac- 
 tually made : further alteration after further alte- 
 ration will continually be contemplated : and 
 wherever, in regard to an entire article, either in- 
 sertion or elimination have place, all the articles 
 which follow it in the same section will require 
 a fresh numerical denomination, and the anterior 
 reference, if preserved, will be found delusive : 
 and so in the case of sections or chaptei^s. 
 
 Into what is new in point of form, a further in- 
 sight will, it is hoped, ere long, be given, by an- 
 other and larger preliminary extract from the 
 
1 8 Official Aptitude maximized, Sfc. 
 
 present Constitutional Code : to wit, the judiciary 
 part above alluded to. The enactive matter, com- 
 bined with what seemed the indispensable portion 
 of the other sorts of matter, is already in a state 
 fit for the press, as likewise a considerable por- 
 tion of the ratiocinative and instructional, in a de- 
 tached state. From the annexed table of the 
 titles of chapters and sections for the whole, an 
 anticipation more or less extensive may be formed 
 of the instruments, which have been contrived for 
 the purpose of compression, and may be regarded 
 as a sort of condensing engines: a principal one may 
 be seen composed of the general word function* 
 followed by the several specific adjuncts attached 
 to it. In several of its parts the matter of this 
 same judiciary code could not be determined 
 upon, without correspondent determinateness 
 being given to correspondent portions of the pro- 
 cedure code : a code for this purpose is in such 
 a state of forwardness, that all the principal and 
 characteristic points are settled, and nothing re- 
 mains to be done, but the reducing to appropriate 
 form some portion of the matter which has been 
 devised. 
 
 In this work will be included, as far as circum- 
 stances admit, an all-comprehensive formulary, 
 exhibiting forms for the several written instru- 
 ments of procedure ; in particular the instruments 
 of demand and defence, for suits of all sorts ; as 
 also forms for the mandates required to be issued 
 by the judge, on the several occasions, for the 
 several purposes : and for each mandate an ap- 
 propriate denomination has of necessity been de- 
 vised. On this occasion, as on every other, the 
 endeavour has all along been to render the instru- 
 ment of designation as characteristic as possible 
 of the object designated. Summonition mandate 
 
Introductory View. 19 
 
 will accordingly be seen taking place of sub- 
 poena; Prehension and adduction mandate of 
 capias and habeas corpus : and, in lieu of adduc- 
 tion, — as the purpose requires, will be sub- 
 joined abduction, transduction, sistition, sequestration, 
 vendition, and so forth; an appellation, such as 
 prehension, and vendition mandate, for example, 
 may, it is hoped, be found by lay-gents to consti- 
 tute no disadvantageous substitute to fieri facias 
 or ji fa: — to lay-gents, that is to say, to all human 
 beings, but those whose interest it is that every 
 thing by which human conduct is undertaken to 
 be regulated, should be kept to everlasting in 
 as incomprehensible a state as possible. 
 
 Demand paper will, in like manner, for all occa- 
 sions taken together, be seen substituted, to the ag- 
 gregate, composed of action, mandamus, bill, indict- 
 ment, information, libel, and so forth : defence paper, 
 to plea, answer, demurrer, and so forth : for, if arti- 
 ficial injustice has its language, so has natural 
 justice. But time and space join in calling upon 
 conclusion to take place of digression. 
 
 With the regret that may be imagined, does the 
 reflection occur — that, as far as regards the diction, 
 there are but too many political states, in which 
 the above-mentioned views, supposing them ap- 
 proved of, could not be carried into any such full 
 effect, as in those in which the language in use is 
 the English : for, with the exception of German, 
 there exists not, it is believed, any where that lan- 
 guage, which will lend itself, anything near so ef- 
 fectually as the English, to the formation of such 
 new appellatives as will be necessary to precision 
 and condensation : in particular the French, which, 
 notwithstanding its scantiness, unenrichableness, 
 and intractability — still seems destined to continue 
 — say who can how much longer — the common lan- 
 guage of the civilized world. 
 
20 Official Aptitude maximized, fyc. 
 
 For a particular purpose, the present extract has 
 been sent to press, before the proposed code to 
 which it belongs, and in which it is designed to be 
 inserted, could be completed. Hence it is that, 
 but for this information, — the numerical figures, in 
 the titles to the several sections, might be taken for 
 so many errata, or have the effect of giving to the 
 whole publication the appearance of a fractional 
 part of a work that has been lost. 
 
 This same circumstance will serve to account for 
 the headings of the pages. 
 
 It may not here be amiss to observe, that 
 of the bulk of the work in its complete state, 
 no judgment can be formed, from the space oc- 
 cupied by the three first of these four sections. The 
 enactive part of the first four chapters together, for 
 example, does not occupy so large a space as does 
 the least of these same three sections. 
 
 Amid so much innovation, a short caution may 
 be not altogether unseasonable. In the frugality 
 here recommended, no retroaction is comprised. By 
 the taking away of anything valuable, either in 
 possession, or even, though it be but in expec- 
 tancy, so it be in fixed expectancy, whether on the 
 score of remuneration, how excessive soever, or on 
 any other score, — pain of frustrated expectation — ■ 
 pain of disappointment is produced. In the import 
 of the above words fixed expectancy, is contained 
 whatever is rational and consistent with the great- 
 est happiness principle, in the pertinacity, manifested 
 by the use of the English parliamentary phrase, 
 vested rights : and note— that by forbearing to apply 
 the alleviation which, by the defalcation in ques- 
 tion might be given, in respect of the public 
 burthens, to persons of all classes taken together, 
 no such pain of disappointment is produced. 
 
 As little ought it to pass unheeded, that, sup- 
 
Introductory View. 21 
 
 posing a high-paid functionary divested of a 
 certain portion of wealth thus misapplied, he is 
 not, by a great many, the only sufferer : with him 
 will be sufferers all persons of all classes, in pro- 
 portion as their respective means of expenditure 
 were derived from his. Supposing, indeed, the 
 over-pay derived from crime — obtained, for exam- 
 ple, by false pretences, by this supposition the 
 case is altered. But, add the supposition, that all 
 by whom the punishment should be ordained, or 
 that all by whom a part should be taken in the 
 infliction of it, are sharers in the guilt, then comes 
 the question — By whom shall be cast the first 
 stone ? An Englishman need not look far to see 
 this supposition realised. Prudence might in this 
 case join with sympathy,in the constructing a bridge 
 of gold, for carrying to the land of safety all oppo- 
 nents. Only at the expense of those, who would 
 otherwise have been, but never will have expected 
 to be, receivers, — can retrenchment, on any other 
 ground than that of punishment, be, except in case 
 of public insolvency, without hesitation, justified. 
 On the occasion of the ensuing proposed ar- 
 rangements, mention of divers periods of years has 
 of necessity been made. It might have been some 
 help to conception, if, on the occasion of this or 
 that train of suppositions, a determinate day could 
 have been fixed, for the commencement of each 
 period. This, however, could not be done. For 
 different countries, different days would have 
 been requisite. For this country, — England to 
 wit, — the day may be fixed by imagination with 
 something like precision. The day for the com- 
 mencement of this Code with the stamp of 
 authority on the first page of it, is the day which 
 will give commencement to the hundred and first 
 year, reckoning from the day on which the author 
 
22 Official Aptitude maximized, Sfc. 
 
 will have breathed his last. In the mean time, 
 to those who have the faculty of extracting amuse- 
 ment from dry matter, it may serve as a second 
 Utopia, adapted to the circumstances of the age. 
 Of the original romance, it may, however, be 
 seen to be — not so much a continuation as the 
 converse. In the Utopia of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, effects present themselves without any 
 appropriate causes ; in this of the nineteenth 
 century, appropriate causes are presented waiting 
 for their effects. 
 
 END OF THE INTRODUCTORY VIEW. 
 
EXTRACT 
 
 FROM PROPOSED 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL CODE 
 
EXTRACT 
 
 FROM THE PROPOSED 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL CODE, 
 
 ENTITLED 
 
 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, 
 EXPENSE MINIMIZED. 
 
 By JEREMY BENTHAM, Esq. 
 
 BENCHER OF LINCOLN'S INN. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 MDCCCXVI. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 PRINTFD BY C. H. REYNF.LL, BROAD STREET, GOLDEN SQUARE. 
 
Const. Code, Ch. ix. § 15. Remuneration. I 
 
 ^ 15. REMUNERATION. 
 
 Ratiocinativc and Inst national. 
 
 Art. 1. Aptitude minimized ; expense minimized. 
 Indicated in these few words are the leading- 
 principles of this Constitution on the subject of 
 remuneration. 
 
 Ratiocinativc and Instructional. 
 
 Art. 2. As to maximization of official aptitude 
 in this department, for the course taken in this 
 view, see also the next section, § 16. Locable 
 who. 
 
 Ratiocinativc. 
 
 Art. 3. Subservient even to the maximization 
 of aptitude is minimization of expense. For, 
 
 1. Whatever be the occupation belonging to the 
 office, the greater a man's relish for it is, the 
 greater his aptitude for it is likely to be. 
 
 2. The less the remuneration, in consideration 
 of which he is willing to exercise these same 
 occupations, the greater is his relish for them. 
 
 3. Greater still, if, instead of receiving, he is 
 willing to pay for the faculty of exercising them. 
 
 Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art. 4. So, on the other hand, the greater the 
 expense employed in remuneration, the greater 
 will be the opulence of the functionary so remu- 
 
 B 
 
2 OFFICIAL APTITUDE .MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 nerated. But the greater his opulence, the less 
 his appropriate aptitude will naturally be. For, 
 
 1. The less will be his activity. 
 
 2. The greater his facility for engaging in 
 merely pleasurable and other rival occupations. 
 
 3. The greater his facility for obtaining accom- 
 plices in transgression, and supporters to shield 
 him against dislocation, punishment, and disrepute. 
 
 4. The more apt to form an exaggerated esti- 
 mate of the quantity of the expense for which, 
 at the charge of the public, there may be, on each 
 several occasion, a demand. 
 
 5. Altogether fallacious is the notion, by which, 
 to the purpose of repression of wrong, responsi- 
 bility is regarded as increased by opulence. By 
 man's nature, every the poorest individual is ren- 
 dered susceptible of more suffering, than, in any 
 case, is ever thought fit to be inflicted for the 
 purpose . of repression by means of punishment : 
 altogether fallacious this notion, and, under a 
 corrupt form of government, invented for no other 
 purpose than that of affording a pretence for 
 needless, wasteful, and corruptive remuneration ; 
 remuneration, and to a vast extent, in cases where 
 the absence of all service is notorious and un- 
 deniable. 
 
 Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art, 5. Minimization of expense is therefore an 
 object here pursued, not only as being itself an 
 end, but as being a means of attainment, with 
 relation to that other end. One and the same, 
 accordingly, as per § 16, is the road that leads to 
 the attainment of both these ends. 
 
 Ratiocinative. 
 Art. 6. So far as regards remuneration, mini- 
 
Const. Code; Ch. ix. § 15. Remuneration. 3 
 
 mization of expense, in relation to all, can no 
 otherwise be effected, than by minimization in 
 relation to each. In relation to each, in each 
 official situation, note this rule : Having by ap- 
 propriate courses, as per § 16. Locablc '•who, maxi- 
 mized the number of persons possessed of the 
 maximum of appropiate aptitude, ascertain from 
 each the minimum of remuneration for which he 
 will be content to charge himself with the official 
 obligations. Modes of ascertainment are every 
 where in use. Competition is no less applicable 
 to the price of labour than to the price of goods ; 
 to one sort of labour than to another ; to la- 
 bour in the service of the public than to labour 
 in the service of an individual. So much for 
 minimization of expense, separately considered. 
 As to the arrangements of detail, for the union 
 of minimization of expense with maximization of 
 aptitude, see the next sections, 16. Locablc who, 
 §17. Located, how. 
 
 Ratiocinative. 
 Art. 7. Exercised, by a public functionary, 
 at the expense of the public, liberality is but 
 another name for waste. Combined in its es- 
 sence are breach of trust, peculation, depreda- 
 tion, oppression, and corruption. Exercised, to a 
 good end, and at a man's own expense, liberality 
 is a virtue : exercised, at the expense of others, 
 and without their consent, it is a vice : laudation 
 bestowed upon it, hypocrisy and imposture: its 
 fruits, the above evils : the good, if any, on the 
 smallest scale ; the evil, upon the largest. 
 
 Ratiocinative and Instructional. 
 
 Art. 8. Repugnant accordingly to these prin- 
 ciples is remuneration, in any shape, on any 
 
4 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 occasion, arbitrarily conferred : repugnant, even 
 if for service really rendered, or about to be 
 rendered ; much more if on false pretence of 
 service. 
 
 Katiocinative and Instructional. 
 
 Art. 9. Arbitrarily conferred, consistently with 
 these principles, can neither good nor evil be by 
 the hand of Government : neither reward nor 
 (as per Penal Code) punishment ; nor (as per 
 Ch. xxv. Justice Minister, § 4. Dispunitive 
 Function) exemption from punishment. 
 
 Expositive. 
 Art. 10. Arbitrarily conferred is the matter of 
 reward, so far as by the hand of Government it 
 is otherwise than judicially conferred. Judicially 
 conferred will accordingly be seen to be all 
 official situations, in relation to which location is 
 performed, as per § 17. Located, how. 
 
 Ratiocinative and Instructional. 
 Art. 11. On no other account than that of 
 service to the public, can the matter of reward 
 be conferred by the hand of Government, ex- 
 cept in so far as it is bestowed in waste. 
 
 Expositive. 
 Art. 12. Ordinary and extraordinary: under 
 one or other of these denominations comes all 
 service rendered, or supposed to be rendered, to 
 the public. 
 
 Expositive. 
 Art. 13. In the case of a public functionary, 
 by ordinary service understand all such service 
 as, by acceptance of his office, he stands bound 
 to render. 
 
Const. Code, Ch. ix. § 15. Remuneration. 5 
 
 Expositive. 
 
 Art. 14. By extraordinary service, all such 
 service as, by such acceptance, he does not 
 stand bound to render. 
 
 Expositive. 
 
 Art. 15. Pecuniary and honorary: by one or 
 other of these denominations may the matter of 
 reward be designated, in every shape in which it 
 is usually bestowed by the hand of Government. 
 
 Ratiocinative and Instructional* 
 Art. 16. For extraordinary service rendered to 
 the public, reward in a pecuniary shape may, 
 with as much facility and propriety, be demanded 
 at the hands of a Judicatory at the charge of the 
 public, as in the like shape it is so demanded at 
 the charge of an individual. 
 
 Ratiocinative and Instructional. 
 
 Art. 17. With not less facility and propriety, 
 so may it in an honorary shape. 
 
 Enactive and Instructional. 
 
 Art. 18. Honorary reward in no shape does 
 this Constitution allow to be conferred, but in the 
 shape of natural honour augmented : augmented by 
 the hand of Government ; and in this case the 
 hand of Government, is, as per Art. 20, the hand 
 of justice. 
 
 Expositive. 
 Art. 19. By natural honour, understand that 
 which, in consideration of service, in this or that 
 extraordinary shape, rendered to the community 
 or to this or that section of the community, the 
 members of it, in their quality of members of the 
 Public Opinion Tribunal, spontaneously render to 
 
6 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 the benemeritant : render, that is to say, by 
 means of appropriate sentiments of love and re- 
 spect, entertained in relation to him, with the 
 occasional addition, of the special good will, good 
 offices, and services, in whatever shape, tangible 
 or untangible, naturally flowing from these sen- 
 timents. 
 
 Enactive and Expositive. 
 Art. 20. Judicially augmented will natural honour 
 be by two conjunpt and correspondent appro- 
 priate judicial decrees; the first opinative, the 
 other imperative, in this as in other cases : as to 
 which, see Art. 22, and Ch. xii. Judiciary 
 collectively, § 9. Judges' Elementary Functions. 
 
 Enactive. 
 Art. 21. Efficient causes of the augmentation 
 in this case, are, authoritative recordation and 
 authoritative publication. 
 
 Enactive. 
 Art. 22. Authoritative recordation is by entry 
 made in an appropriate Register Book : say, in 
 the Extraordinary Service Register, or say, Public 
 Merit Register. 
 
 Enactive. 
 Art. 23. Of such entry, the matter is com- 
 posed of an abstract of the record of the proceed- 
 ings in a suit, in conclusion of which the judicial 
 decrees, as per Art. 20, have been pronounced : 
 1. the opinative, stating the act deemed merito- 
 rious, the shape in which the service has been 
 rendered to the public, and the fact that the 
 individual, by or for whom the demand of the 
 reward is made, is he by whom the service has 
 been rendered, with the evidence on which the 
 
Const. Code, Ch. ix.^ 15. Remuneration. 7 
 
 decree has been grounded; — time, place, and 
 manner mentioned : 2. the imperative, ordering 
 entry to be made of this same abstract in the 
 above-mentioned Merit Register. 
 
 Enact ire. 
 Art. 24. The commencement of the suit is by 
 application, made to the Judicatory, demanding 
 for the alleged benemeritant a place in the Public 
 Merit Register, on the ground of the extraordinary 
 service thereupon stated ; as in the case of an 
 ordinary application for money, alleged to be due 
 from defendant to applicant on the ground of 
 work performed. 
 
 Enactivc. 
 Art. 25. The applicant, that is to say demand- 
 ant, may be either the alleged benemeritant, or any 
 person for him, with or without his consent, and 
 with or without his knowledge. 
 
 Enactivc. 
 Art. 26. The defendant will be the functionary, 
 who would be defendant, were the subject of the 
 demand-money alleged to be due from Government 
 for goods furnished, or work done, otherwise than 
 in the way of official service ; namely, the Go- 
 vernment Advocate of the immediate Judicatory, as 
 per Ch. xviii. Immediate Government Advo- 
 cate ; or the Government Advocate-General, 
 as per Ch. xix. Government Advocate-Ge- 
 neral, if so he thinks fit. 
 
 Enactivc. 
 
 Art. 27. The Judicatory will be the immediate 
 Judicatory of the sub-district in which the metro- 
 polis of the state is situated ; unless, for special 
 reasons, assigned by the Legislature, or the Prime 
 
8 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 Minister, the immediate Judicatory of some other 
 sub-district shall have been appointed. 
 
 Enactive and Instructional. 
 Art. 28. Authoritative publication is by publica- 
 tion, given, in such way as the Legislature shall 
 have appointed, to the matter of the recondation- 
 entry, made, as per Art. 23, in the Public Merit 
 Register. 
 
 Enactive and Instructional. 
 Art. 29. Repugnant, accordingly, to the prin- 
 ciples of this Constitution, is all purely factitious 
 honour or dignity, in whatever shape, conferred, as 
 hitherto it has every where been, arbitrarily ; that 
 is to say, otherwise than judicially, as above. 
 
 Expositive . 
 Art. 30. Titles of honour, or ensigns of dignity. 
 To one or other of these denominations may be 
 referred the instruments, by which factitious 
 honour or dignity has usually been conferred. 
 Combined, to a considerable extent, they have 
 been with one another, and in many instances 
 with masses of power, or wealth, in various 
 shapes, or both. 
 
 Expositive. 
 Art. 31. Examples of titles of honour are — 
 
 1. Prince. 
 
 2. Arch-Duke. 
 
 3. Grand Duke. 
 
 4. Duke. 
 
 5. Marquis. 
 
 6. Count or Earl. 
 
 7. Viscount. 
 
 8. Baron. 
 
 9. Baronet 
 
Const. Code, Ch. ix. § 15. Remuneration. 9 
 
 10. Knight — to wit, of any one of a variety 
 of orders. 
 
 1 1 . Knight — of no order. 
 
 Expositive. 
 
 Art. 32. Examples of ensigns of dignity, worn 
 about the body of the individual are — 
 
 1 . Stars. 
 
 2. Crosses. 
 
 3. Ribbons. 
 
 4. Garters. 
 
 5. Gold and silver sticks. 
 
 Expositive. 
 
 Art. 33. Examples of ensigns of dignity, ex- 
 hibited on utensils of various sorts, employed by 
 the individuals, are as follow: — 
 
 1. Coronets, of various shapes, corresponding 
 to the several titles of honour. 
 
 2. Armorial bearings. 
 
 In this latter case, the assertion conveyed, 
 though in most instances contrary to truth, is — 
 that some ancestor of the individual had employed 
 himself in an enterprise of unprovoked slaughter 
 and devastation. For a symbol, if requisite, 
 a gibbet, substituted or added, would have been 
 more suitable. 
 
 Ratiocinative and Instructional. 
 
 Art. 34. To the purpose of remuneration, 
 whether for ordinary or extraordinary service, — 
 unsuitable, in comparison of natural honour aug- 
 mented, as above, would merely factitious honour 
 be, as above, even if judicially conferred. For, with 
 the utmost conceivable accuracy, in each indi- 
 vidual instance, does the quantum of natural 
 
10 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 honour adjust itself to the quantum and merit, in 
 every shape, of the service : the lots of reward, 
 attached to the aggregate number of services ren- 
 dered within a given time, thus rising, one above 
 another, in gradations which may be as numerous 
 as the individual services themselves. Thus it is, 
 that, in this mode of remuneration, not a particle of 
 injustice can ever have place, except that which, as 
 in all other cases, is liable to be produced by de- 
 ceptiousness on the part of the evidence, or want 
 of aptitude on the part of the Judge ; and, by the 
 supposition, this danger is the same in both cases. 
 On the other hand, where it is of factitious 
 honour that the reward is composed, no such accu- 
 racy of adjustment can have place. Between 
 grade and grade, how numerous soever the grades, 
 there must always be a space more or less con- 
 siderable; each such space is consequently a field 
 of possible injustice, the magnitude of whiph is as 
 the amplitude of such space. But, proportioned 
 to the magnitude of each such space, is the dis- 
 couragement, applied to the most meritorious of 
 two or more services, to which the same lot of 
 factitious reward is applicable. For if, for the ren- 
 dering of each of them, sacrifice in any shape is 
 necessary, in such sort that greater sacrifice is 
 necessary in the case of the most than in the case 
 of the least valuable of the two, the identity of 
 the reward in both cases operates as a premium 
 on the least valuable — as a prohibition on the 
 most valuable. Moreover, in the case of the fac- 
 titious honour, the justice of the decree is exposed 
 to a degree of disbelief, and the Judge to a degree 
 of disrepute, for which, in the case of the natural 
 honour, there is no place. In the case of the fac- 
 titious honour, it is by the Judge that the exact 
 place in the scale of honour is determined, since 
 
Const. Code, Ch. ix. § 15. Remuneration. 11 
 
 it is by him that it is conferred, in the shape of 
 some title of honour, or some ensign of dignity, 
 which has a specific name. In the case of natural 
 honour, it is not by the Judge, but by the Public 
 Opinion Tribunal, that, in each individual instance, 
 the boiemeritanfs place in the scale of honour is 
 determined. The Judge may be corrupt, or 
 (what, so far as regards the individual case, 
 amounts to the same thing) may be suspected of 
 being so; the Public Opinion Tribunal cannot. 
 
 Enact ire, Ratiocinating and Instructional. 
 
 Art. 35. Sufficient of itself for the destruction 
 of this Constitution might an instrument of corrup- 
 tion of this sort be, if arbitrarily conferrible. To 
 the Prime Minister alone could the power of con- 
 ferring it be allotted ; for to no other functionary 
 could any one propose to allot it. In the hands 
 of a man of ordinary ambition and superior ability, 
 sufficient then might this one instrument be, for 
 the conversion of the here-proposed commonwealth 
 into an arbitrary monarchy : at the least, into 
 a monarchy operating by an all-pervading and 
 all-vitiating system of corruption, waste, and un- 
 punishable depredation, as in England. Into his 
 lap, in return for these objects of general desire, — for 
 themselves, or, what would amount to the same 
 thing, for their connexions, — would continually 
 be poured power in various shapes, impunity for 
 various transgressions, and money from various 
 sources, by the Legislature, that is, by the acting- 
 majority of the members. Immovable he would 
 remain, how flagrant soever were his inaptitude. 
 
 ij/active and Expositive. 
 Art. 36t Exceptions excepted, repugnant to 
 these same principles is all ultra-concomitant remu- 
 
 
 
12 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 neration. By ultra-concomitant remuneration, un- 
 derstand all habitual remuneration for habitual 
 service, after the cessation of the habit of service. 
 For exceptions, apparent rather than real, see 
 Ch. xi. Ministers collectively, § 3. Army 
 Minister ; Ch. xi. Ministers collectively, §4. 
 Navy Minister. 
 
 Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art. 37. Completely needless, and thence un- 
 justifiable, is all such ultra-remuneration. A baker 
 is not paid for supplying food when he has ceased 
 to do so ; a medical practitioner for attending 
 patients; a law practitioner for assisting litigants. 
 Yet never is there any want of bakers, of medical, 
 or of law practitioners : as little, in any official 
 situation, would there be any want of occupants, 
 — if, in the case of service rendered to the whole 
 community, as in the case of service rendered to 
 individuals, the habit of receiving the remunera- 
 tion were to expire with that of rendering the 
 service. But, bakers have it not in their power 
 thus to load customers ; medical practitioners, 
 patients ; law practitioners, litigants : while, in 
 a Government which has for its end in view the 
 good of the few, and, for the subject-matter of its 
 sacrifice, the good of the many, placemen have it 
 in their power thus to load subjects. In the Anglo- 
 American United States, waste in this shape has 
 no place. 
 
 Expositive and Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art. 38. Of modes of ultra-concomitant remune- 
 ration, examples are as follow : — 
 
 1. Superannuation pensions, granted on pre- 
 sumption of relative inaptitude, through infirmity 
 caused by age. 
 
Const. Code, Cli. ex. § 15. Remuneration. 13 
 
 2. Pensions of retreat, granted on the score of 
 casual inaptitude, through infirmity. 
 
 3. Pensions of retreat, granted without so much 
 as the pretence of infirmity, on the score of a cer- 
 tain length of past service, balanced all along and 
 requited already by concomitant remuneration. 
 
 Remuneration thus located is a premium on 
 inaptitude. Men flock into the situation in con- 
 templation of inaptitude : the infirmity, if it occurs, 
 is exaggerated : if worth while, fostered or even 
 produced : for the plea of it, naturally ready 
 assistants may be looked for in all third persons, 
 who are, or regard themselves as exposed to be, 
 sufferers by it ; most strenuous of all, the patron 
 to whom the right of location accrues. 
 
 Enactive and Instructional. 
 
 .Art. 39. Repugnant to these same principles 
 is all artificially misloeated remuneration, so located, 
 at the expense of the community, by the hand of 
 Government. It is universally needless ; it is es- 
 sentially unfrugal. 
 
 Expositive. 
 
 Art. 40. By artificially misloeated, understand 
 conferred on an individual, other than him by 
 whom the service was rendered. 
 
 Expositive. 
 
 Art. 41. Misloeated : it is either misloeated in 
 toto or e.rtravasated* 
 
 Expositive. 
 Art. 42. It is misloeated in toto, where, to aper- 
 
 * By anatomists, blood which has flowed out of its proper vessels 
 is said to be extravasated : if into other vessels, the error loci is 
 spoken of as having place ; as in the case of a blood-shot eye. 
 
14 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 son by whom the service in question was not, in 
 any part, rendered, reward is given ; to him by 
 whom it was rendered, none. 
 
 Expositive. 
 
 Art. 43. It is extravasated, in so far as, to re- 
 ward given to the person by whom the service was 
 rendered, is added, on that same account, reward 
 given to some person, by whom, on the occasion 
 in question, no service was rendered. 
 
 Ratiocinative and Expositive. 
 
 Art. 44. On the contrary, purely beneficial, 
 and by the whole amount of it, is all remuneration 
 in so far as naturally extravasated. Naturally ex- 
 travasated it is, in so far as, without expense to 
 Government, in virtue of pre-established con- 
 nexions, the benefit of it diffuses itself among 
 any, who, by any tie of interest, self-regarding or 
 sympathetic, are in any way connected with the 
 remuneratee. In this case, having place without 
 expense to the community, it is so much pure 
 good, and the more there is of it the better. 
 
 Ratiocinative and Instructional. 
 
 Art. 45. Of reward mislocated in toto, an ex- 
 ample has place as often as, for service rendered 
 by a subordinate, the superordinate not having 
 contributed any thing to the performance of it, the 
 superordinate reaps the reward, the subordinate 
 no part of it. 
 
 In monarchies, injustice in this shape naturally 
 and habitually pervades the whole of the of- 
 ficial establishment : the more abundantly, the 
 more absolute the monarchy is, and thence the 
 more perfectly the light of the public eye is ex- 
 cluded from all official operations. 
 
Const. Code} Cli. ix. ^ 15. Remuneration. 15 
 
 From this code, by the exclusion of all arbitra- 
 rily conferred reward, as per Arts. 8, Q, injustice 
 in this shape will be seen effectually excluded. 
 Evfry man will be judged of according to his 
 works. 
 
 Expositive and Raliocinative. 
 
 Art. 46. Of reward artificially extravasated, at 
 the expense of the community, by the hand of 
 Government, examples are the following : — 
 
 1. Pensions, receivable by the widow of the 
 functionary, on his decease. 
 
 2. Pensions, receivable by a child or children 
 of the functionary, on his decease. 
 
 3. Pensions, payable to any more distant rela- 
 tive of the functionary, on his decease. 
 
 These may be styled post-obituary, or post-obit 
 pensions. 
 
 4. An income in perpetuity, derived from land 
 or otherwise, with power given to the supposed 
 benemeritant and his representatives to hold in 
 hereditary succession, as if so purchased by him. 
 In this case, for the benefit *of one individual, 
 generations, indefinite in number, are subjected 
 to depredation. 
 
 • 
 Enactive, Rafiocinatire, and Instructional. 
 
 Art. 47. Pre-eminently repugnant would be 
 any such compound, as that which is composed of 
 factitious dignity, with fractional masses of supreme 
 power, legislative and judicial together; the whole 
 rendered extravasate, running in the blood of the 
 first remuneratee, from generation to generation, 
 through a boundless line of descendants, from no 
 one of whom could any part have been borne in 
 the supposed public service so remunerated : those 
 
16 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 same generations being, moreover, loaded with 
 the obligation of keeping repaired all breaches, 
 made by dissipation, in the originally excessive 
 mass of wealth, originally combined with that 
 same inordinately rich compound ;* the whole for 
 the perpetual saturation of appetites essentially 
 unsaturable. 
 
 Expositive, Ratiocinative, and Instructional. 
 Art. 48. For examples, see Art. 30 : those 
 appellations, which elsewhere designate little more 
 than the gaseous dignity, designating, in one na- 
 tion — many of them — the above-mentioned sub- 
 stantial compound : for, in the race of waste and 
 corruption, it was ordained of old, that the fore- 
 most of all other Governments should be distanced 
 by that, of which it is the distinguishing character 
 to be (in the words of its own so indefatigably 
 trumpeted proclamations), " the envy and ad- 
 miration of all surrounding nations." 
 
 Enactive. 
 
 Art. 49. In respect of any extraordinary public 
 service, analogous to the ordinary service attached 
 to any official situation in this department, — any 
 person whatever, by whom any such extraordinary 
 service has been rendered, may be considered as 
 belonging, on that occasion, to that same office, 
 and, in proportion to the value of the service, 
 be remunerated. 
 
 Enactive and Expositive. 
 Art. 50. Service, which, to a functionary in 
 
 * For two. successive demonstrations of this truth, see the 
 Author's Defence of Economy against Burke, in Pamphleteer, 
 No. XVII. anno 1817 ; and Defence of Economy against Rose, 
 in Pamphleteer, No. XX. anno 1817. 
 
Const. Code, Ch. ix. § 15. Remuneration. 17 
 
 the situation in question, would be ordinary, and 
 sufficiently requited by the remuneration attached 
 to it, may, if rendered by a person not in that 
 situation, be extraordinary, and as such be re- 
 munerated. 
 
 Expositive. 
 
 Art. 51. Examples are as follow: — 
 
 1 . Service, by defence of any portion of the 
 territory, or of a Government or private vessel, or 
 any individual inhabitant of the territory, against 
 aggression by any pirate or foreign enemy. Sub- 
 department, the Army or Navy. 
 
 2. Service, rendered, at the peril of life, by the 
 apprehension of a depredator or other common 
 malefactor, while engaged in the commission of a 
 crime. Sub-department, the Preventive Service. 
 
 3. Service, rendered, at the peril of life, by the 
 extinction of an accidental conflagration. Sub- 
 department again, the correspondent section of 
 the Preventive Service Sub-department. 
 
 Enactive. 
 
 Art. 52. But, in a case of this sort, the Judge 
 will be upon his guard against a fraud, to which, 
 by its nature, it stands exposed : that is to say, 
 service left unperformed by an appropriate func- 
 tionary, that a confederate non-functionary may 
 perform it, and thus, by the fraudulent display 
 of pretendedly meritorious service, receive appro- 
 priate remuneration. 
 
 ] Inactive. 
 Art. 53. Judicially, in a pecuniary shape, may 
 reward, to any amount, be thus conferred. 
 
 Enactive. 
 Art. 54. A minister's pay is [ ] a year, 
 
18 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 paid quarterly [in advance]. From unwilling* hands, 
 receipt of ulterior emolument is cvtortion : from 
 willing ones, corruption. This pay is the standard 
 of reference in the case of the pecuniary competi- 
 tion, as per § 17. 'Located how, Art. 1. 
 
 Enactive. 
 Art. 55. In every Sub-department, the pay of 
 the minister is the same. 
 
 Enactive. 
 Art. 56. Whatsoever is the number of sub- 
 departments allotted to one and the same minister, 
 pay is not given for more than one. 
 
 Enactive. 
 
 Art. 57. To his stated pay is added indemnifi- 
 cation money, for the expense of inspection visits, 
 
 at the rate of [ ] per mile, actually travelled ; 
 
 with [ ] for each day or part of a day so 
 
 employed, for diet and lodging while out. By the 
 care of the Finance Minister, after each visit, im- 
 mediately on his return, the money is paid to every 
 other minister, on his signing a receipt. 
 
 § 16. LOCABLE WHO. 
 
 Enactive. 
 
 Art. 1. This section has for its object the pro- 
 viding, as soon as may be, and in so far as is 
 necessary, — but no further, at the public expense, 
 in relation to the business of all the several Sub- 
 departments comprised in the Administration 
 Department, a system of arrangements, whereby, 
 in the several official situations, appropriate apti- 
 tude in all its branches shall be maximized, and 
 at the same time expense minimized ; say, a sys- 
 
Const. Code, Ch. ix. § 16. Locable tcho. 19 
 
 TEM OF OFFICIAL LOCATION, OF, for shortness, 
 THE LOCATION SYSTEM. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 2. As to what regards instruction* in so 
 
 far as this system is well adapted to the instruction 
 of persons destined to become public functionaries, 
 so will it be, according to the nature of the business 
 belonging - to the several sub-departments, to the 
 instruction of persons at large, foreigners as well 
 as natives. Any benefit thus derivable from the 
 system, call it the collateral benefit. 
 
 ijiac/ivc, Katiocinative, Instructional. 
 
 Art. 3. Of this system of location the leading- 
 features are as follows : — 
 
 A choice will, at any rate, be to be made, out 
 of a number of candidates or persons proposed. 
 According to this Constitution, for reasons else- 
 where given, by a single person, and not by a 
 number, the location must on every occasion be 
 made. That person can be no other than the 
 person, on whom, in case of a bad choice, as de- 
 monstrated by relative inaptitude, the responsi- 
 bility, legal or moral, or both, will fall; in a word, 
 the Prime Minister. By no legal restriction is he, 
 therefore, prevented from choosing any person at 
 pleasure : but, by a moral restriction, by the cir- 
 cumscribing eye of the Public Opinion Tribunal, 
 his choice (as per § 15. Located how) will naturally 
 be confined within limits comparatively narrow. 
 The person whose degree of appropriate aptitude, 
 in all its several branches, as certified by the votes 
 of a set of appropriately determined Judges, stands 
 highest, will have been made known — made 
 known to him and every body. Thus it is that 
 provision is made for maximisation of aptitude. 
 
 Remains now the minimization of expense. Of 
 
20 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ScC. 
 
 those persons who, in the scale of aptitude, stand 
 on or near the same level, it is made known by 
 public competition who those are who, in the situ- 
 ation in question, are willing to serve the public 
 on the lowest terms. Provision for moral aptitude 
 is at the same time made, by a scrutiny, performed 
 at the same time, in the course of the same ex- 
 amination, and with equal publicity. 
 
 If, to a person who, in the eyes of the uni- 
 versal public, is seen to stand foremost in the line 
 of appropriate aptitude, and in that of cheapness of 
 service, taken together, — he prefers a person not 
 distinguished in either way, it is at his peril — at 
 the peril of his reputation — that he does so. Nor 
 can an improper choice afford any promise of 
 producing to him any permanent advantage ; for, 
 in the case of every office, the power of dislocation 
 is confided to a number of hands, each acting 
 separately, with full power, and who, not adding 
 to it (any one of them) the power of location, stand 
 (every one of them) altogether divested of all 
 inducement to abuse a power so thankless and 
 unprofitable to the possessors. 
 
 For calling into exercise this dislocative power, 
 there will be the motive afforded by the affection 
 of envy in the breasts of disappointed rivals : — a 
 check not capable of being brought into operation 
 in the ordinary case of a purely arbitrary power 
 of patronage. 
 
 The choice being thus narrowed, not only ex- 
 pense, but with it, power of corruption, is mini- 
 mized : the benefit thus bestowed is the produce 
 — not of favour, but of right ; though not of legally 
 binding, yet of morally binding right. 
 
 Enactive and Ratiocbiative. 
 
 Art. 4. Under this system, two periods there 
 are, in relation to which, separate provision requires 
 
Const. Code, Ch. ix. § 16. Lovable who. 21 
 
 to be made ; the preparation period, and the con- 
 summation period. The consummation period, 
 though last in the order of time, requires to be 
 first described; the other not being otherwise 
 capable of being made intelligible. 
 
 Expositive. 
 
 Art. 5. By the consummation period, under- 
 stand that, during which the courses of proceeding 
 regarded as necessary to the production of appro- 
 priate aptitude in the several official situations, 
 in the degree of perfection regarded as desirable 
 and attainable, will be carrying on, each of them 
 during the whole length of time regarded as de- 
 sirable. Of this period, the commencement will 
 coincide with the termination of the preparation 
 period : determinate end it will have none. 
 
 Expositive. 
 
 Art.. 6. By the preparation period, understand 
 that during which those same courses will have 
 been going on, but will not have continued long- 
 enough, it is supposed, to have produced, with 
 sufficient certainty, the whole of the desired 
 benefit. 
 
 Instructional <w<t Rdtiocinalive. 
 
 Art. 7. If in any degree beneficial, these same 
 courses will, however, almost from the first, have 
 been productive of some degree of appropriate 
 aptitude, which benefit will have continued on 
 the increase, up to the point of time at which the 
 preparation period terminates, and the consumma- 
 tion period commences. This increase, at every 
 distinguishable stage of it, the Legislature will 
 turn to profit, as per Arts. 54, and those which 
 follow it. 
 
22 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 8. For these several courses, the several 
 times of commencement will be appointed by the 
 Legislature. 
 
 Instructional and Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art. 9. On these principles, throughout the 
 official establishment, proceed the several arrange- 
 ments, in virtue of which, so soon, and so long, as 
 any person is to be found by whom appropriate 
 proof has been given of his having reaped any 
 distinguishable portion of the benefit in question, 
 no person by whom like proof has not been given 
 will be locable : and, by the whole amount of the 
 thus acquired aptitude, how small soever, this 
 system of location will be preferable to any in 
 which no security at all is given for appropriate 
 official aptitude. Thus it is, that not by doubt, 
 nor even by despair, as to the practicability of 
 carrying the system to the height of perfection 
 here exhibited to view, can any tenable reason be 
 given, for omitting to carry it so far as it shall 
 be found capable of being carried into effect. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 10. For this, as well as other purposes, 
 the Legislature will have caused to be made, and 
 published, an all-comprehensive list of the several 
 situations, belonging to this, as well as the several 
 other departments : name of it, The Office Calen- 
 dar; as to which, see also § 31. Securities for 
 Appropriate Aptitude. 
 
 Instructional and Expositive. 
 Art. 11. General heads, under which, for the 
 present purpose, these may be ranged, are — 
 
Const. Code, C/i. ix. § 16. Locable -who. 23 
 
 I. Situations of talent. 
 II. Situations of simple trust. 
 III. Situations of trust and talent. 
 
 Expositive and Instructional. 
 
 Art. 12. By situations of talent, understand 
 those so circumstanced, that, for the apt fulfil- 
 ment of the duties attached to them, appropriate 
 knowledge, judgment, and active talent, in some 
 special shape or shapes, as per Art. 15, over and 
 above appropriate moral aptitude, are regarded as 
 necessary. 
 
 These situations will be formed into groupes, 
 corresponding to the several groupes of branches 
 of art and science, proficiency in which shall 
 have been regarded as necessary to the apt exer- 
 cise of the several functions respectively belong- 
 ing to the several situations. 
 
 Expositive. 
 
 Art. 13. By situations of simple trust, under- 
 stand such, for the apt performance of the duties 
 whereof no such proficiency is necessary. 
 
 Examples are — 
 
 1. Situations, the duties of which are dis- 
 charged by the receipt, custody, and transmission, 
 of money. 
 
 2. Or of messengers from a central part of the 
 territory of the state to every other : as in the 
 case of Post-office situations. # 
 
 3. Or of stores of any kind: except in so far as, 
 according to the nature of the article, chemical 
 knowledge respecting the causes and preventives 
 of deperition may be necessary. 
 
 4. So, situations, in virtue of which the custo- 
 ditive function is exercised with relation to an 
 immovable subject-matter: excepting as above. 
 
24 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 Expositive. 
 Art. 14. By situations of talent and trust, 
 understand such situations of talent, for the apt 
 performance of the duties whereof the disposal 
 of the services of men in considerable numbers, 
 or of things, for public use, to considerable value, 
 is necessary. 
 
 Instructional and Expositive. 
 
 Art. 15. Of groupes of talents, proficiency in 
 which may be regarded as necessary to the apt 
 exercise of the functions belonging to correspond- 
 ent groupes of situations, examples are as follow : — 
 
 II. Talents therein more 
 
 I. Talent-requiring Situations. 
 
 1. Army Minister, and his 
 various subordinates, in the se- 
 veral situations of Commander 
 of Engineers, of Artillery-men, 
 and Cavalry; Commissary, for 
 the purchase, preservation, and 
 conveyance of military stores 
 and provisions ; Medical Cura- 
 tor ; Military Judge. 
 
 2. Navy Minister, and his 
 various subordinates. 
 
 3. Interior Communication 
 Minister, and his subordinates 
 in various situations belonging 
 to this sub-department. 
 
 especially requisite. 
 
 1. Mechanic and Chemi- 
 cal Art and Science, various 
 branches. Mathematics, in 
 so far as subservient thereto. 
 Fortification. Military Tactics. 
 Medical Art and Science, in 
 most of its branches. Judi- 
 cature, as applied to Army 
 Service. 
 
 2. Mechanic, Chemical, and 
 Medical Art and Science, va- 
 rious branches, as in the case 
 of Army Service. Astronomy, 
 in so far as applied to the de- 
 termining the place of a navi- 
 gable vessel, whether at anchor 
 or in her course. Mathematics, 
 in so far as subservient there- 
 to. Naval Architecture. Naval 
 Tactics. Judicature, as applied 
 to Navy Service. 
 
 3. Mechanical and Chemi- 
 cal Art and Science, various 
 branches ; more particularly 
 Hydrostatics and Hydrodyna- 
 mics. Mathematics, in so far 
 as subservient thereto. 
 
Const. Cock, Ch. ix. § 16. Locable who. 25 
 
 4. Indigence Relief Minis- 
 ter. 
 
 5. Domain Minister. 
 
 6. Health Minister, and his 
 various subordinates. 
 
 Art 
 
 4. Political Economy. 
 
 5. According; to the nature 
 of the several Domains, Agri- 
 culture, Geology, Mineralogy, 
 and the several branches of Me- 
 chanical and Chemical Art and 
 Science subservient thereto. 
 
 (i. Medical Art and Science, 
 all its branches. Chemical Art 
 and Science, all its branches. 
 Mechanical Art and Science, 
 various branches. Natural His- 
 tory, most of its branches. 
 Geography, in so far as regards 
 climate and temperature, in 
 countries which the members 
 of the community may have 
 occasion to visit, either for war 
 or trade. 
 
 7. Branches of Art and 
 Science, corresponding to the 
 faculties of reading, speaking, 
 and writing, in various lan- 
 guages. Political Economy, in 
 respect of the affairs of trade. 
 History and Geography. Na- 
 tional Statistics. International 
 Law. 
 
 8. — 1. Political Economy, 
 as above. 
 
 2. Branches of Art and 
 Science to which belong the 
 several processes of the seve- 
 ral manufactures and other 
 branches of profit-seeking in- 
 dustry, the operations of which 
 are liable to become subject- 
 matters of taxation, restriction, 
 prohibition, or compulsory ob- 
 ligation. History, Geography, 
 National Statistics, and Inter- 
 national Law, as above. 
 
 Euactive. 
 16. Except as per § 18. Located how, 
 
 7. Foreign Relation Minis- 
 ter, and his subordinates, in the 
 several situations of Envoy for 
 General Purposes, and Consuls 
 for the special purpose of pro- 
 tection of trade. 
 
 8. Finance Minister, and his 
 various subordinates. 
 
26 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 Arts. 16, 17, antecedently to his admission into 
 any office belonging to this department, the name 
 of the individual must have been entered upon a 
 certain list, called the Locable List. 
 
 Enact ive. 
 Art. 17. For determining, in regard to each 
 individual, whether he be qualified to be admitted, 
 and accordingly, whether he shall be admitted, 
 into this list, — and if yes, in what rank, a Special 
 Judicatory will be formed, under the name of 
 the Qualification Judicatory, or say, Examination 
 Judicatory. 
 
 Enact ive. 
 Art. 18. Of this Judicatory the composition 
 will be as follows : — 
 
 1. Presiding Judge, the Justice Minister or his 
 depute. 
 
 2. Other Judges, the Prime Minister and the 
 several Ministers, or their respective deputes. 
 
 3. Quasi-jury men, the several instructors, as per 
 Arts. 42 to 53, under whose instruction the several 
 locables have acquired their proficiency in the 
 several groupes of branches of art and science. 
 
 As to Quasi -jurymen and their functions, see, 
 in the part belonging to the Judicial Department, 
 Ch. xiv. Quasi-jury. 
 
 Enact ive. 
 Art. 19. Included in the supposition of the 
 sitting of a Judicatory of this sort, are the suppo- 
 sitions following : — 
 
 1. Returns made to the advertisement, as per 
 Art. 42. 
 
 2. To the several places in question, pecuniary 
 supply, afforded by Government ; or ascertain- 
 ment of the needlessness of such supply. 
 
 3. Time elapsed, sufficient for the obtainment 
 
Const. Code, Ch. IX. $ 16. Locable who. 27 
 
 of instruction, more or less extensive, in the several 
 branches of art and science in question, or some 
 of them ; observation being at the same time made, 
 that, how small soever, the instruction obtained in 
 consequence of this plan will, by the whole amount 
 of it, have been so much more than would have 
 had place otherwise. More will always be better 
 than less, but the least will always be better 
 than none. 
 
 Enactive and Instructional. 
 
 Art. 20. Mode of procedure in these examina- 
 tions : — in the main this will be the same as in 
 an ordinary Immediate Judicatory. 
 
 Examples of points of agreement and coincidence 
 are as follow : — 
 
 1 . On the pursuer s side, applicants and demand- 
 ants (the several scholars) demanding admission 
 into the loeable list, and to that end presenting 
 themselves for examination. 
 
 2. Subject-matter of demand, the judicial service, 
 which the Judicatory will have rendered to the 
 applicant, if, being placed on the list, he is at the 
 same time placed at the head of it, or in any such 
 inferior place as shall have been thought fit. 
 
 3. Defendants , in like manner, these same se- 
 veral scholars, each contesting the demand made 
 by every other of the highest station, and the se- 
 veral next stations, one below another, as above. 
 
 4. Evidence in favour of his own aptitude, spon- 
 taneously adduced by each scholar in the character 
 of demandant, — any such marks of proficiency, as, 
 according to the nature of the case, the regulation 
 shall have allowed to be exhibited. 
 
 5. Other evidence in his favour, elicited by inter- 
 rogation, addressed to him by any Judges, or Quasi- 
 jurymen, or fellow-candidates, so disposed. 
 
 6. Other evidence, elicited by couuler-interro- 
 
28 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 gation, addressed to him in pursuance of the oppo- 
 site disposition. 
 
 7. Also, whatever evidence operates, in a direct 
 way, in favour of any one of his several competitors, 
 as above. 
 
 8. Publicity, throughout maximized. 
 
 Expositive. 
 
 Art. 21. Examples of points of diversity on 
 the part of this as compared with an ordinary 
 Judicatory, are as follow : — 
 
 1. Substitute or assistant, none, gratuitous or 
 professional, to any such candidate, either as de- 
 mandant or defendant. 
 
 2. Co-demandants or co-defendants, none com- 
 pelled or compellable to be. 
 
 3. Extraneous witnesses, none compelled or 
 admitted, except in case of necessity, on an ex- 
 amination into moral aptitude, as per Art. 33. 
 
 4. Costs, that is to say, compensation to a party 
 on the opposite side for expenses of demand or 
 defence, none exigible. 
 
 Enactive. 
 Art. 22. Of the Qualification Judicatory the 
 opinative decree will be thus formed: — Modes of 
 votation, two : the secret mode ; then, before the 
 result of the secret mode has been disclosed or 
 ascertained, the open mode. 
 
 Enactive. 
 Art. 23. Of the way in which votation in the 
 secret mode may be conducted, an example is as 
 follows :— - 
 
 1 . A roll of paper or parchment is provided : 
 length, such as to contain the names of all the 
 several candidates, one under another. 
 
 2. In this roll are so many columns, placed 
 
Const. Code, C/i. ix. § 16. Lovable who. 29 
 
 abreast of one another, headed each by the names 
 of such groupes of branches of art and science as, 
 for this purpose, have been assorted into groupes, 
 as per Art. 15. 
 
 3. Under each of these heads, in each column, 
 follow the names of the several candidates, in the 
 alphabetical order of their surnames. 
 
 4. To each voter have been delivered tickets, in 
 card or paper, equal in number to that of the can- 
 didates, multiplied by the number of the above 
 groupes of branches of art and science. 
 
 5. Underneath, or at the back of the name of 
 each candidate, according to the space provided, 
 the voter pins a ticket, exhibiting the number, ex- 
 pressive of the relative rank which it is his desire 
 the candidate should occupy. 
 
 6. Say, for instance, voters (Judges and Quasi- 
 jurymen together), 25 ; candidates, 200 ; groupes 
 of branches of art and science, 4 : thence, total 
 number of tickets requisite for each voter, 800. 
 
 7. Breadth of each ticket, say about one-fourth 
 of an inch; hence, length of each roll, exclusive of 
 the heading, 50 inches — 4 feet 2 inches. Divide 
 the roll into two equal parts, placing them abreast ; 
 length of each will be 2 feet 1 inch. 
 
 8. The words and figures employed being, all 
 of them, in print, and printed in the same press, 
 the person of the voter cannot thus be made known, 
 as by hand-writing it might be. 
 
 9. The two half-sheets of each sheet being- 
 folded one over the other, in the manner of a 
 sheet of paper in folio, the numbers attached to 
 the names, will not in any instance, be visible. 
 
 Enact he. 
 Art. 24. Mode of giving in the votes. On a 
 day pre-announced, the Judges, in presence of 
 
30 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 each other, deliver in to the Registrar, each of 
 them, his voting roll, at the same time : as delivered 
 in, these rolls are shuffled, in the manner of a pack 
 of cards, that it may not be known by what person 
 they have respectively been delivered in. They 
 are then deposited, one upon another, in a box. 
 The box is sealed, by an impression from each 
 Judge's seal ( a ). 
 
 Enactive, Expositive, and Instructional. 
 Art. 25. Mode of scrutiny. For performing 
 the arithmetical operation, the course taken is as 
 follows : — 
 
 1. For the assistance of the Registrar, scruti- 
 neers, two or more, are elected by the Judges. 
 
 2. In case of equality, the President has a 
 casting vote. 
 
 3. At the commencement of the scrutiny, and 
 not before, the seals are broken. Thus, by the 
 shortness of the time, all unduly partial disclosure, 
 indicating, by means of secret marks, which roll 
 was delivered in by which Judge, is rendered ivh 
 practicable. 
 
 4. In relation to each such groupe of subject- 
 matters, the figures expressive of the ranks, as- 
 signed to the several candidates by the several 
 voters, being summed up, — he, in regard to whom 
 the sum is least, is thus seen to stand highest 
 in the judgment of the whole Judicatory taken 
 together ( b ). 
 
 a Note by an East India Proprietor. At the India House the 
 forms of secrecy are established; but it is regarded as a signal of 
 hostility to the Directors if, on the delivery, the vote is not made 
 visible to him who presides. Secrecy is thus an imposture. 
 Allowance of liberty of suffrage professed ; tyranny and corrup- 
 tion practised. 
 
 b Note by a highly distinguished Officer of Artillery, bred up 
 in the Government Academy at Woolwich, near London. 
 
Const. Code, Ok. ix. § 16. Locable who. 31 
 
 5. Example. Candidates, as above, say 200 : 
 voters, 12: if, by all 12, Candidate A is meant 
 to be ranked highest, 12 will be the number ex- 
 pressive of such his rank : if lowest, 2,400. To 
 facilitate conception, in an appropriate column, in 
 a line with number 12, may be inserted number 1 : 
 so also in regard to the several other candidates. 
 
 Enactive. 
 Art. 26. In the open mode, the votation will 
 be performed .in nearly the same manner; sole 
 difference, the name of the voter will be in his own 
 hand, written at the top of his voting-paper. 
 
 Enattive. 
 
 Art. 27. — It will be performed, after perform- 
 ance in the secret mode : and before the time, 
 
 Such is the practice at the Woolwich Academy. Of the pro- 
 ceedings of the examinations, a register is there kept, and monthly 
 returns of the contents made. By these returns, the earliest 
 commissions in the service are determined, and promotions are 
 determined by seniority in service. 
 
 For the quieting of the anxieties liable to be produced on such 
 occasions, respecting the correctness of the vote, the nature of the 
 case does not shut the door against ulterior expedients. .Sup- 
 pose a voter hesitating as to the comparative aptitude of two or 
 more candidates ; in this case, to give the preference to any one 
 above the other may seem to him an act of injustice. 
 
 Modes in which he may exempt himself from self-condemnation 
 on this score : — 
 
 1 . One is the determining by lot which shall be placed. 
 
 2. Another, which will naturally be correctly expressive of the 
 desired equality, is, the adding together the numbers, that would 
 be expressive of the ranks, given to the several supposed equally 
 apt candidates, if they were placed one above another, and then 
 dividing the sura by the number of those same candidates: the 
 quotient resulting from this division is the number which, on this 
 plan, he attaches to the name of each. Thus much as to these par- 
 ticular candidates. By this mode his opinion will be correctly 
 expressed in relation to these several candidates; nor, in this way, 
 would the rank of those, above or those below them be affected. 
 
32 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 when, by the breaking of the seals, the result 
 thereof is begun to be disclosed. 
 
 Enactive. 
 Art. 28. In the same manner, as per Art. 23, 
 will be expressed, in the secret mode, the aggre- 
 gate of the opinions of the Quasi-jury men. 
 
 Ratiocinative and Instructional. 
 Art. 29. In their instance, the secret mode 
 alone will have place. On their votes, favour or 
 disfavour of candidates and their friends will ope- 
 rate, it is presumed, with more force than on those 
 of the Judges. In the case of the Quasi-jurymen, 
 they being the several Instructors, the interest 
 which they respectively have in the aptitude of the 
 persons located in the several official situations, 
 is not so immediate and clear as in the case of the 
 Judges. Each Quasi-juryman being an Instructor, 
 it is for the interest of his reputation that his pupils, 
 qualified or not qualified, be in the greatest number 
 possible, placed in the highest ranks possible ( c ). 
 
 Enactive. 
 Art. 30. Of the votation, in both modes, in a 
 Table styled the Ranking-table, the results will be 
 published at the same time. 
 
 c Note by a person of distinction, bred in the University of 
 Glasgow. When prizes were given, votes, expressive of the 
 degrees of proficiency, were delivered by the candidates them- 
 selves ; each thus acting as Judge in relation to every other: 
 justice was universally acknowledged to be the general, not to say 
 the constant, result. 
 
 Addition by the Author. At Hazelwood School, near Bir- 
 mingham, at which two Greek youths are educating by the 
 Author of this Code, punishment is never administered, unless 
 the accused has been found guilty by his fellow-scholars. Note, 
 that in no shape is corporal punishment there practised. 
 
 In the present case, the multitude of the persons in question 
 would with difficulty, if at all, admit of so extended a Judicatory. 
 
Const. Code, 67/ . ix. § 1G. Locabk who. 33 
 
 Enactive. 
 
 Art. 30. The effect of priority being, as per 
 § 17, not peremptory, in such sort as to exclude 
 the faculty of choice on the part of the locating 
 superordinate, the result of both modes will lie, 
 and will be seen to lie, before him, for his guidance. 
 
 Enactive or Instructional. 
 
 Art. 31 . When time has brought into existence 
 a sufficient body of experience, the Legislature 
 will choose between the three modes : to wit, the 
 secret mode alone ; the open mode alone ; and 
 the two compounded, as above. In regard to the 
 whole number of official situations, or this or that 
 portion thereof, it will, if it see reason, ordain that 
 they shall all three be employed : to wit, one 
 during the first ; another during the second ; and 
 the third during the third, of three successive years. 
 
 Enactive. 
 Art. 32. Of the comparative aptitude of the 
 several instructors, presumptive evidence, more or 
 less probative, will thus be exhibited. The rank 
 of each several candidate being thus ascertained,— 
 on a line with each, in an appropriate column, will 
 be inserted the name or names of the instructor or 
 instructors, under whose instruction he had studied ; 
 together with the time or times at which, and the 
 length or lengths of time during which, such his 
 study had been continued. 
 
 Enactive and Instructional. 
 
 Art. 33. For appropriate moral aptitude, the 
 Legislature will, if it sees reason, appoint a limited 
 list of topics, in relation to which, to the exclusion 
 of all other topics, the several Judges and Quasi- 
 
 D 
 
34 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 jurymen shall or may interrogate the several com- 
 petitors : and the several competitors, with the 
 leave of the judges, one another. 
 
 Into any alleged irregularities of the sexual 
 appetite, all scrutiny, as being irrelevant, and 
 pregnant with useless and mischievous annoyance 
 to third persons, will be interdicted. 
 
 Enactive. 
 
 Art. 34. Till such list has been framed and 
 published, the liberty of interrogation will be 
 unlimited. Power in this case to the majority of 
 the judges, spontaneously, or at the instance of 
 the candidate who is the subject of the interroga- 
 tion, to inhibit answer, or declare the interrogatee 
 at liberty to answer or not, as he thinks best. As 
 to this, see Ch. xii. Judiciary collectively, 
 § 26. Locable who. 
 
 For falsity committed in this Judicatory, the 
 interrogatee is responsible, as if it were in any 
 other. So the interrogator, for any falsity asserted 
 on the occasion of, or implied in, his interrogation. 
 
 Enactive. 
 Art. 35. Of the result of this scrutiny into 
 moral aptitude, entry will be made in an appro- 
 priate register book, styled the Candidate's Cha- 
 racter Book. 
 
 Enactive and Ratiocinative. 
 Art. 36. Appropriate moral aptitude being, in 
 this case, mostly negative, — and where no impu- 
 tation attaches, as will mostly be the case, not sus- 
 ceptible of degrees, — appropriate aptitude in this 
 shape will not be subject to votation. Of this 
 scrutiny, as of the other, the result will lie in the 
 view of each locator, and will assist him in the 
 formation of his choice. 
 
Const. Code, Ch. ix. ^ 16. Locable who. 35 
 
 inactive. 
 
 Art. 37. From the result of the votation pro- 
 cess, as above, will be framed, printed, and pub- 
 lished by the Registrar, under the direction of the 
 President, the aggregate opinative decree, by which 
 the ranks of the several candidates, say the several 
 probationary loco hies, will be determined. 
 
 Enactive. 
 
 Art. 38. Consequent upon, and determined 
 by, the opinative decree, will be the imperative 
 decree, by which order will be given for their inser- 
 tion in the locable list, and for the printing and 
 publication of it. 
 
 Enact ive. 
 
 Art. 39. To the name of no probationary locable 
 will insertion be refused, on the ground of intellec- 
 tual inaptitude, unless by an express decree of the 
 majority of the officiating Judges. In case of 
 imputed inaptitude, the degree thereof will be 
 exhibited by the rank occupied by the individual's 
 name in the list of probationers, as per Art. 25. 
 
 Enactive. 
 
 Art. 40. So neither, on the ground of moral 
 inaptitude. But in the printed list, to the name 
 of each probationer, to whose conduct, on the 
 score of moral inaptitude, an objection has been 
 made, a mark will be attached ; and of what has 
 passed, on the occasion of every such scrutiny, a 
 record, under the care of the Registrar, will be 
 made and published. 
 
 Enactive and Ratiocinative. 
 Art. 41. For obtainment of instructors in the 
 
36 OFFICIAL APTITUDE .MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 several branches as above, — for maximizing the 
 aptitude of those employed, by maximizing the 
 number of those competing for the employment, — 
 and, moreover, for preascertainment of the ex- 
 pense to Government, advertisement will, by direc- 
 tion of the Prime Minister, be made of the several 
 places at which it is proposed that the instruction 
 shall be administered; together with questions, 
 to which every person desirous of administering it 
 may give answers. Name of this instrument — 
 The Prime Minister s Advertisement for Instructors ; 
 or, for shortness, The Advertisement for Instructors. 
 
 Enactive. 
 Art. 42. Examples of these questions are the 
 following : 
 
 1 . At the time of answering, have you under 
 your instruction, any and what pupils, and of 
 what ages respectively, in any and what branch 
 or branches of instruction contained in this adver- 
 tisement; and during what length of time have 
 you so had them respectively, mentioning in each 
 instance the year, month, and day of commence- 
 ment? 
 
 2. To any and which of them do you supply 
 lodging and diet, or either and which, and on 
 what terms ? 
 
 3. As to what other branches, if any, of art and 
 science, in the groups stated in the advertise- 
 ment, as per Art. 15, or in any and what other 
 groups, or separately, do you regard yourself 
 able, being also willing, to administer instruction? 
 
 4. What remuneration do you require for each 
 pupil, with variations, if any, according to age, 
 or any and what other circumstance ? 
 
 5. Shall you be able and willing, and when, 
 for any and what number, to supply lodging and 
 diet, or either and which, and on what terms ? 
 
Const. Code, Ch. ix. § 16. Lovable who. 37 
 
 Enact he. 
 
 Art. 43. Of an advertisement to this effect, 
 the object will be, to ascertain, in the first place, 
 in what branches of instruction, and in regard to 
 each, for what number of pupils apt instruction, 
 may be expected, at the charge of the individuals 
 more immediately benefited, and thence, what 
 part of the expense will be required to be borne 
 or advanced by Government. 
 
 Enactive and Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art. 44. As to the Governments share of the 
 expense, the primary distinction will be between 
 that part which must be advanced in the shape 
 of capital, and that part for which an annual or 
 other periodically received allowance, in the man- 
 ner of interest on capital, may suffice : period- 
 ical allowance being preferable as far as it will 
 go : preferable, inasmuch as, if ineffective or 
 become needless, the expense may at any time 
 be made to cease. 
 
 Enactive. 
 
 Art. 45. Of the purposes for which capital may 
 be requisite, the principal, are house-room , ground- 
 i^oom, and appropriate apparatus : relation being, 
 in this case, had to the several branches of art 
 and science. 
 
 For house-room and ground-room, it will be 
 the care of Government that no advance shall be 
 made in the shape of vapital, any further than 
 room, suitable and adequate to the purpose, can- 
 not be obtained for hire. 
 
 Enactive, Raliocinative, and Inst r actional. 
 Art. 46. For the maximization, not only offru- 
 
38 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 gality and extent of provision as above, but, more- 
 over, of appropriate aptitude on the part of the 
 Instructors, — it will be the care of the Legislature, 
 to minimize, in the instance of each Instructor, all 
 such supply in a pecuniary and quasi-pecuniary 
 shape as will be independent of the number of 
 his pupils, and thereby of the strenuousness and 
 constancy of his exertions. 
 
 Instructional and Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art. 47. In this view, it will be the care of 
 the Legislature, that whatsoever remuneration is 
 needed for engaging apt Instructors shall, in as 
 large a proportion as may be, be defrayed, not by 
 Government, but by the pupils, and their rela- 
 tives : considering that, in so far as salary is pro- 
 vided at a fixed rate, independent of the number of 
 the pupils, motives for adequate exertion on the 
 part of the alleged Instructors are altogether 
 wanting ; while the love of ease is an inducement, 
 by the force of which, the absence of exertion 
 will be secured : considering, moreover, that even 
 if remuneration were made to rise in proportion 
 to the number of the pupils, adequate motives for 
 adequate exertion might still be wanting; the 
 number being kept up for appearance sake, and the 
 exertion no greater than what would be regarded 
 as necessary to save the Instructor from disgrace ; 
 and that thus, in both cases, every allowance, 
 thus made, operates as a premium on negligence, 
 and as a prohibition on appropriate attention and 
 exertion. 
 
 Instructional and Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art. 48. On the other hand, cases may have 
 place, in which, on pain of leaving the service 
 unprovided with the necessary instruction on 
 
Const. Code, Ck. ix. § 16. Locable who. 39 
 
 matters of indispensable necessity, it may be 
 necessary to provide extra remuneration, in a 
 quantity such as to free the Instructor from any 
 such dependance, as above, on the number of his 
 pupils. But against this case provision, in a 
 great degree effectual, will have been made: — 
 made, by the inevitable constancy of attendance, 
 and performance of the appropriate functions, at 
 the seat of duty, on principles and by means, as 
 per Ch. vi. Legislative, § 20. Attendance and 
 Remuneration, how connected; and § 23. Self-sup- 
 pletive Function : so far as consists in the reading 
 of lectures, performance being thus secured, 
 although the motives for exertion may not be 
 in quite so high a degree efficient as they might 
 be rendered by emolument, rising in proportion 
 to the number of the pupils, still maj^ they be 
 sufficiently effective, to make ample return for 
 the expense : delivery of the instruction, in some- 
 state or other, being by the supposition inevita- 
 ble, regard for his own character will prevent 
 a man from exhibiting the instruction in any such 
 state as should expose his character to disgrace ; 
 and, in situations such as those in question, this 
 will, on the part of most men, suffice to call 
 into action nearly all such appropriate aptitude 
 as they are conscious of being in possession of. 
 
 Instruct io?iat and Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art. 49. Of cases in which, in addition to 
 bare subsistence, remuneration, rising in regular 
 proportion with, and thence dependent on, the 
 number of the pupils, may, as above, fail of being- 
 sufficient, examples are as follows : — 
 
 1 . On the one hand, the branch of instruction ; 
 on the other hand, the state of the country such — 
 that an extra mass of emolument to a certain 
 
40 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 degree ample, may be necessary to attract in- 
 structors from foreign countries: 
 
 2. Or, in the country in question, from rival 
 pursuits. 
 
 3. The branch of instruction such that, in the 
 country in question, at the time in question, not- 
 withstanding the multitude of those by whom it 
 is, on account of the public, desirable that 
 it should be possessed, — proficiency in it may 
 not afford to pupils, — in number sufficient to 
 make up such remuneration, as above, to the 
 instructor, — .inducement sufficient in their eyes 
 to pay for the time, labour, and expense, neces- 
 sary to acquirement. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 50. In a case in which, under the per- 
 suasion of necessity, as above, any such extra 
 rate of remuneration has at the outset been allot- 
 ted, — it will be for the care of the Legislature 
 so to order matters, that along with the necessity 
 the overplus shall cease. Preserving, therefore, 
 for the sake .of good faith, to the first professor 
 his agreed-for remuneration — such reduction will, 
 accordingly, upon his decease, resignation, or 
 dislocation, be made, as the consideration of the 
 probable desirableness of the situation in the 
 eyes of apt instructors, — consideration being 
 moreover had of the habitual probable number 
 of pupils, — appears to admit of. 
 
 Instructional and Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art. 51. If, in this or that place, it should be 
 found necessary to employ public money, in pro- 
 viding pay for the engaging of apt Instructors, care 
 will at the same time be taken, not to make it 
 larger than the pay customarily regarded as neces- 
 
Const. Code, Ch. ix. § 16. Locabk who. 41 
 
 sary for the subsistence of the lowest-paid class of 
 labourers : for, if at the place in question, at the 
 expense of parents and relatives, pupils can not 
 be obtained, in number sufficient to afford an 
 adequate inducement to an apt instructor, it will 
 follow, that that same place is not so fit as some 
 other that might be found. For the mode, in 
 which, on the part of instructors, comparative 
 aptitude will be exhibited by the examinations, 
 see Art. 32. 
 
 Instructional and Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art. 52. In this same view, the propriety will 
 be seen, of abstaining altogether from making any 
 allowance for lodging or diet of pupils, considering, 
 that in no part of the territory, in which any popu- 
 lation has place, can there be any want of parents 
 or other relatives, by whom persons, apt in respect 
 of age to become pupils, are already maintained at 
 their own expense : and that, in so far as allow- 
 ance were made for any such purposes, such 
 allowance would operate as a premium, or bounty, 
 on the production of population in excess. 
 
 Instructional and Ratiocinative. 
 Art. 53. As to clothing, if any Government 
 allowance is made, it will be in the view of pre- 
 venting the comparatively opulent from being 
 excluded from the benefit of the instruction, by 
 disgust produced from the spectacle of deficiency 
 or uncleanliness, on the part of the comparatively 
 indigent. 
 
 Enact ive, Instructional, or Expositive. 
 
 Art. 54. When, in consequence of the adver- 
 tisement, as per Art. 42, answers, at the end of a 
 
42 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C 
 
 sufficient interval of time, have been received, — 
 the Legislature will, by a succeeding advertise- 
 ment, fix a day, distant not less than [one year] from 
 the day on which such last-mentioned advertise- 
 ment is issued ; on which succeeding day, at the 
 appointed place or places, the Jirst examination or 
 examinations will be to be made. These days 
 may respectively be denominated, the examination- 
 appointing day or days, and the examination day or 
 days ; the advertisement, the examination- appoint- 
 ing advertisement. 
 
 Enactive or Instructional. 
 Art. 55. On the occasion of such examination- 
 appointing advertisement, if not before, the Legis- 
 lature will have determined, and will then declare 
 its determination, as to whether the several 
 branches of art and science, comprised in the 
 several groups, shall be included all in one 
 examination, or shall, in any and what manner, be 
 distributed among divers examinations : those ex- 
 aminations to be performed by the same or divers 
 Qualification Judicatories, at the same or divers 
 times. 
 
 Enactive. 
 Art. 56. Length of the consummation period, 
 say [seven] years. Day of commencement, either 
 the day of the first examination, or some anterior 
 day- — say the examination-appointing day, as 
 above. In each place if there be places more 
 than one, the number of examinations in the 
 course of that period will be, if annual, 7 ; if 
 semi-annual, 14 ; if quarterly, 28. By the last 
 examination will have been produced a complete 
 set of functionaries, by whom the full benefit of 
 the system will (it is presumed) have been reaped. 
 
Const. Code, Ch. ix.§ 16. Located hmo. 43 
 
 histruciional and Rat ioci native. 
 
 • 
 
 Art. 57. Coincident with the earliest consum- 
 mation period that has place, will be the preparation 
 period. So many years, half-years, or quarters, so 
 many stages, into which it may be considered as 
 divided. By whatever considerations the Legis- 
 lature will have been determined to cause the 
 course of instruction to be administered in its 
 entire length, by the same will it have been deter- 
 mined to cause to be administered whatsoever 
 smaller portion the interval of time will, at each 
 stage, have admitted. For, 
 
 1. In relation to appropriate aptitude in official 
 situations, any quantity of time, employed in ap- 
 propriate instruction for the obtainment of it, will 
 be better than none. 
 
 2. Of any given degree of such aptitude, any 
 such direct evidence will be better than none. 
 
 3. On grounds unknown to all men, no mans 
 bare opinion, in affirmance of another man's apti- 
 tude, can be so well grounded as that of all men 
 will be, after a public examination, though there 
 were no more than one, followed as it will be by 
 collective judicial opinion, having such examina- 
 tion for its ground, and expressed by secret, and 
 thence by free votation, as above. 
 
 Enaitive. 
 Art. 58. Accordingly, when one year's in- 
 struction has been received, no person, those 
 excepted who are already in office, will be placed 
 on the locable list, unless he has been receiving 
 the benefit of that same instruction throughout 
 that one year : when two years, no person by 
 whom it has not been received during those two 
 years, those persons excepted who are then already 
 in office, and those by whom the instruction had 
 
44 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 been received during the second year : and so on 
 during the whole of the period — the quantum of 
 appropriate instruction receiving every year an 
 increase, until what is regarded as a sufficiency 
 has been secured to all functionaries, in all lines, 
 and the door perpetually shut against all those 
 whose inaptitude stands self-confessed, and thus 
 conclusively proved, by their shrinking from the 
 test. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 59. In relation to appropriate moral apti- 
 tude, the Legislature will consider — whether the 
 course of examination relative thereto shall com- 
 mence at the same time with the examination rela- 
 tive to the other branches of appropriate aptitude, 
 as above, — or not till at some and what later point 
 of time ; as also whether the acts of the examinee, 
 which, on the examination, may be permitted to 
 be brought to light, may commence at any point 
 of time, or whether a time shall be assigned, to 
 the end that no such act, anterior to that time, 
 shall be endeavoured to be brought to light. 
 
 § 17. LOCATED HOW. 
 
 Enactive and Expositive. 
 Art. 1. Pecuniary Competition. So soon as, by 
 the records of the Qualification Judicatory, can- 
 didates, apt for official situations, and thence 
 placed on the locable list, have been made known, 
 — the Prime Minister will, by advertisement, give 
 notice, of the day on or before which, but not after 
 which, the offers of persons desirous of filling the 
 several situations are to be delivered in at his 
 office. These offers will be so many biddings in 
 the office competition process. Name of this ad- 
 
Const. Code, Ch. ix. § 17. Located how. 45 
 
 vertisement, the pecuniary — competition — inviting. 
 or official pecuniary — competition, advertisement. 
 The pay annexed to each office having been 
 predetermined by an ordinance of the Legisla- 
 ture, each bidding will be either reductional, or 
 emptional, or compound. 
 
 Expositive. 
 Art. 2. By a reductional bidding understand — 
 an offer, to accept, along with the situation, a 
 quantum of pay, less than the appointed quan- 
 tum, by a sum therein named. 
 
 Expositive. 
 
 Art. 3. By an emptional bidding understand — 
 an offer to give, for the situation, with the ap- 
 pointed quantum of pay, a sum therein named. 
 
 Expositive. 
 
 Art. 4. By a compound bidding understand — a 
 bidding, in which the reductional and the emp- 
 tional offers are combined. 
 
 Emotive. 
 
 Art. 5. On the occasion of this same pecu- 
 niary competition, — from no person other than 
 those on whose claims a judgment has been passed 
 in the Qualification Judicatory will any bidding 
 be available. No person, by whom a trial in the 
 Qualification Judicatory has not been undergone, 
 is in any one of these situations locable. 
 
 Enactive or Instructional. 
 
 Art. G. Pecuniary Security. In relation to the 
 several simple trust and talent and trust situa- 
 tions, as per § 16. Arts. 10, 11, 12, 13, the 
 Legislature will have determined — in what in- 
 stances, and in what shapes, pecuniary security 
 
46 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 shall be required at the hands of Locatees : and, 
 at the biddings, made on the occasion of the 
 pecuniary competition, each bidder, making re- 
 ference to such determination, will add in detail 
 the pecuniary security he is able and willing to 
 give. 
 
 Expositive. 
 
 Art. 7. Of every Minister, the situation is one 
 of talent as well as trust. 
 
 Enactive. 
 Art. 8. No person will be admitted, either as 
 Principal or as Deputy, to the exercise of the 
 functions belonging to any situation standing 
 upon the list of official situations in this depart- 
 ment, — or to any pay as Principal, until an ap- 
 propriate instrument of location, signed by Locator 
 and Locatee, has been lodged in the records of 
 the office. 
 
 Enactive. 
 Art. 9. In this instrument, matter will be to 
 be entered under the several heads following : 
 to wit, 
 
 1. Name, at full length, of the person located. 
 
 2. His age (mentioning the year, month, and 
 day of the month, when born, so far as known) 
 on the day of the signature of the instrument. 
 
 3. Time, that is to say year, month, and day of 
 the month, on which he was admitted into the 
 Local? le List. 
 
 4. Rank, assigned to him on that occasion, as 
 evidenced by the Ranking-table, as per § 16. 
 Locable who, Art. 30. 
 
 5. Bidding, if any, made by him for the situa- 
 tion, with the particulars, as above, per Arts. 1, 
 2, 3, 4, annexed. 
 
Cot ist. Code, Ch. ix. § 17. Located how . 47 
 
 6. Biddings, if any, respectively made by 
 whatsoever other persons were, for that same 
 situation, candidates. Of these biddings, desig- 
 nation will be made, either by transcript, or 
 abridgment, or simple reference to a separate 
 instrument, according as they are more or less 
 numerous. 
 
 7. If preferred to any whose ranks were re- 
 spectively superior to his, mention of them, with 
 brief indication of the grounds of preference. 
 
 8. So, if there were any whose biddings were 
 superior. 
 
 9. Service, in quality of Depute in that same 
 situation, may be a sufficient ground : — the actual 
 length of such service being specified, together 
 with the year, month, and day of the month, on 
 which it commenced. 
 
 Enactive. 
 
 Art. 10. Of each such location instrument, ex- 
 emplars will be disposed of as follows : — 
 
 1. Delivered into, and kept in the. office into 
 which the Locatee is located, one. 
 
 2. Delivered into, and kept in the office of the 
 Locator, one. 
 
 3. Delivered to the Locator for his own use, 
 one. 
 
 4. Of the several functionaries, if any, who, in 
 in their several grades, are superordinate to the 
 Locator, to each, one. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 11. The Legislature will consider — 
 whether, to the checks thus applied, any other 
 and what checks on mislocation shall be added : 
 as for example, a statement of the several con- 
 
48 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 nexions of the several candidates in the way of 
 relationship, whether by consanguinity or alliance, 
 fixing in that case the degrees. As to this mat- 
 ter, see Ch. xii. Judiciary collectively, § 16. 
 Partiality obviated. 
 
 Enact ive. 
 
 Art. 12. When a situation subordinate to that 
 of Minister is to be filled, the Minister will adver- 
 tise for candidates, and receive biddings as per 
 Arts. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ; the faculty of bidding with 
 effect being confined to tried persons, as per 
 Art. 5. 
 
 Enactive and Instructional. 
 
 Art. 13. In the Location Instrument, the matter 
 will be entered under heads, as per Art. 9, 
 together with any such others as the Legislature 
 shall from time to time have added. 
 
 Enactive and Expositive. 
 
 Art. 14. Exceptions excepted, as per § 16. 
 Locable who, Art. 55, no person who has not 
 undergone trial in the Qualification Judicatory 
 (as per § 16) will (as above Arts. 5, 12.) be lo- 
 cable. But, in the case of a situation of simple 
 trust, notwithstanding any inferiority in the scale 
 of talent, the preference may, without reproach 
 be given to a candidate, — in consideration of the 
 comparative advantageousness of his bidding, and 
 the sufficiency of the pecuniary security, self- 
 seated and extra-seated, proffered by him. 
 
 By self -seated, understand property possessed 
 by himself; by extra-seated, property possessed 
 by any such other persons, as have consented to 
 stand bound for the eventual supply of any loss 
 to the public, judicially proved to have had mis- 
 conduct on his part for its cause. 
 
Const. Code, Ch. ix. § 17. Located how. 49 
 
 Instructional* 
 
 Art. 15. As to pecuniary and quasi-pecuniary 
 security, the Legislature will determine — in regard 
 to what, if any, situations, the property, required 
 for this purpose shall be required to be in such 
 sort bound, as to be rendered inalienable in the 
 hands of the possessor. 
 
 Enactive. 
 
 Art. 16. Exceptions excepted, in no situation 
 of trust, or talent and trust, will any person be 
 locable, until his age (whatsoever have been the 
 number of his examination years) is that, at 
 which a man is intrusted by law with the entire 
 management of his own concerns : say [21] 
 years. 
 
 Enactive and Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art. 17. Exceptions for consideration are — 
 
 1. Army service; the military branch: in this 
 branch, an officer is locable in the lowest grade 
 at the age of [ ] years. 
 
 For, in this grade, the functionary, though he 
 has the command of some, is himself constantly 
 under the command of others. 
 
 Enactive and Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art. 18. — 2. Navy service; the military branch: 
 in this branch, an officer is locable in the lowest 
 
 grade at the age of [ ] years. Reason, as per 
 
 Art. 17. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 19. On a comparative survey of the several 
 Sub-departments, and the several situations in 
 each sub-department, the Legislature will consider, 
 in what instances demand for difference in grades 
 
50 OFFICIAL APTITIDL MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 has place, and, in so far as it is established, how 
 far succession to a vacancy shall be influenced by- 
 it : that is to say, in what instances, in regard to 
 any grade above the lowest, biddings under the 
 pecuniary competition system shall have place. 
 
 Instructional and Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art. 20. On this occasion, the considerations 
 following will be borne in mind : — 
 
 1. Of two persons, the one, suppose, has been 
 habitually subject to the direction of the other. In 
 this case, if, by a fresh arrangement, it happens to 
 the superordinate to find himself subjected to the 
 direction of his quondam subordinate, — a natural 
 consequence is — on the part of the thus relatively 
 depressed superordinate, a pain of humiliation — say, 
 in this case, a pain of degradation — a pain produced 
 by the comparison made of his antecedently ele- 
 vated, with his subsequently depressed state. 
 
 2. Where no such subjection has had place, no 
 such pain is produced in a man's mind by the 
 mere view of the rise of a person, who, not having 
 been subject to his direction, comes to be located 
 in a situation more eligible than his : in this case, 
 therefore, that same reason, in favour of settled 
 succession, has no place. 
 
 Enactive, Expositive, and Instructional. 
 
 Art. 21. As to every situation subordinate to 
 that of Minister, there will be two locators — the 
 initiative and the confirmative. Exceptions ex- 
 cepted, as to every office in his sub-department, 
 the initiative locator is the Minister ; confirmative, 
 the Prime Minister. Exceptions, if any, remain 
 to be excepted by the Legislature. 
 
Const. Code, Ch. ix. § 17. Located how. 51 
 
 Eitactive, Expositive, and Ratiocinative. 
 Art. 22. If, in any sub-department, any initia- 
 tive locator, subordinate to the Minister, is esta- 
 blished, — it will be in consideration of distance, 
 lest, during the interval between the day on which 
 the vacancy at the place in question takes place, 
 and the day on which information of the conjirtna- 
 tive location reaches that same place, the service 
 belonging to the situation, so vacated, be left 
 unperformed. In this case there may be two 
 initiative locators ; temporarily initiative locator, the 
 next superordinate of the functionary by whose 
 dislocation the vacancy is created ; definitively 
 initiative locator, the Minister. 
 
 Expositive and Instructional. 
 
 Art. 23. Examples of sub-departments, in 
 which, in respect of distance, a demand for 
 initiative location, in hands other than those of the 
 Minister, and thence for temporarily initiative loca- 
 tion, is more particularly apt to have place, are 
 the following : to wit — 
 
 1 . The Army Minister. 
 
 2. The Navy Minister. 
 
 3. The Foreign Relation Minister. 
 
 Enaclivc and Ratiocinative. 
 Art. 24. In the Army sub-department, in so 
 far as regards command over functionaries in the 
 military branch, vacancies, in respect of function, 
 are, in effect, for the occasion, without special 
 appointment, filled of course ; to wit, by the 
 universally and necessarily established relation 
 between rank and rank ; as to which, see Ch. x. 
 Defensive Force. 
 
 Instructional. 
 Art. 25. Not so, in so far as regards situations 
 
52 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 in the non- military, styled the commissariat branch; 
 those, to wit, by whom, with relation to the matter 
 of warfare, and the matter of subsistence, are ex- 
 ercised the several functions, procurative, custodi- 
 tive, applicative, reparative, and eliminative: as to 
 which functions, see Ch. ix. Ministers col 
 
 LECTIVELY, § 3. 
 
 Instructional. 
 Art. 26. Nor in so far as regards the com- 
 mand of fortified places. 
 
 Instructional. 
 Art. 27. Nor in the Navy department, in which, 
 in the establishments of the great maritime powers, 
 in so far as regards the matter of subsistence, the 
 above functions, as per Art. 23, are, in each ship, 
 commonly exercised by a single functionary, 
 styled the Purser. 
 
 Enact ive. 
 Art. 28. In the Foreign Relation sub-depart- 
 ment, at each missionary station, as on the incapa- 
 city or absence, so on the death, of the principal 
 functionary, — -his functions will be exercised by a 
 depute of his, as per Ch. viii. Prime Minister, 
 § 4. Self-suppletive Function. Failing such depute, 
 if an established subordinate of the principal is on 
 the spot, under a denomination, for example, such 
 as that of Secretary of Legation, such subordinate 
 will, for the time, except in case of special pro- 
 vision to the contrary, succeed as if located by a 
 temporarily initiative locator, as above, Art. 22. 
 
 Enactive. 
 Art. 29. On a vacancy in the situation of 
 Vice-Consul by the Consul will the function of 
 temporarily initiative locator be exercised. 
 
Const. Code, Ch. ix. § 17. Located how. 53 
 
 Instructional. 
 Art. 30. In what stations, and on what foot- 
 ings, the power of deputation shall be exercised by 
 a Vice-Consul, the Legislature, having regard to 
 distance, and to the state of society in the foreign 
 nation, in each case, will determine. 
 
 Enactive. 
 
 Art. 31. Of the locative function, the mode of 
 exercise is as follows: — By the Minister, he being 
 the initiative locator, an appropriate location instru- 
 ment is prepared and conveyed to the office of the 
 
 Prime Minister. After the lapse of [ ] days 
 
 exclusive, reckoned from the day of its being 
 received in that office, the location will have 
 become confirmed :* unless, under the signature 
 of the Prime Minister, an instrument, in corre- 
 spondent form, locating some other locable, or an 
 order, suspending the effect of such initiative loca- 
 tion, has, in the mean time, in the office of that 
 same Minister, been received. 
 
 Enactive and Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art. 32. In case of any such substitution, 
 reasons for the rejection, and the consequent 
 location, will be expected : if none are given, the 
 conclusion of the Public Opinion Tribunal, and of 
 the Legislature, will be — that none can be found. 
 
 * On this occasion, the rationale will have to speak of this 
 sort ofexpeditive arrangement, as generally applicable for remedy 
 to the practice of indeterminate and indefinite suspension, through 
 negligence or indecision : — a practice pregnant with distress to 
 all individuals interested, as well as indefinite public mischief. 
 Apply it also to appeals. See Ch. xxiii. Appellate Judica- 
 tory. Refer to Morning Chronicle, 27th May, 1824, mention- 
 ing Secretary Canning's indefinite suspension of an ordinance of 
 the East India Direction, in the debate of the 26th. 
 
54 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 Enactive. 
 Art. 33. Deputes permanent. — Without special 
 reason, no person, who has not been upon the 
 general locable list, as per Art. 18, is capable of 
 being located as depute permanent, in any office 
 belonging to this department. 
 
 Enactive. 
 
 Art. 34. Special reason is — where, in the loca- 
 tion instrument by which the depute is constituted 
 such, the names of all persons on that list being 
 by recital or reference designated, — the locator 
 states, on the part of each, either refusal or inap- 
 titude actual or virtual, absolute or comparative : 
 adding, in what particular shape or shapes such 
 inaptitude has place. 
 
 Enactive. 
 
 Art. 35. In the location instrument, matter will 
 in this case be inserted under the four first of the 
 heads enumerated as per Art. 9, in the case of a 
 person located in the situation of principal in the 
 office. 
 
 Enactive. 
 Art. 36. Of the deputation instrument, exem- 
 plars will in this case be disposed of, in number 
 and destination the same as in the case of the 
 principal, as per Art. 10. 
 
 CONCLUDING INSTRUCTION TO THE PUBLIC 
 OPINION TRIBUNAL. 
 
 Instructional. 
 Art. ] . To the Public Opinion Tribunal it will 
 belong, with all its energies, to urge the com- 
 mencement, and urge on the progress of the 
 
Const. Code, Ch. IX. \ 17. Located hmv. 55 
 
 system of appropriate instruction here delineated. 
 By the most powerful particular and sinister in- 
 terests, — the several Ministers, with their several 
 dependents and other connexions, whoever they 
 are, will at all times be urged to do their utmost 
 for the retardation, and, if possible, the frustration 
 of it. Of this repugnance the cause is no less 
 manifest than the existence is unpreventable. 
 Till the tests of aptitude thus furnished are in 
 operation, the locating functionaries will, of 
 necessity, remain in possession of a power of 
 choice, altogether arbitrary : apt, or in ever so 
 high a degree unapt, their several dependents 
 and connexions will remain located and locable, 
 in all situations under them respectively, from 
 the least to the most highly desirable. On the 
 other hand, no sooner are these tests of apti- 
 tude in operation, than, by the influx of tried 
 minds, whose aptitude has been made manifest to 
 all eyes, the sceptre of arbitrary power will be 
 swept out of their hands, and the feelings of a 
 dethroned despot will be theirs. 
 
 I/istrnc/ii»ia/. 
 
 Art. 2. The whole artillery of fallacies will be 
 drawn out and employed ; in particular, the 
 better the plan is in theory, the more incapable 
 it will be pronounced of being carried into effect 
 in practice: and to the thus predicted impracti- 
 cability, all imaginable exertions will be employed 
 to give fulfilment. 
 
 Instructional . 
 
 Art. 3. If, and in proportion as, in the dominion 
 
 of the State, apt instructors, whose native language 
 
 is the national language, are wanting, — either the 
 
 functionaries must remain uninstructed and unapt, 
 
56 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 or, under the disadvantage of having to learn, at a 
 more or less advanced period of life, a foreign 
 tongue, foreigners must be called in and em- 
 ployed. But, unless in case of temporary calamity, 
 men will not for nothing quit their old accustomed 
 habits and connexions, for those of a strange land: 
 and thus, under the double mask of patriotism and 
 frugality, sinister interest will seek, and with but 
 too much probability of success, a cover for mis- 
 chievous and anti-patriotic exertions. 
 
 Instructional. 
 Art. 4. Unhappily, no sooner has the system 
 come into operation, than a dilemma, in no small 
 degree unwelcome to every feeling eye, will have 
 taken place : either, to an incalculable amount, 
 sacrifice of the public good — of the good of every 
 branch of the service — must have place ; or, not- 
 withstanding any, the most perfect, degree of 
 moral aptitude, a more or less considerable num- 
 ber of functionaries will have to quit their several 
 situations. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 5. For minimizing the evil from these two 
 opposite sources, one means, however, there is, 
 the application of which will, be completely in 
 the power of those functionaries whose situation 
 exposes them to it. According to their several 
 situations, let those in possession participate in 
 the instruction administered to their successors in 
 expectancy : at this price they will add those 
 titles, whatever they be, in which others are 
 sharers with them, to that experience which is 
 peculiar to themselves. 
 
 Should pride be troublesome, let this fact quiet 
 it. Anno 1824, in London, John Mac Culloch, 
 having acquired the reputation of proficiency in the 
 
Const. Code, Ch. ix. § 16. Supplement. 57 
 
 art and science of political economy, instituted a 
 course of lectures. Among his audience were 
 Frederick John Robinson and William Huskisson, 
 both Members of Parliament, both Cabinet Minis- 
 ters : Robinson, under the title of Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, principal Minister of Finance, 
 acting as such in the House of Commons ; Hus- 
 kisson, under the title of President of the Board of 
 Trade, Minister of the Sub-department of Trade. 
 
 Supplement to § 16. LOCABLE WHO. 
 
 USE of LOT as an INSTRUMENT of SELECTION. 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. GO or 1. Purposes to which, on the occa- 
 sion of a probationary examination, chance, sub- 
 stituted to choice, is capable of being employed 
 with advantage as an instrument of selection, for 
 the selection of a part of the whole number of 
 desirable subject matters of examination, in a 
 case where want of time renders the employment 
 of the whole impracticable. 
 
 1. Maximization of the inducement afforded to 
 crertion on the part of learners, by impossibilizing 
 the knowledge, as to what part of the field of 
 exercise the trial will be applied to, and thence 
 making aptitude of equal necessity in relation to 
 every part : thus, on the part of each, in so far as 
 depends on exertion, maximizing the probable 
 degree of absolute appropriate aptitude. 
 
 2. In respect of the degrees of comparative 
 aptitude, ascribed to the several competing proba- 
 tioners by the aggregate judgment of the examina- 
 
 F 
 
58 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 tion judicatory, — minimizing the probability of 
 injustice, by impossibilizing the faculty of giving 
 exercise to undue disfavour, by the selection of 
 subject matters of examination ; — or favour, by 
 the like selection, foreknowledge of it given, or 
 not given, to the favoured candidate. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 61 or 2. Responses and exhibitions: — to 
 one or other of these denominations, will, it is 
 believed, be found referable every token of appro- 
 priate aptitude, of which, on the part of a proba- 
 tioner, as such, in any branch of art and science 
 the nature of things admits the manifestation. 
 Correspondent/i^c/icw, (as per § 10. Information 
 elicitative function,) the exercise of which, on the 
 part of examiners, is necessary, — in the case of 
 responses the extractive; in the case of exhibitions, 
 the simply receptive. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 62 or 3. Points, determined antecedently 
 to the manifestation either of responses or exhibi- 
 tions, will require to be the following : — ■ 
 
 1 . Length of time, intended and expected to be 
 occupied in the whole process of the examination. 
 
 2. Probationers, entitled and expected to be 
 examined — their whole number. 
 
 3. Functionaries entitled and expected to take 
 part in the examination, their several classes, and 
 the number of individuals in each. As to this, 
 see Art. 17, 18. 
 
 4. Classes of Examiners: as per Art. 18. three. 
 
 5. Number of individual examinees in each 
 class. 
 
Const. Code, Ch. ix. § 16. Supplement. 59 
 
 6. Aggregate number of the individuals in the 
 aggregate of the classes. 
 
 7. Time, intended to be occupied in the dicta- 
 tion of the appropriate information in the extrac- 
 tive mode, to wit, by interrogations followed by 
 correspondent responses. 
 
 8. Time, proposed to be occupied in elicitation 
 in the simply receptive mode : to wit, by inspection 
 applied to exhibition. 
 
 For the several modes of elicitation, as applied 
 to appropriate information, or say evidence in 
 general, see above, § 10. Information elicitative 
 function. 
 
 Instructional and Enactive. 
 
 Art. 63 or 4. Mode of procedure for the elici- 
 tation of responses. 
 
 For each branch of art and science provide a 
 book, in which the whole matter of it, or such 
 portion as shall have been deemed necessary and 
 sufficient, has been cast into the form of questions, 
 with correspondent answers; say, for distinction, 
 responses. Name common to each such book, 
 the Question Book ; the names of each such 
 question book, that same generic name, with the 
 addition of the name of the branch of art and 
 science in question prefixed to it. Examples, 
 Chemistry Question Book : Mechanics' Question 
 Book. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 64 or 5. For the purpose of obtaining the 
 instructions afforded by it, — the assumption is — 
 that, by each probationer, the whole matter of it 
 may have been stowed in his memory : but that 
 for the purpose of their making proof of such 
 
60 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 portion of instruction as they have respectively 
 obtained from it, only a part of the instruction so 
 obtained can be brought to view : — brought to view, 
 to wit, by responses, delivered in compliance with 
 the corresponding questions propounded : only a 
 part by the aggregate of them ; consequently, not 
 more than a much smaller part by any one. 
 Such, accordingly, is the course determined on, 
 and universally known to be so. 
 
 Instructional and Ratioci native. 
 
 Art. 65 or 6. This being assumed, one conse- 
 quence is, — what person soever it be, by whom, 
 for the purpose of his undergoing the scrutiny in 
 question, it is deemed necessary that he should 
 enable himself to make apt response to any one of 
 these same questions, by that same person will it 
 be deemed necessary for him to enable himself to 
 make response to all alike ; whereas, supposing 
 him to regard any one part of the whole number 
 as being more likely to be propounded to him 
 than others, in any number, — he would be tempted 
 to content himself with qualifying himself for 
 making answer to this most probably propounded 
 part, leaving the remainder in a state of absolute 
 or comparative neglect. 
 
 Instructional and Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art. 66 or 7. In the following mode, lot may 
 be seen to be made effectually instrumental to the 
 exclusion of partiality, as well unfavourable as 
 favourable, on the part of examiners. 
 
 1. So far as it depended upon the choice of the 
 examiner to determine the questions, or other 
 tests of aptitude, that shall be propounded to a 
 
Const. Code, Ch. ix. § 16. Supplement. 61 
 
 probationer, — the consequence would be — a power 
 of favouring or disfavouring, without any regard 
 to appropriate aptitude, the pretensions of pro- 
 bationers, in any number, at his pleasure. To 
 favour any probationer, he might propound such 
 questions alone, how little probative soever of 
 aggregate aptitude, as the probationer was best 
 prepared to answer ; or, to disfavour another 
 probationer, he might propound such questions 
 alone, as, according to what he had learnt, the 
 probationer would be unqualified, or, at any rate, 
 least qualified to respond to. 
 
 2. If, of the whole number of the questions that 
 ought to have had place in the lottery, any part 
 were omitted, — the lottery would, in proportion to 
 the magnitude of the omitted part, fail to be 
 as probative a test of aptitude as it would be 
 otherwise : and such would be the case, although 
 it had been by chance, not choice, that the omission 
 had been produced. 
 
 If, on the other hand, there were any person 
 by whose choice any such omission could take 
 place, it would, in this indirect way, be in the 
 power of that person to give effect to undue par- 
 tiality, favourable or disfavourable, as above. 
 
 Instructional and Enactive. 
 
 Art. 67 or 8. Mode of proceeding, by which 
 choice is excluded, and to all eyes shewn to be 
 so. Example : — 
 
 1. Manner of arranging the questions, for the 
 purpose of its being, in each instance, determined 
 by lot which of them shall be propounded. 
 
 In the Question Book, the questions being desig- 
 nated, each of them, by a number prefixed to it, 
 and the numbers following one another in nume- 
 
62 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 rical order, — a set of square tickets, (of card, sup- 
 pose) all of equal size, marked with the corre- 
 spondent numbers, are provided. These tickets, 
 in the appointed manner, and in numerical order, 
 are ranged together in juxta-position — in the 
 manner of the squares in a chess or draught board, 
 and, like them, enclosed in a square frame. Total 
 number of questions (suppose) 1000 : number of 
 the above square tickets in each frame, as in a 
 Polish draught board, 100: on this supposition, 
 number of boards requisite, 10: size of the tickets 
 such as shall suffice to render it manifest to the 
 requisite number of eyes, at one view, that for 
 every question there is a ticket : and that for no 
 questions there are tickets more than one. 
 
 Name of a ticket of this sort, a question-indicating 
 ticket ; or, for shortness, a question-ticket. 
 
 Insti'uctioiial and Enactive. 
 
 Art. 68 or 9. Manner of drawing out the 
 question-tickets. 
 
 1. A box is provided, figure square or cylin- 
 drical ; size, such as to admit of the tickets being 
 thoroughly shaken in it, in such manner that no 
 traces of the order in which they are originally 
 deposited shall be perceptible : for a cover, it has 
 a cloth, in which is a slit, long enough to admit a 
 hand; — fittest hand, that of a child, not old 
 enough to be exposed to the suspicion of having 
 received instructions enabling it to act with dis- 
 crimination. When the tickets have been dropt 
 into the box, and a stiff cover substituted to the 
 flexible one, the box is handed over to a number 
 of persons successively, to be shaken for a suffi- 
 cient time by each : the inflexible cover being 
 replaced by the flexible one, the hand is intro- 
 
Const. Code, Ch. ix. § 16. Supplement. 63 
 
 duced into the aperture, and the question-tickets, 
 in the predetermined number, drawn out, and, 
 as they are drawn out, exhibited to all present, 
 and in the eyes of the same persons lodged, as 
 expeditiously as may be — and now likewise, in 
 so far as the necessary gaps admit, in numerical 
 order — in an appropriate frame. The frame is 
 thereupon covered up and sealed, and, either by 
 the numerical order, or by fresh lot, may be deter- 
 mined — which of the several questions shall be 
 presented to the several probationers. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 69 or 10. In the same manner may be 
 determined whatsoever exhibitions the several pro- 
 bationers shall have to perform. 
 
 Institution, in the practice of which this same 
 fortuitious mode of selection, for the probation of 
 appropriate aptitude, is exemplified, the Health 
 subdepartment at Berlin.* 
 
 * Work from which the indication of it was taken — " A 
 Connected Report of the Speeches delivered by Mr. Lawrence." 
 8vo. London, 1826, p. 102. Sole indication of lot there fur- 
 nished — " taking out of an urn :" no ulterior indication being, 
 on that occasion, regarded as necessary. This little work of the 
 illustrious Therapeutist would form a highly instructive Supple- 
 ment to the present section : Uses of it — 1. Obstacles to official 
 aptitude in general, indicated : 2. Established modes of trial, 
 exemplified. 
 
 Reform in the English style. — In the Act, anno 1825, 6 G. 4, 
 ch. 50, relative to Jury Trial, and commonly called Mr. Secre- 
 tary Peel's Act, § 26, the following are the words in which the 
 mode of selection there appointed is described : — " Such pieces 
 " of parchment or card, being all as nearly as may be of equal 
 " size, shall be delivered unto the Associate or Prothonotary of 
 " such court, (viz. King's Bench, Common Pleas, or Exche- 
 " quer,) by the Under Sheriff of the county, or the Secondary 
 " of the city of London, and shall, by direction and care of 
 " such Associate or Prothonotary, be put together in a box to 
 " be provided for that purpose, and when any such issue shall 
 
64 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 70 or 11. A mode — the surest and most 
 commodious of all that presented themselves — 
 
 " be brought on to be tried, such Associate or Prothonotary 
 " shall in open court draw out twelve of the said parchments or 
 " cards, one after another." 
 
 On this occasion, what, on the part of the prime author of 
 this act, and the draughtsmen respectively, was the design — 
 whether to continue the present practice of selection by choice, 
 called -packing, or to substitute chance to it — is more than the 
 author of the present work, by whom a volume on the subject 
 had been published, can take upon him to say : what he does 
 say, is, that if, having the act to draw, it had been his design to 
 continue the reality of choice, with the appearances of chance 
 to serve as a veil to it, — unless the fear of being detected by the 
 choice made of means so palpably adverse to the professed end 
 had not stayed his hand, — similar to the above wording, probably 
 identical with it, is that which he should have employed. 
 
 In the new House of Commons, should any such chance hap- 
 pen to it as the containing so much as a single member, to whom 
 the difference between packing and non-packing were any thing 
 different from a matter of entire indifference, — a motion will be 
 made for an amendment, having for its object the substituting 
 chance to choice. In this case, -mutatis mutandis, unless apti- 
 tude for the professed purpose be religiously avoided, the word- 
 ing in the text, or something not dissimilar to it, may, by another 
 chance, be found to answer the purpose. 
 
 Thus much as to theory: now as to practice. In the natural 
 course of administration and judicature, supposing, on this or 
 that occasion, choice regarded as more conducive to expediency 
 than chance, — gratification will not probably be given to the 
 desire, but on some few, and those adequate occasions : for, in 
 some nine cases out often, either the course taken by the verdict 
 will be a matter of indifference, or the verdict suggested by 
 expediency will be deemed sufficiently secured by other causes. 
 By the multitude of the occasions, on which no point would be 
 to be gained by unfairness, the habit of fairness being thus ren- 
 dered a matter of notoriety, — a high ground will thus have been 
 formed, from which to thunder down the charge of insincerity, 
 on whosoever shall have had the audacity to speak of any 
 such intention as that of ever putting, to their obvious use, the 
 instruments provided as above. Thereupon, should peradven- 
 ture any packing-worthy occasion happen to taken place, there 
 
Const. Code, Ch. ix. § 16. Supplement. G5 
 
 being thus proposed, for obtaining a decision at 
 the judicatory of Fortune, this, as well as any- 
 other, may be the place for taking and exhibiting 
 a supposed all-comprehensive view of the occa- 
 sions on which, and the purposes to which, bene- 
 ficial application may be made of it. 
 
 are they at hand — the effectual means of choice, and the obvious 
 manner of giving effect to them, much too simple to present any 
 demand for instruction in the nimble-fingered art. Nothing is 
 there to hinder a mark from being put on one side of a ticket, 
 on the other side of which a name is written : not that any such 
 trouble is necessary; for nothing is there to hinder the names — 
 one and all — from being uppermost. 
 
 In the formation of the immediately acting list, a sort of 
 gauze veil, with a colouring of chance upon it, is thrown over the 
 packing machinery, as above. But the original list, out of which 
 this immediately acting list is thus to be packed, by whom, and 
 how it is to be formed ? Answer. By the Sheriff — a member 
 of the aristocracy, named every year by the King. This, per 
 ^ 13, 14, without disguise. And, lest this original garbling 
 should not suffice, by whom is this garbled list to be regarbled ? 
 Answer. By the very judicatories, whose power of garbling was 
 the grievance, to which this statute is the professed and sup- 
 posed remedy : for, by § 20, all the great criminal courts, com- 
 mencing with " the King's Bench," are expressly confirmed in 
 the power of doing whatever they please in regard to the selec- 
 tion of jurors — " in manner heretofore used and accustomed,". . 
 by " order, orally or otherwise . — amending or enlarging the 
 " pannel of jurors returned for the trial of any such issue." And 
 this heretofore known and accustomed manner — supposing the 
 existence of any possibility of knowing it — by whom is this pos- 
 sibility possessed ? By the judges, and them alone : by the 
 judges, who, on each individual occasion, cause this supposed 
 check upon their conduct to be whatsoever best suits their 
 purpose. 
 
 Thus by this statute is the acknowledged grievance — instead 
 of being, as professed, remedied — aggravated to the very utter- 
 most ; and the jury system — the supposed check to despotism — 
 and, so far as it is a check, the only check by law established, 
 converted, from a feeble and very imperfect check, into a most 
 powerful instrument. 
 
66 OFFICIAL ATTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 71 or 12. Cases, in which this same mode 
 of selection is susceptible of being employed with 
 advantage in the attribution and distribution of 
 benefits in other shapes besides the above : — the 
 benefit too small in value to be administered in 
 the shape of the smallest denomination of coin ; 
 or at any rate to pay for the unavoidable expense 
 of requisition or transmission, with the interme- 
 diate and subservient operations included in that 
 of communication. Examples : 
 
 Division of a fund constituted by, and com- 
 posed of — 
 
 1 . The effects of a proprietor deceased. 
 
 2. The effects of an insolvent, extraneously 
 declared such, or self-declared. 
 
 3. The subject-matter of a bequest or donation, 
 ordaining money from a certain source to be 
 divided among persons of a certain description. 
 
 4. Prize money: money produced by the divi- 
 sion of a mass of specie, or sale of a mass of 
 property in other shapes, taken in war. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 72 or 13. Cases in which it is susceptible 
 of being applied to the location of a burthen : the 
 burthen, (suppose) that which is imposed by the 
 obligation of rendering service, burthensome to 
 the individual rendering it, but regarded as ser- 
 viceable to the community at large, or this or 
 that section of it. 
 
 Case I. Delinquency not imputed. Examples: 
 1. Militia service. As to this, see Ch. x. 
 Defensive Force. 
 
Const. Code, Ch. ix. ^ 1(3. Supplement. 07 
 
 2. Quasi-jury service. As to this, see Ch. xvi. 
 Quasi Jury. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 73 or 14. In these cases the supposition 
 is — that the burthen is not divisible. In itself it 
 certainly is not : but, in respect of time of dura- 
 tion, — personal service, in any shape, is susceptible 
 of division. Moreover, where the burthen itself 
 is not divisible, the hardship attendant on it is 
 divisible : to wit, by grant of pecuniary compen- 
 sation, coupled with the division of the burthen 
 of paying the money among the several persons 
 among whom the correspondent benefit is shared. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 74 or 15. Case II. Delinquency imputed, 
 and regarded as proved. 
 
 1. Of delinquents, convicted or convictible, the 
 number so great, that, if punishment were applied 
 to every one, the benefit of the remedy, applied 
 by the aggregate mass of it, would be outweighed 
 by the sum of the burthens, imposed by it on 
 the delinquent individuals and their several con- 
 nexions. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 75 or 16. Physically speaking, in the 
 nature of things, chance is capable of being em- 
 ployed either in lieu of choice, or in association with 
 it: in association with it, either, l.by being made 
 to precede it, or 2. by being made to folloiv it. 
 
 The being employed with it at the same time in 
 a decision on the same point, was scarce worth 
 
68 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, &C. 
 
 noticing : on exactly the same point, at the same 
 time, it cannot be: if, of any proposed subject- 
 matter, one part be placed under the dominion of 
 choice, the other under that of chance, — by this 
 arrangement, nothing more is done than the 
 taking of the two thus distinct cases and con- 
 founding them into one. 
 
 Instructional . 
 
 Art. 76 or 17. What is called a lottery, may be 
 constituted — 1 . by the act of the parties interested 
 : — i. e. by a contract; to which, as to other con- 
 tracts, the sanction of law is applied : or 2. by 
 the law itself, without waiting for any consent of 
 parties. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 77 or 18. The case in which the consent 
 of parties is not waited for — the institution of 
 the lottery being the act of the law — is the only 
 case that belongs to the present subject. The 
 other case belongs . to the expositive matter of 
 the Penal Code, and has no place here. Note 
 always, that, in the case of a Government lottery, 
 in the same manner only as an individual con- 
 tracting party, does the Government act, — not 
 in its coercive character. In a Government lot- 
 tery, no man is compelled to purchase tickets, 
 any more than in a private one. 
 
FURTHER EXTRACT 
 
 Y R O M 
 
 PROPOSED CONSTITUTIONAL CODE. 
 
 Supplement to §17. Located, how. 
 
 Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art. 37 or 1. — Pecuniary-competition prin- 
 ciple. Reasons, in support of it as herein- 
 above employed : employed, to wit, not as 
 decisive, bat as contributing in subordination 
 as above, to the aptitude-manifestation system, 
 to the guidance of the decisive choice given 
 to the responsible locating superordinate. 
 
 Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art. 38 or 2. — i. Reasons, direct and in- 
 trinsic, deduced from the greatest happiness 
 principle applied to the nature of the case. 
 
 Case I. The situation, a situation of simple 
 trust, as per § 16, Art. 12, 13: for appropri- 
 ate moral aptitude, adequate provision being 
 supposed to have been made: to wit, by § 16', 
 Locable, who (Art. 33, 34, 35, 36, 40), and no 
 special appropriate intellectual or active apti- 
 tude being regarded as necessary. 
 
 B 
 
2 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 The presumption here is, that, but for some 
 special reason, assignable and assigned, to the 
 contrary, — the choice of the locating supe- 
 rordinate will fall upon that candidate, in 
 whose instance the result of the pecuniary 
 competition is most favourable to the public 
 purse. On this supposition, all parties will 
 have cause to be pleased: to wit, 
 
 1. The community at large; because that 
 choice has been made, which is most benefi- 
 cial to its aggregate pecuniary interest. 
 
 2. The locating functionary : the candi- 
 date's aptitude, and thereby the locator's 
 responsibility, alleviated by the result of the 
 probationary trials, above; say then the locat- 
 ing functionary : unless it be his desire, at 
 the expense of the community, in breach of 
 his duty and engagement, and at the risk 
 of his own fortune and reputation, to gain 
 to himself an undue benefit, in the shape of 
 patronage. 
 
 3. The candidate, by whose own offer the 
 situation is procured for him. 
 
 Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art, 39 or 3. — n. Case II. The situation, 
 a situation of trust and talent : to wit, after 
 the manifestation made, of the grade acquired 
 by the candidate, in the scale of manifested 
 appropriate aptitude in all its branches, as 
 certified by the certificate given by the Exa- 
 mination Jury, as per § 16, Art. 17 ; that do- 
 cument contributing, in conjunction with the 
 
Const. Code, Ch.lX. § 17, Located, how. 3 
 
 result of the pecuniary competition, to the 
 guidance of the decision entrusted to the 
 responsibly-locating superordinate. 
 
 I. Reason, grounded, as in the former case, 
 on intrinsic utility. Only where, to the pur- 
 pose of the practical conclusion, the claims 
 of the two candidates, on the ground of the 
 manifestation made as to appropriate aptitude, 
 as above, are, in the opinion of the Examina- 
 tion, or say, Qualification Judicatory, virtu- 
 ally equal, — does it seem likely that the 
 determination will be made in favour of him, 
 whose offer, on the ground of its favourable- 
 ness to the pecuniary interest of the commu- 
 nity, is accepted. The locating superordinate 
 being, by ^6, Self -suppletive function, respon- 
 sible for the conduct of his subordinate, — he 
 is thus, by a personal interest of no inconsi- 
 derable strength, urged to have due and ade- 
 quate regard to the thus manifestly demon- 
 strated appropriate aptitude. By a deficiency 
 in the aptitude, he would stand exposed to 
 be more or less a sufferer: in the small saving 
 to the public purse, he would have no per- 
 ceptible share. 
 
 The arrangement affords, therefore, a pros- 
 pect of good, and this without a prospect of 
 evil in any shape. 
 
 Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art. 40 or 4. — n. Reasons extrinsic, de- 
 duced from authority and practice. 
 
 1. In England, among the highest of the 
 ruling few, the tide of events has of late years 
 
4 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 borne up some, in whose declared opinion, 
 not only the price of labour, — in whatsoever 
 shape — unskilled or skilled, — but also the 
 price of commodities in general, and in parti- 
 cular of those means of sustenance which are 
 worth all other commodities put together, — 
 should be minimized ; and that, as the only 
 instrument of minimization, the competition 
 principle should be uniformly and steadily 
 employed. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 ART.41or5. — These same distinguished 
 statesmen — would they — durst they if they 
 would — accede to the application of this same 
 instrument to the reduction of the price of the 
 labour performed by themselves and their 
 present colleagues? or — not to insist upon 
 that which could not reasonably be proposed 
 — of the like labour when performed by their 
 successors, and the colleagues of those same 
 successors ? O yes : when the energy of the 
 people is to such a degree troublesome, that, 
 in the high places in question, regard for con- 
 sistency, and the comfort of the subject-many, 
 cannot, consistently with the comfort of these 
 same ruling few, be refused. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 42 or 6. — At present, engaged, by so 
 efficient an interest, to maximize, instead of 
 minimizing, the expense of official labour, — 
 they stand engaged by a no less efficient in- 
 terest, to minimize, instead of maximizing, all 
 need, and thence all proof, of appropriate 
 
Const. Code, Ch. IX. § 17, Located, how. 
 
 aptitude with relation to such labour. If by 
 competition — that competition being at the 
 same time free and unrestrained — the degree 
 of aptitude on the part of all competitors 
 were made known, — the chance, in favour of 
 the objects of their care, would, instead of 
 being equal to certainty, be but as one to 
 ten, or twenty, or whatsoever greater multiple 
 of their own number might be that of their 
 fellow competitors. Moreover as, — natural 
 talents, and other means being supposed 
 equal, — proficiency will be in the direct ratio 
 of exertion, and exertion in the ratio of degree 
 of need — those who, without exertion, are 
 sure of having, in this shape, what they have 
 need of, will not bestow any exertion at all 
 on the acquisition of appropriate aptitude : 
 and their natural place, instead of being cer- 
 tainly at the top, will be probably at the 
 bottom, of the scale. Thus it is, that to the 
 ends which the greatest, happiness principle 
 requires to be pursued, will be substituted the 
 direct opposites of those exclusively justifi- 
 able ends : and while, for the benefit of the 
 hands in question, the expense of official ser- 
 vice, or of the appearance, or the false pre- 
 tence of it, without so much as the pretence 
 of it, is maximized, — appropriate aptitude for 
 the performance of it will be minimized. 
 
 Instructional. Exentplificational. 
 
 Art. 43 or 7- — The more immediately 
 education for office is under the direction of 
 the ruling few, in whose hands the fixation of 
 
6 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 the quantum of remuneration, and the location 
 of those by whom it is to be received, are con- 
 joined, — the more striking and instructive will 
 here be the exemplification of the relation 
 between cause and effect. 
 
 Instructional. Expositive. 
 
 Art. 44. or 8. — Note that, in the case of 
 pecuniary competition is comprised in a cer- 
 tain way the case of gratuitous service ; gra- 
 tuitous service constituting one point, or say 
 degree, in a scale of indefinite length, esta- 
 blished by pecuniary competition ; at the 
 same time there is a necessity in marking the 
 distinction between them ; the difference 
 in point of efficiency and extent of applica- 
 tion being so great ; the application of 
 gratuitous service, (including that which is so 
 in appearance, and is always called so,) being 
 widely extensive, while the application of 
 pecuniary competition to personal service in 
 this branch of the public business is, nearly if 
 not altogether, as yet without example. 
 
 Applied to the expense of the Official Es- 
 tablishment taken in its totality, — (expense 
 of remuneration for personal service included,) 
 it is not in the power of pecuniary competi- 
 tion, by reduction of expense, to carry on good 
 economy anything near to the point of 
 gratuitousness — the point at which expense 
 is equal 0. 
 
 At the same time, if applied to the purpose 
 of engaging personal service in particular 
 
Const. Code, CA. IX. § 17, Located how. 7 
 
 official situations, it is capable of carrying 
 that same benefit not only up to the gratui- 
 tous point, but to a degree to an indefinitely 
 amount higher; the matter of wealth being 
 but one of divers instruments, by the applica- 
 tion of which personal service is engaged; 
 others being power, reputation, and dignity ; 
 the dignity, that which results from the nature 
 of the occupation, with or \v\thout factitious 
 honor and dignity superadded: in such sort 
 that, instead of receiving money in compen- 
 sation for the service rendered by him, in 
 taking upon himself the obligation of exercis- 
 ing the functions of the office considered as a 
 burthen — a man will be content to give 
 money, for the faculty of exercising those 
 same functions, that same faculty being 
 regarded by him as a benefit. 
 
 But, in the instances of gratuitous service 
 here alluded to, in so far as remuneration in 
 a pecuniary shape has place, neither is it paid 
 avowedly by the hands of Government for 
 service performed in the situations in ques- 
 tion ; nor is service in any shape rendered to 
 the whole community, nor otherwise than to a 
 small particular and sinister interest of a small 
 part, at the expense of the interest of the 
 whole, which is thereby accordingly disserved, 
 instead of served: in so much that, in so far 
 as this same illegal service is performed, the 
 remuneration derived from it belongs not to 
 the present case; and, being so completely 
 
8 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 unfit or adverse to the purpose of the pecu- 
 niary competition, — required to be, with 
 proportionable care, distinguished from it. 
 
 In English practice, to this head belongs 
 the situation of Member of the House of 
 Commons, and Member of the Unpaid Ma- 
 gistracy, styled Justices of the Peace. In 
 these instances, nominally the service is 
 uniformly gratuitous ; really so, according as 
 abuse does not or does take place. 
 
 Instructional. Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art. 45 or 9- — To the proposed aptitude- 
 securing and expense-minimizing system, as 
 composed of the public examination system 
 and the pecuniary competition system taken 
 together, but followed bv the choice left to 
 the locating functionary, — various considera- 
 tions, in the character of objections, present 
 themselves, as having been, or being more or 
 less likely to be, urged. With all employable 
 diligence they have been searched for, and 
 found reducible under the heads following — 
 
 i. Objection, to the public examination 
 part of the system. 
 
 1 . Timid merit excluded. 
 
 2. The unopulent excluded thence, equa- 
 lity violated. 
 
 ii. Objections to the pecuniary competi- 
 tion part of the system. 
 
 3. Venality established. 
 
 4. Munificence or say liberality excluded. 
 
Const. Code, Ch.lX. § 17, Located, ham, 9 
 
 5. Depredation, sharpened by indigence; 
 invited. 
 
 6. Aptitude diminished : aptitude being as 
 opulence. 
 
 Of these in their order; with their answers. 
 
 Ratiocinalive. 
 
 Art. 46 or 10. — Objection 1. Timid merit 
 excluded : 
 
 Answer. In the case of a more or less 
 considerable proportion, of those who other- 
 would be candidates for office, this effect may 
 ensue. But, it presents not, to any pre- 
 cise amount, so much as a deduction from 
 the aggregate of the good effects expect- 
 able from the system ; nor anything more 
 than the shadow of a reason for the rejection 
 of it ; yet entire rejection, if anything, is 
 what it calls for. Proportional number of 
 the individuals excluded by this their misfor- 
 tune, say at random, and only for argument's 
 sake, one-tenth. Suppose then the system 
 to be in other respects a beneficial one, — 
 such it will be — in the first place to the whole 
 body of the unexcluded candidates, on their 
 several individual accounts; in the next 
 place, to the whole community, on the aggre- 
 gate account. Give effect, then, to the ob- 
 jection, and for the sake of the unliquidated 
 benefit to the one-tenth, the rest of the com- 
 munity will be deprived of that same benefit 
 in one shape, and the rest of the community 
 in the other. On the other hand, suppose the 
 
10 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 system rejected, this same one-tenth for 
 whose sake it is rejected, in what deter- 
 minable way will they respectively be bene- 
 fited by the rejection? To this question, all 
 answer is impossible. 
 
 Then, as to the existence of the alleged 
 justificative cause of the proposed rejection — 
 the supposed merit. In the instance of this 
 tenth part, where is or can be the proof of it? 
 True it is, that in whatever line of study or 
 instruction the merit is supposed to have 
 place, — timidity, to the degree and to the 
 effect in question, is not incompatible with 
 it; but, on the other hand, of the existence 
 of the merit, neither conclusive, nor any how 
 weakly soever presumptive evidence, does 
 the timidity afford. Of merit, in a word, 
 timidity may be an accompaniment, but is not 
 a cause. 
 
 This, and all other objections notwithstand- 
 ing, — suppose now the public examination 
 system established, — observe what, with re- 
 gard to merit and timidity, will be the con- 
 sequence. The trial to be submitted to being 
 alike visible to all eyes, each individual, who 
 might otherwise feel disposed to enter upon 
 this career, will consider and ask himself whe- 
 ther he has nerve enough to undergo it. Let 
 the answer be in the negative, he will then 
 bid adieu to a pursuit, for which his own 
 judgment pronounces him unfit, and betake 
 himself to one, for which it pronounces him 
 fit. So doing, where will be his loss? Answer 
 
Const. Code, Ch. IX. § 17, Located, how. 11 
 
 — No where : for proof, see answer to Objec- 
 tion 1. Before him lie, for his choice, all 
 professions and other profit-seeking occupa- 
 tions, the profit from which is — not, as here, 
 confined within the narrowest limits possible, 
 but altogether unlimited. So much for proofs 
 in a pecuniary shape. As to reputation, and 
 esteem for services rendered to the public by 
 intellectual labour, — the press is open to him, 
 and timidity, — at any rate, the sort of timidity 
 here in question, -is no bar to any use he 
 may feel disposed to make of it. 
 
 Ratiocinativc. 
 
 Art. 47 or 11. — But the proposed system 
 — does it not hold up to view unopulence as 
 an efficient cause of aptitude? 
 
 Answer. True: but only when in a certain 
 degree, and, in that degree, only as a par- 
 tially contributing cause, and that a remotely 
 operating one, operating through the medium 
 of appropriate examination. True it is, that 
 in the character of a learner, looking to be 
 one day a probationer and competitor for 
 offices, — a man, whose pecuniary supplies are 
 scanty, is likely to use more exertion than a 
 man whose pecuniary circumstances arc 
 abundant; — to use more exertion, and thence, 
 in so far as depends upon exertion, to acquire 
 a greater degree of appropriate intellectual 
 and active aptitude. But the immediately 
 applying probative test of this same appro- 
 priate aptitude, is — not the situation in the 
 
12 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 scale of opulence, but the result of the exa- 
 mination undergone; and, by this imme- 
 diately applying direct evidence, what little 
 probative force belonged to the faint and 
 remotely applying presumptive evidence, is 
 superseded and reduced to nothing. 
 
 Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art. 48 or 12. — Objection 2. The unopu- 
 lent excluded : thus, equality violated. An- 
 swers — 
 
 1. The provision for equality must always 
 be subordinate to that for security, or society 
 cannot subsist. See Leading Principles, &c. 
 
 2. Supposed relation of equality not real. 
 The supposed loss to the classes in question 
 will not have place. Into this source their 
 industry could not be turned in quest of 
 profit, without being turned asideyrom other 
 sources much more lucrative : to the quantity 
 obtainable by them from this source, there 
 would be limits, and those rendered as narrow 
 as, by application made of the frugality-max- 
 imizing principle, appropriate aptitude on the 
 part of rulers could render them : to what is 
 obtainable by every man from other sources, 
 there are no such limits. 
 
 3. The bar, opposed to the unopulent by 
 the proposed instrument of frugality, is not — 
 like the bar opposed under some govern- 
 ments, by want of nobility — an impassable 
 one. By raising himself to a degree of opu- 
 lence adequate to the purchase of the office, 
 
Gtotst. Code, C'/i.W. § 17, Located, how. 13 
 
 — the most unopulent man, supposing him 
 demonstrated to be, by intellectual attain- 
 ments, qualified for it, will be able to acquire 
 it. 
 
 4. By the access, which, by the objection, 
 is proposed to be left to the unopulent, — 
 entrance into office would neither be secured 
 to them, nor rendered so probable to them, 
 as to the more opulent : the greater the opu- 
 lence, the greater the means of access to 
 patrons, who, of course, belong to the opu- 
 lent class. 
 
 5. From the rejection of this necessary 
 security, great would be the quantity of in- 
 contestable evil pressing upon this very class : 
 evil, pressing upon them in a much more 
 tangible and sensible shape than any good, of 
 the chance of which it is charged with de- 
 priving them, can be shown to wear : burthen 
 of taxation, to the amount of the money 
 which the competition would save is in pro- 
 portionable quantities added to that of the 
 matter of patronage, with its corruptive in- 
 fluence. Mass of pecuniary remuneration 
 saleable, say 1,000,000/., a year: saving 
 effected by the competition, 200,000/. To 
 reject this instrument of economy, would thus 
 be to impose a tax of 200,000/. a year on 
 opulent and unopulent together : and this for 
 no better purpose, than the turning aside the 
 profit-seeking industry, of the unopulent, from 
 other channels into this. 
 
 6. By the rejection of this proposed in- 
 
14 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 strument of frugality, an exclusion would be 
 put, not only upon the frugality, but upon 
 the bringing into play a main security for, 
 and thence instrument of, appropriate apti- 
 tude ; namely, relish for the business. The 
 less the emolument, — in other words, the 
 more a man gives for the office, — the greater 
 is thus proved to be his relish for the business 
 of it : while to him who gives nothing for it, 
 it may be an object of disgust: of disgust, 
 not surmountable but by the extreme of 
 indigence. 
 
 No, says another objection : what is proved 
 is — not the alleged relish, but a plan for 
 getting possession of the office, for the pur- 
 pose of converting into an instrument of de- 
 predation the powers belonging to it. Reply : 
 Of no such plan is the formation in any degree 
 probable. This objection is Objection 5, De- 
 predation, &c. which, with the answers, will 
 be found in its place. 
 
 Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art. 49 or 13. — Objection 3, Venality esta- 
 blished. The plan makes offices venal: it 
 introduces venality into office. 
 
 Answer. 1. Source of the objection, con- 
 fusion of ideas : confusion produced by the 
 misapplication of the word. What is pro- 
 posed to be sold is — not to individual suitors 
 at the office the acquiror of it, but to the ac- 
 quiror himself, the emolument, in a particular 
 shape, attached to it. 
 
Const. Code, Ch. IX. § 17, Located, how. 15 
 
 2. To find such a form of words, as should 
 give to the objection, as above, a sort of 
 superficial colour of reasonableness, required 
 some industry. That which the objection 
 applies to is — not the arrangement itself, but 
 a particular word or two, which are capable 
 of being employed in speaking of it. For 
 example, the modes in which the amount of 
 the pecuniary part of the remuneration is 
 capable of being reduced and minimized, are, 
 as above shewn, two: to wit — 1, The reduc- 
 tional mode ; according to which, mention is 
 made of the greatest reduction the bidder will 
 consent to see made from a determinate salary 
 proposed: 2, the emptional mode ; according 
 to which, mention is made of the greatest sum 
 he will give for it, if unreduced. Employ the 
 reductional form of expression, the objection 
 vanishes: but, the emptional being in effect 
 precisely the same thing as the reductional, 
 so likewise does the emptional. 
 
 3. The party, to whom service in any shape 
 is rendered by the arrangement, is the public 
 alone : not any individual whatsoever : of no 
 individual is any service bought by, of none 
 any sold to, any other. 
 
 4. Associated with the idea of venality is 
 that of corruption; and by the objection is 
 meant, if anything, that, by the arrangement, 
 as often as it is exemplified, corruption, in 
 some shape or other, has place, or at the least 
 is probabilized ; and that thence, in some 
 shape or other, so is relative inaptitude. 
 
1G OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 5. But, the real effect of the arrangement 
 is precisely the reverse: for, 1, Minimizing 
 the pecuniary value of the situation, it mini- 
 mizes the quantity of the matter of corruption 
 which the patronage places in the hands of 
 the locating functionary. 
 
 6". 2, Minimizing the value of the pecu- 
 niary remuneration, it maximizes, as above, 
 the degree of relish which the candidate is 
 likely to have for the functions which he is 
 desirous of having the exercise of: for, the 
 less the inducement he requires in the shape 
 of money, the greater is the inducement he 
 possesses in the shape of relish, or he would 
 not make the offer, which, by the supposition, 
 he does make. 
 
 7. Minimizing the value of the situation, 
 and thence of the patronage, it minimizes the 
 probability of its being given by the patron 
 to a protegS, whose sole relish is for the 
 money, and who, in regard to the functions, 
 has neither relish, nor aptitude, in any shape. 
 
 8. As to corruption, so far then from acting 
 as a ferment to it, the competition system is, 
 in the emptional as well as in the reductional 
 mode, a specific against that disorder: it is for 
 want of such a specific, that corruption takes 
 place, when it does take place. 
 
 9- In vain would it be said — a man, who 
 sees sinister profit, in this or that shape, as 
 being capable of being made, from an abuse 
 of the powers attached to the situation, — will 
 offer and give more for it than one who sees 
 
Const. Code. Ch. IX. § 17, Located, how. 17 
 
 no such prospect. In vain ; for, by the re- 
 duction thus made in the quantity of money 
 the man will have at command, no addition 
 is made to whatever facility he will have for 
 such abuse : on the contrary, as above, that 
 facility is diminished by the diminution of 
 whatever facility he may have as to the find- 
 ing associates and supporters for the abuse : — 
 the greater the reduction he will thus submit 
 to, — and still further, if so it be that he offers 
 to give more for the salary than it is worth, the 
 more he offers to give for it, — the more strongly 
 he draws upon himself the attention of all con- 
 cerned, and puts them upon the watch to find 
 out — by what course he expects and proposes 
 to himself to endeavour to reap the sinister 
 profit supposed to be in contemplation. Sup- 
 pose even, that, as applied to the state of 
 things under this or that existing government, 
 the objection would be a fatal one, — it would 
 not follow that it would amount to anything, 
 when applied to the one here proposed : for, 
 in no existing government can any system of 
 securities for appropriate aptitude be found 
 comparable in point of efficiency to what may 
 be seen proposed here. 
 
 Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art. 50 or 14. — Objection l^Munificence, 
 or say liberality, excluded: — Exclusion put 
 upon that virtue in one quarter, by which 
 merit in other quarters, and in all manner of 
 shapes, is brought into existence. 
 
 c 
 
18 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 Answer: Let but misapplication of words 
 be argument — argument, affording in the 
 present case justification for useless and per- 
 nicious expense, — true it will be, that, as good 
 argument may be made out of the word mu- 
 nificence, or the word liberality, as out of the 
 word venality. Liberality may perhaps serve 
 still better than munificence. Being more ex- 
 tensively in use, especially on the popular 
 side, it is more strongly as well as extensively 
 associated with the sentiment of approbation; 
 and, by the laxity of its import, better 
 adapted to the purpose of delusion. But, 
 such being the nature of the arguments, see 
 now on what ground stands the title of either 
 of them to the property of giving birth to 
 merit. 
 
 When, on the one part, what is called libe- 
 rality is exercised, the alleged existence of 
 merit on the other part— on the part of him 
 or those in favour of whom the self-styled 
 virtue is exercised, is constantly alleged. 
 Constantly alleged, — so far from being con- 
 stantly proved, it is seldom so much as at- 
 tempted to be proved. The place of proof 
 is occupied by assertion: of the assertion, 
 when orally delivered, the probative force is 
 as the loudness and reiterated ness of it, joined 
 to the force and number of eulogistic epithets 
 and phrases bestowed on the alleged pos-> 
 sessor of the asserted merit; and scorn, with 
 the imputation of envy and insincerity, on all 
 who presume to question it. 
 
Const. Code. Ch. IX. § 17, Located, how. ]{) 
 
 In the Official Establishment of the City 
 of London, conquests have, it has been said, 
 been of late years made of official situations 
 more than one by the virtue of liberality from 
 the vice of venality ; these conquests made, 
 and the source of them — a correspondent 
 quantity of patronage — put into official 
 pockets. The substance has now been seen 
 of the eloquence by which these conquests 
 were achieved. 
 
 Ratiocinalhc. 
 
 Art. 51 or 15. — Objection 5. Depredation 
 sharpened by indigence. When a man has 
 paid the purchase-money (says the objection) 
 he will be left in a state of indigence, such as 
 will render it, as it were, a matter of necessity 
 to him to commit depredation at any hazard. 
 Answers — 
 
 1. The objection supposes, that by a cer- 
 tain, or an ascertainable, quantity of emolu- 
 ment attached to the office, the endeavour to 
 commit depredation may be prevented, or at 
 least in an adequate degree improbabilized. 
 Altogether groundless is this supposition. 
 Draw the line where you will, true it is, the 
 comparatively unopulent functionary will, it 
 is probable, endeavour to commit depreda- 
 tion : and commit it he will, if in his eyes the 
 benefit of the depredation is greater than the 
 burthen from detection : probability in regard 
 to detection being taken into account. This 
 will the comparatively unopulent do ; but so 
 
20 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 will the comparatively opulent. The most 
 opulent of the functionaries have always been 
 the most voracious of depredators. Witness 
 monarchs almost without exception, and more 
 particularly the most absolute. Witness even 
 " the best of kings," as he was so commonly 
 called : witness he, whose debts, it was as- 
 serted in Parliament, had been nine times 
 paid by Parliament, notwithstanding his mil- 
 lion a year, — the exemption he gave himself 
 from the income tax, — and his seventeen mil- 
 lions, obtained for his own particular use, — 
 without previous declaration of war, — by the 
 instrumentality of a richly-remunerated Judge, 
 — in point blank contradiction to an act of 
 the Legislature, passed in the year 1744 : 
 the decrees issued without other warrant than 
 the words Droits of Admiralty, the assertion 
 that the king is Lord High Admiral, with 
 reference made to an order of the King alone, 
 dated in the year 1 665-6, and that King, 
 Charles the Second (a), 
 
 2. In the situation of the comparatively 
 opulent, the probability of depredation is 
 greater than in the case of the comparatively 
 unopulent, on two accounts. 
 
 1. In consideration of, and in proportion 
 to his opulence, and the erroneously but 
 Commonly and naturally entertained suppo- 
 sition, of the security afforded for his probity 
 
 (a) Brown's Civil Law, ii. 57. 
 
Const. Code. Ch. IX. § 17, Located, how. 21 
 
 by that same Opulence, he will be less sus- 
 pected — less closely watched. 
 
 2. In proportion to his opulence, will be 
 (as per § 15, Remuneration, Art. 4) his facility 
 for obtaining accomplices in transgression, 
 and effectual supporters to screen him against 
 punishment, dislocation, and even disrepute. 
 Instances, see every where. 
 
 3. Of the absence of any such degree of 
 indigence, as can probabilize a sharpness of 
 appetite sufficient to produce depredation, — 
 a highly probative evidence is afforded by the 
 very nature of the transaction here proposed : 
 what a man gives for the office with the emo- 
 lument attached, he would not give, if in his 
 eyes the emolument, with his remaining in- 
 come, if he has any, will not be sufficient for 
 his exigencies. 
 
 Instructonal. Ratiocinatwe. Exemplificational. 
 
 Art. 51 or 15. — This was the argument 
 against economy, brought out and made the 
 most of, on the occasion of his sham Economy 
 Bill, by Edmund Burke, foaming with rage at 
 Neckers disinterestedness, then staring him in 
 the face: — Edmund Burke, on whose prin- 
 ciple thus displayed, the accidentally divul- 
 gated depredation committed by two of his 
 protege's (a) formed, not long afterwards, so 
 instructive a comment. A document, in no 
 
 (a) Powel and Bainbridge. 
 
22 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ET?C, 
 
 small degree instructive to the great body of 
 the people would be a list of at length notified 
 depredators, with ths particulars of their re- 
 spective crimes, under a system of sinecure 
 and overpay, with an assurance of support 
 and protection. With the commencement of 
 the reign of George the Third, it might com- 
 mence, and be continued onwards, as occa- 
 sion called, till the time, should it ever arrive, 
 when, the e}'es of the people having been 
 sufficiently opened, the scene had closed. 
 
 Instructional. Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art. 52 or 16. — In this objection, what 
 there is of truth, or at least of the semblance 
 of it, rests altogether upon a state of things, 
 in respect of official management and remu- 
 neration, in its whole tenor the direct oppo- 
 site of the one here proposed. A man, whose 
 life has been a life of luxury without anything 
 of his own to support it — the dependent of 
 some patron, whose habits have been corre- 
 spondency luxurious — is put into an office, 
 with the emolument which has been attached 
 to it, for the purpose of enabling him to 
 continue in the same habits. If then this 
 same emolument is not, by more than to a 
 certain amount, beneath his habitual expen- 
 diture, — he confines himself within the bounds 
 of it, and neither peculation nor extortion 
 have place. But, if it is to a certain amount 
 lower, he finds himself to such a degree un- 
 
Const. Code. Ch. IX. § 17, Located, how. 23 
 
 comfortable, that rather than continue so, he 
 risks the engaging in some one or more of the 
 forbidden practices, and exposing himself to 
 the consequences. 
 
 " But/' it may be asked, " knowing his 
 own propensities, how came he to take upon 
 himself the office, and thus subject himself to 
 this risk ?" Answer. Nothing better offered ; 
 the situation of absolute dependence was un- 
 comfortable; the mass of emolument in ques- 
 tion, how inadequate soever, constituted, by 
 the whole amount of it, a portion at any rate 
 of the means of independence — and the gene- 
 ral character of the whole establishment of 
 which this office forms a part, was that of 
 maximizing the facilities for ease on the one 
 hand, combined with accustomed, though 
 unlegalized profit in every shape, on the 
 other. As to the punishment, he saw it alto- 
 gether without example. Dislocation, and 
 that self-effected, and in the quietest and 
 most unobserved mode, the worst that could 
 ensue: dislocation, and from what? from an 
 office which, after experience, was found not 
 to give what was expected from it. 
 
 Such is the state of things — such the frame 
 of Government, in which the objection origi- 
 nated, and on each occasion will be repro- 
 duced. But, of the whole multitude of secu- 
 rities here proposed against abuse, scarcely 
 will that system be found to exhibit so much 
 as a single one. 
 
24 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 Ratiocinative. 
 
 Art. 33 or 1 7- — Objection. Aptitude dimi- 
 nished. Aptitude being as opulence, lessening 
 opulence you lessen aptitude. 
 
 Thus, for shortness : for precision, a few 
 more words are necessary. By opulence, un- 
 derstand — not opulence already possessed by 
 the functionary, but opulence given to him ; 
 given to him at public expence. This being 
 understood, say once more aptitude is as opu- 
 lence. This is the whole theory, on which all 
 practice is grounded. This, being an axiom, 
 may without difficulty be taken for a postu- 
 late. If therefore in any situation you have not 
 aptitude enough, it is because you have not 
 given out money enough : give money enough, 
 the aptitude comes of course ; all other care is 
 superfluous. Whatsoever be the situation, if' 
 you want twice the aptitude in it that you 
 have at present, — give the man who is in it 
 twice the money you had given him, you have 
 twice the aptitude. 
 
 Note also, that, on divers occasions, the 
 more he has, the more of it must be given to 
 him. Instance, the metamorphosis of an in- 
 discriminate defender of right and wrong into 
 a Judge. The stronger the repugnance 
 between the two characters, the greater the 
 force necessary to effect the transition from 
 the one to the other. 
 
 Giving out money is, in English Treasury 
 
Const. Code. Ch. IX. § 17, Located, how. 25 
 
 language, making exertions. If any where you 
 want more aptitude, you must make propor- 
 tionable exertions. Giving out money being 
 the cause, — establish this cause, the effect 
 follows of course. Of a barrel full of spirits, 
 turn the cock, out flew the spirits. Into the 
 pocket of the functionary, in with the money, 
 — in with it flows the aptitude. As ib how 
 this happens, this is, in both cases, matter of 
 theory ; no need have you to trouble yourself 
 with it. (a) 
 
 This objection comes in aid of the one last 
 preceding, by which economy is presented 
 in the character of a sure cause of depreda- 
 
 («) Designed directly and principally for official, this system 
 will, as far it goes, operate as a system of national instruction, 
 and that, without additional cost; not to speak of education 
 in other respects. Assistant to that its least extensive, will be 
 this its most extensive though indirect influence. The better 
 they are themselves instructed, the better will individuals, in 
 Quality of auditors at the several examinations be qualified for 
 the judging of the degrees of appropriate aptitude on the part 
 of probationary locables. 
 
 Even in England, — among the suggestions in question, if 
 considered merely in their application to national instruction at 
 large, to the exclusion of official instruction, with a view to loca- 
 tion, — some there may be which, even to the ruling few, will 
 not be altogether an object of abhorrence. For, in the con- 
 duct of the majority of that class, the wish to shut out all intel- 
 lectual light without exception, whatever possession it may have 
 taken in some minds, does not appear to have manifested itself, 
 by any conclusive evidence. Delusion, by means of false lights, — 
 and the encouragement given for the reception of them by the 
 application of the matter of reward in the character of matter of 
 corruption, — are the principal means employed for preventing 
 the subject many from endeavouring to substitute a form of 
 Government favourable to one hostile to their interests. 
 
 D 
 
26 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 tion. Instead of giving, receive money, as the 
 price, — of the power or other object of desire 
 attached to the office, — you will (says the 
 objection) have the reverse of aptitude ; and 
 the more money you receive from him, the 
 more flagrantly unapt in every respect he 
 will be. On the other hand (says the basis 
 of the present objection) aptitude being as 
 opulence, — give twice the emolument you 
 give at present, you will have twice the 
 aptitude : and so on, ad infinitum. Put the 
 two objections together, you have a trium- 
 phant dilemma. Offer (it says) with the office 
 any less emolument than that which you will 
 find attached to it, — either no person what- 
 ever will accept of it, or, if any one will, his 
 acceptance of it will be a certain proof of his 
 inaptitude for it; with no other purpose than 
 that of employing it as an instrument of 
 depredation, will the acceptance have been 
 given to it. — The offer will not be accepted : — 
 so says horn the first of this same irresistible 
 dilemma. Good. But why will it not be 
 accepted ? Answer. Because to be accepted, 
 it must have been made : and it will not have 
 been made. But why will it not have been 
 made ? Answer. Because by nobody but the 
 maker of the dilemma can it have been 
 made ; and what he has made is — not the 
 offer, but the determination not to make it. 
 And why this determination? Answer. Be- 
 cause he has always been so perfectly 
 
Const. Code. Ch. IX. § 17, Located, how. 27 
 
 convinced, that the offer, if made, would be 
 accepted, and when accepted followed by 
 consequences the opposite to those which his 
 dilemma assigned to it ; to his own assertion 
 his own conduct snves the lie. 
 
 Tell him of any other country in which the 
 rate is less, then come two other objections. 
 
 1. That country differs from this. 
 
 2. Of the smallness of the remuneration, 
 the result is actually, in that country, a pro- 
 portionable degree of inaptitude ; then, for 
 proof, comes the assumption just disposed of. 
 
 As to the difference^ — propose any enquiry 
 into it ; whether, for example, it is so great 
 as to warrant, in the whole or in any part, 
 the practical conclusion deduced from it, — 
 Oh no ; this would be too much trouble. So 
 will say the objector; and in this instance 
 what he says may be admitted for true ; a 
 Committee would not be very instructively 
 employed, in the enquiry whether it be true 
 — that, when a man breaks a contract, for 
 the performance of which no such securities 
 as might be are provided, it is because it does 
 not give him all he would have been glad to 
 get from it, and not for want of those same 
 necessary securities. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY C. AND W. REYNELL, BROAD STREET, GOLDEN SQUARE. 
 
DEFENCE 
 
 OF 
 
 ECONOMY 
 
 AGAINST THE 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 EDMUND BURKE. 
 
 FIRST PRINTED IN JANUARY 1817. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The paper here presented to the reader under the 
 title of Defence of Economy against the Right 
 Honourable Edmund Burke, together with another 
 containing a Defence of the same more useful than 
 welcome virtue against the Right Honourable George 
 Rose, were written as long ago as in the year 1810. 
 At that time the joint destination of the two papers 
 was — to form a sequel to a tract of no great 
 bulk, having for its title Hints respecting Economy. 
 For its subject it had taken the whole of the official 
 establishment, and for its objects two intimately 
 connected practical operations, viz. minimizing 
 official pay, and maximizing official aptitude : 
 operations the mutual subservience of which, in 
 opposition to the universally convenient, univer- 
 sally received and acted upon, and in truth but 
 too natural opinion, of their incompatibility, was 
 maintained. The circumstance, by which the 
 publication of it, and in some degree the com- 
 pletion of it was suspended, was the expectation 
 of obtaining certain documents, which in the way 
 of exemplification and illustration afforded a pro- 
 mise of being of use. Meantime the turn of 
 affairs produced some incident or other, by which 
 the author's attention was called off at the moment 
 
 A 2 
 
4 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 to some other quarter ; and thus it is that alto- 
 gether the three papers have been till now lying 
 upon the shelf. 
 
 As to the two objects in question, so it was, 
 that the plan, which had presented itself to the 
 author as that by which both of these objects 
 might be secured, and the only one by which 
 either of them could be so in any degree ap- 
 proaching to perfection, having the misfortune to 
 find itself reprobated with one voice by the two 
 distinguished statesmen abovementioned, the re- 
 moval of the impediment opposed by so strong 
 a body of authority, presented itself of course as 
 an object of endeavour altogether indispensable. 
 
 In the order at that time intended, a statement 
 of the principles which had presented themselves 
 as claiming the direction of practice would have pre- 
 ceded the examination here given of the principles 
 which it was found necessary to combat: hence 
 the reference which may here and there be found 
 to portions of matter, which neither in any other 
 place in which they could be referred to have 
 made, nor in this place can make, their appearance. 
 By a change in the order thus originally intended, 
 that one of the two defences which will here be 
 found (for in the present receptacle there was not 
 room for the other)* cannot, it will therefore be 
 evident enough, but appear under more or less of 
 disadvantage. But to the rendering them perfectly 
 intelligible as far as they go, it did not seem, that 
 to either of them any of the matter which belonged 
 to that by which they had been designed to be 
 preceded was necessary : and, by the forms of 
 warfare, especially considering the situation and 
 character of the person against whom it was una- 
 
 * This tract was first printed in the Pamphleteer (No. 19.) 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 5 
 
 voidably directed, the attention of many a reader 
 (it has been supposed) may be engaged, whose 
 perseverance would not carry him through the dry 
 matter of a sort of didactic treatise, the principles 
 of which are in a state of irreconcilable hostility 
 to the personal interest of that class of persons 
 which forms the subject of it, to which it cannot 
 but look for the greatest number of its readers, and 
 without whose concurrence, how far so ever from 
 being accompanied with any degree of compla- 
 cency, it could not at any time be in any degree 
 carried into effect. 
 
 At the time when these papers were penned, 
 not any the slightest symptom of official regard for 
 public economy was it the author's good fortune to 
 be able anywhere to recognise ; everywhere it 
 seemed an object of contempt : of contempt not 
 only to those who were profiting by, but to those 
 who were and are the sufferers from, the want of 
 it. Under this impression, the wonder will rather 
 be how the author's perseverance could have 
 carried him so far into the subject as it did, than 
 how it should happen that by the sense of a slight 
 deficiency, the suspension should have been com- 
 menced, and, by a series of intervening avocations, 
 have been continued. At present, in this respect, 
 for a time at least, matters seem to have undergone 
 some change. Surely enough, if it does not at the 
 present, small indeed must be its chance of ob- 
 taining any portion of public attention at any 
 future point of time. But should it happen to 
 the two, or either of them, to obtain any portion 
 of favourable regard, the more favourable, the 
 greater will be the encouragement afforded for the 
 labour necessary to the bringing the plan to that 
 degree of maturity which would be necessary to 
 its producing any assignable effect i\i practice. 
 
O ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 Short as it is, in the intimation above given of 
 the nature of the plan, one circumstance will 
 already be but too undeniably visible, viz. that not 
 only without any exception in respect of the first 
 of its two connected objects, viz. minimizing official 
 pay, but likewise, and with very little exception 
 in respect of the other, viz. maximizing official 
 aptitude, nothing can be more irreconcilably oppo- 
 site to the particular interest of that class of per- 
 sons, without whose concurrence no effect what- 
 ever could be given to it. Yes; even in respect 
 of this latter object : for, if, in the instance of 
 every office, so odd an effect as that of an exclusion 
 put upon all who were not the very fittest for 
 office, or even upon all who were not flagrantly 
 unfit for it, were to be the result, an exclusion 
 would thus be put upon all those, for whom, and 
 their connections, and the connections of those 
 connections, and so on, for whom gentlemen are 
 most anxious, because in every other way they 
 find it most difficult, to provide. But if on the 
 part of the plan in question the objection is 
 grounded on the opposition of interests, and con- 
 sequent unwillingness were to be regarded as a 
 proof of impracticability, it would be a proof, not 
 only that in government nothing good will ever be 
 done, but moreover that in government in general, 
 and in our own in particular, of all the good that 
 has ever been done, the greater part has not ever 
 been done. Among the points on which govern- 
 ment turns, some there are relative to which the 
 interest of the ruling few, be they who they may, 
 coincides with the universal interest ; and as to all 
 these points, in so far as it happens to them to 
 know what that same universal interest is — as to 
 all these points, gentlemen's regard for that same 
 universal interest may be reckoned upon without 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 7 
 
 much clanger of error, or much imputation on the 
 score of credulity. Unfortunately, under most 
 governments, and under this of ours in particular, 
 other points there are, in which that partial and 
 sinister interest is in a state of implacable hostility 
 with the universal interst : and of this unfortunate 
 number are the two just mentioned : and so far 
 as this hostility has place, so far is the universal 
 interest, as being the least condensed, sure of 
 being overpowered by, and made a constant sacri- 
 fice to, that which is most so. 
 
 In this state of interests, the subject-many may 
 deem themselves particularly happy, when, to 
 make up a provision worthy of the acceptance of 
 a member of the ruling few, nothing more than 
 the precise amount of that same sum, with the 
 addition of the expense of collection, is taken out 
 of the pockets of the subject-many. An unfor- 
 tunately more common case is — where for each 
 penny put into the privileged pocket, pounds to an 
 indefinite number must be, and are accordingly, 
 taken out of all pockets taken together: from pri- 
 vileged ones in this way with more than adequate 
 compensation, unprivileged, without anything at 
 all. Thus it is, that, while wars are made to make 
 places, places are made to secure commencement 
 or continuance to wars : and, lest this should not 
 be enough, distant dependencies — every one of 
 them without exception productive of net loss — 
 are kept up and increased. Yes ; productive of 
 net loss : for this is as uncontrovertibly and uni- 
 versally the case, as that two and two make four; 
 for which reason no man who has a connection to 
 provide for, or to whom power and glory, might, 
 majesty, and dominion, in the abstract, are objects 
 of concupiscence, can endure to hear of it. 
 
 As to war, so long as in the hands of those who 
 
8 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 have speech and vote in parliament, or of their 
 near connections, offices are kept on foot with 
 emolument in such sort attached to them, as to be 
 materially greater in war than in peace, who is 
 there that will venture to affirm that, of a parlia- 
 ment by which an arrangement of this sort is 
 suffered to continue, the conduct is in this respect 
 less pernicious in effect, or when once the matter 
 has been brought to view, less corrupt in design, 
 than it would be if in that same number the mem- 
 bers of that same body were by masses of money 
 to the same value, received under the name of 
 bribes, engaged by one another or by any foreign 
 power, clandestinely or openly, thus out of an ocean 
 of human misery to extract so many of these drops 
 of comfort for themselves ? In both cases the 
 same sums being pocketed — pocketed with the 
 same certainty, and under the same conditions — 
 in what particular, except in the language em- 
 ployed in speaking of them, and in that chance of 
 punishment and shame which would have place 
 in the one case, and has not in the other, do these 
 two cases present any the smallest difference? 
 Tell us, good Sir William ! Tell us, good your 
 Lordship, Lord of the freehold sinecure ! exists 
 there any better reason, why emoluments thus ex- 
 tracted should be retained, than why bribes given 
 and received to the same amount, and by the same 
 means, without disguise, should, if received, repose 
 in the same Right Honourable pockets? 
 
 In a certain sensation called uneasiness, Locke 
 beheld, as his Essays tell us, the cause of every- 
 thing that is done. Though on this occasion, with 
 all his perspicuity, the philosopher saw but half 
 his subject (for happily neither is pleasure altoge- 
 ther withoutherinfluence) : sureit is that it isin the 
 rougher spring of action that any ulterior operation, 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 9 
 
 by which the constitution will be cleared of any 
 of its morbific matter, will find its immediate 
 cause. 
 
 Yes: — in the returning back upon the authors 
 some small portion of the uneasiness which the 
 sufferers have so long been in the experience of — 
 in this necessary operation, for which the consti- 
 tution, with all its corruptions, still affords ample 
 means — in this, if in anything, lies the people's 
 hope. 
 
 The instrument by which the God Silejius was 
 made into a poet and a prophet — it is by this, if 
 by anything, that noble Lords and Honourable 
 Gentlemen will be fashioned into philosophers and 
 patriots : it is by this, if by anything, that such of 
 them whose teeth are in our bowels, will be pre- 
 vailed upon to quit their hold. 
 
 Submission and obedience on the one part, are 
 the materials of which power on the other part is 
 composed: whenever, and in so far as, the humble 
 materials drop off, the proud product drops off 
 along with them. Of the truth of this definition, 
 a practical proof was experienced in 1688 by King 
 James, in the case of England and Scotland : in 
 1782 it was experienced by King George and his 
 British Parliament, in the case of Ireland. In the 
 character of ancient Pistol eating the leek, in that 
 same year was the first Lord Camden seen and 
 heard in the House of Lords by the author of 
 these pages demonstrating, by the light of an in- 
 stantaneous inspiration, to ears sufficiently pre- 
 pared by uneasiness for conviction, the never till 
 then imagined reasonableness of the termination 
 of that system, under which that island was groan- 
 ing, under the paramount government of a set of 
 men, in the choice of whom it had no share; in 
 the same character, in the event of a similar expe- 
 
10 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 diency, might his Most Noble Son be seen in one 
 House, and his Right Honourable Grand Nephew 
 in the other, holding in hand, the one of them a 
 Bill for the abolition of sinecures, useless places, 
 needless places, and the overpay of useful and 
 needful places ; the other a Bill for such a reform 
 in the Commons House of Parliament, as may no 
 longer leave the people of Great Britain, in a 
 number more than twice as great as the whole 
 people of Ireland, in a condition, from which the 
 people of Ireland were liberated as above at the 
 instance of the learned founder of an illustrious 
 family, which was, in one instance at least, not ill 
 taught : in a word, such a reform as by divesting 
 the ruling few of their adverse interest, by which 
 so long as they continue to grasp it, they are ren- 
 dered the irreconcilable enemies of those over 
 whom they rule, will leave to them no other 
 interests than such as belong to them in common 
 with the people, who are now groaning under 
 their yoke. 
 
 What belongs to the only effectual remedy which 
 the nature of the case admits of, viz. a restoring 
 change (for such in no small degree it would be) 
 in the constitution of the House of Commons — 
 may perhaps be spoken to elsewhere : it belongs 
 not directly to this place. What does belong to 
 it is the nature of the principles established on 
 the subject of public expenditure : principles not 
 only acted upon but avowed: not only avowed 
 but from the connected elevations, the alas ! but 
 too closely connected elevations, the mount of 
 the houses and the mount of financial office, 
 preached. In these principles, it was long ago 
 the fortune of the author to behold causes of them- 
 selves abundantly adequate to the production of 
 whatever sufferings either are felt or can be appre- 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 11 
 
 hended : and if it be without any very great de- 
 mand for our gratitude, yet will it be seen to 
 be not the less true, that to two distinguished 
 statesmen, one of whom is still in a condition to an- 
 swerfor himself, we are indebted for the advantage 
 of beholding these same principles in a tangible 
 shape ; in that tangible shape in which they have 
 been endeavoured to be presented to view, in two 
 separate yet not unconnected tracts: viz. in the 
 present Defence of Economy, and in the other 
 with which it is proposed to be succeeded. 
 
 Nov. 1816. 
 
TITLES OF THE SECTIONS. 
 
 I. Defence of Economy II. Defence of Economy 
 
 against Burke. 
 
 § I. Burke's Objects in his Bill 
 and Speech. 
 
 § II. Method here pursued. 
 
 § III. Propositions deduced from 
 Burke's Economy Speech. 
 1 . Concerning Public Money — 
 What the proper Uses of it. — 
 Propositions 1,2,3. fcf~ See 
 Defence against Rose, § 2, 3, 
 4, 5, 6, 8, 9. 
 
 § IV. Concerning Title to Reward. 
 Proposition 4. 
 
 § V. Concerning virtuous Ambi- 
 tion, Gratitude and Piety. — 
 Propositions 5, 6, 7, 8. 
 
 § VI. Concerning Party Men and 
 their Principles. Proposi- 
 tions 9, 10. 
 
 § VII. Concerning Ministers and 
 their Duty to themselves. — 
 Propositions 11, 12, 13, 14. 
 
 § VIII. Concerning Gratuitous 
 Service and the Profligacy 
 involved in it. — Propositions 
 15, 16. 
 
 ^ IX. A Prophecy, and by Burke 
 — The King will swallow up 
 the whole Substance of the 
 People. — Proposition 17. — 
 (£f~ >See Rose, for the manner 
 how. 
 
 § X. Gratuitous Service, Burke's 
 Objections to it examined. 
 Necker. — Burke's East India 
 Bill. 
 
 § XI. Burke's Objection to the Ap- 
 plication of the Principle of 
 Competition to this Purpose 
 — its Frivolousness. 
 
 § XII. Concluding Observations. 
 Burke, why thus examined. 
 
 against Rose. 
 
 § I. Introduction. 
 
 § II. Mr. Rose's Pleas in Bar to 
 Economy. — Plea 1 . Vastness 
 of the Expenditure. 
 
 § III. Plea 2. Need of Provision 
 for Decayed Nobility, &c. 
 
 § IV. Plea 3. Need of Subsistence 
 for Official Persons. 
 
 § V. Plea 4. Need of Money for 
 making Fortunes for Official 
 Persons and their Families. 
 
 § VI. Plea 5. Need of Money for 
 buying Men off from Profes- 
 sions. 
 
 § VII. Digression concerning the 
 Value of Money. 
 
 § VIII. Plea 6. Need of Money 
 as a Stimulus to Official Ex- 
 ertion. 
 
 § IX. Plea 7. Need of Money for 
 the Support of Official Dig- 
 nity. 
 
 § X. Plea 8. Concerning the late 
 Mr Pitt's Expenditure : — the 
 Impropriety of Economy how 
 far proved by it. 
 
 § XI. Concerning Influence. 
 
 § XII. Concerning Pecuniary Com- 
 petition — and the Use made 
 of the Principle. 
 
DEFENCE OF ECONOMY 
 
 AGAINST BURKE. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 burke's objects in his bill and speech. 
 
 I begin with Mr. Burke : and this, not only be- 
 cause, as compared with that of any living states- 
 man, the authority of a departed one unites the 
 advantages that are afforded to authority of the 
 intellectual kind by anteriority and by death; but 
 because it seems but natural that, in the delivery 
 of his own opinions, the junior and survivor 
 should have drawn upon his illustrious predecessor, 
 for such assistance, if any, as, in the way of argu- 
 ment, he may have regarded him as standing in 
 need of. 
 
 Such, as they will be seen to be, being the 
 notions advanced by the orator — such their extra- 
 vagance — such their repugnance even to the very 
 measure they are employed to support, what 
 could have been his inducements, what could 
 have been his designs ? — questions these, in 
 which, if I do not much deceive myself, the 
 reader will be apt to find at every turn a source of 
 
1 4 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 perplexity in proportion as the positions of the 
 orator present themselves to view, stripped of those 
 brilliant colours, by the splendour of which the 
 wildest extravagances and the most glaring" incon- 
 sistencies are but too apt to be saved from being 
 seen in their true light. 
 
 In the hope of affording to such perplexity what 
 relief it may be susceptible of, I shall begin with 
 stating the solution which the enigma has sug- 
 gested to my own mind: — showing what, in my 
 view of the ground, was the plan of the orator's 
 campaign — what the considerations by which he 
 was led thus to expose his flanks, laying his prin- 
 ciples all the time so widely open to the com- 
 bined imputations of improbity and extravagance. 
 Here then follows the statement by way of opening. 
 On the mind of the intelligent and candid reader, 
 it will make no ultimate impression any farther 
 than as to his feelings, the charge stands in each 
 instance sufficiently supported by the evidence. 
 
 Needy as well as ambitious, dependent by all 
 his hopes on a party who beheld in his person the 
 principal part of their intellectual strength, strug- 
 gling, and with prospects every day increasing, 
 against a ministry whose popularity he saw already 
 in a deep decline, the orator, from this economical 
 scheme of his, Bill and Speech together, proposed 
 to himself, on this occasion, two intimately con- 
 nected though antagonising objects ; viz. immediate 
 depression of the force in the hands of the adver- 
 sary, and at the same time, the eventual preserva- 
 tion and increase of the same force in the hands of 
 the assailants, in the event of success, which 
 on the like occasions, are, by all such besiegers, 
 proposed to themselves, and, according to circum- 
 stances, with different degrees of skill and success 
 pursued. 
 
§ I. Burke's Objects in Ins BUI and Speech. 15 
 
 For the more immediate or* the two objects, viz. 
 distress of the enemy, it was, that the bill itself 
 was provided ; and to this object nothing could be 
 more dexterously or happily adapted. Opposition 
 it was certain of: and whatsoever were the event, 
 advantage in some degree was sure. Suppose the 
 opposition completely successful, and the whole 
 plan of retrenchment thrown out together: here 
 would be so much reputation gained to the promo- 
 ters of the measure, so much reputation lost to the 
 opponents of it. Suppose the plan in any part of it 
 carried, in proportion to the importance of the part 
 so carried, the reputation of its supporters would 
 receive an ulterior increase: while that of its 
 opponents, tlie weakness betrayed by them in- 
 creasing in proportion to the conquests thus made 
 upon them, would in the same proportion expe- 
 rience an ulterior decrease. 
 
 But as it is with the war of hands so it is with 
 the war of words. No sooner is the conquest 
 effected, than the weakness of the vanquished 
 becomes in no inconsiderable degree the weakness 
 of the conquerors : of the conquerors who from 
 assailants are become possessors. To this eventual 
 weakness an eventual support was to be provided. 
 
 To this service was his speech directed and 
 adapted : we shall see with what boldness, and — 
 in so far as the simultaneous pursuit of two objects 
 in themselves so incompatible, admitted — with 
 what art. 
 
 Such in truth were the two objects thus under- 
 taken to be recommended — recommended at one 
 and the same time — to public favour : a practical 
 measure, (the measure, brought forward by his 
 bill) a measure of practice, and in the same breath 
 a set of principles with which, necessary as they 
 were to the main and ulterior purpose, the measure, 
 
1 6 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 so far as it went, was in a state of direct re- 
 pugnancy. 
 
 The problem therefore, with which his ingenuity 
 had to grapple, was — so to order matters as that 
 the economical measure should be pursued, and 
 even if possible carried, with as little prejudice as 
 possible to the necessary anti-economical prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 Of principles, such as these, which have been 
 submitted to the reader,* of principles really 
 favourable to frugality and public probity, of prin- 
 ciples in which waste and corruption would 
 equally have found their condemnation, in what- 
 ever hands — in the hands of whatever party — the 
 matter of waste and means of corruption were 
 lodged, — of any such principles the prevalence 
 would, by its whole amount, have been in a pro- 
 portionable degree unfavourable to the orator's 
 bright and opening prospects. Once in possession 
 of the power he was aiming at, the only principles 
 suitable to his interests, and thence to his views, 
 would be such principles as were most favourable 
 to the conjunct purposes of waste and corruption. 
 So far as was practicable, his aim would therefore 
 be, and was — to preserve for use the principles of 
 waste and corruption in the event of his finding 
 himself in possession of the matter and the means 
 — to preserve them, in undiminished, and, if pos- 
 sible, even in augmented, force. 
 
 For this purpose, the only form of argument 
 which the nature of the case left open to him was, 
 
 * Of the matter of these principles a portion more or less 
 considerable would probably be found in that part which con- 
 cerns Reward, of the work not long ago (1811) published in 
 French by Mr. Dumont, under the title of Theorie des Peines et 
 des Recompenses, from some of the author's unfinished manu- 
 scripts. 
 
§ I. Burke s Objects in his Bill and Speech. 17 
 
 that of concession or admission. Such, accordingly, 
 as will be seen, was the form embraced by him and 
 employed. 
 
 By the portion, comparatively minute as it was, 
 of the mass of the matter of waste and corruption, 
 of which his bill offered up the sacrifice, his fru- 
 gality and probity were to stand displayed : by 
 the vast, and as far as depended upon his exertions, 
 the infinite mass preserved — preserved by the 
 principles let drop, and as it were unwillingly, and 
 as if wrung from him by conviction in his speech, 
 his candour, his moderation, his pinct ration, his 
 discernment, his wisdom, — all these virtues were, 
 in full galaxy, to be made manifest to an admiring 
 world. 
 
 All this while an argument there was, by which, 
 had there been any lips to urge it, this fine-spun 
 web, with purity at top and corruption at bottom, 
 might have been cut to pieces. If of the precious 
 oil of corruption a widow's cruise full, and that 
 continually drawn upon, be so necessary as you 
 have been persuading us to believe, why, by any 
 such amount as proposed, or by any amount, seek 
 to reduce it? 
 
 True; had there been any lips to urge it. But, 
 that there were no such lips, was a fact of which 
 he had sufficient reason to be assured : to urge it, 
 probably enough, not so much as a single pair of 
 lips: — to listen to it, most assuredlv, do! 
 sufficient number of ears: and where ears to listen 
 and eyes to read are wanting, all the lips in the 
 world to speak with, all the hands in the world to 
 write, would, as was no secret to him, be of 
 no use. 
 
 Thus then, by the craft of the rhetorician, were 
 a set of principles completely suited to his purpose 
 — principles by a zealous application of which, 
 
 c 
 
1 8 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 anything in the way in question, howsoever per- 
 nicious, might be done — anything however fla- 
 grantly pernicious defended — collected together 
 as in a magazine ready for use: a magazine too the 
 key of which was in his own pocket, and with an 
 adequate assurance, that on the part of no enemy 
 whom he and his need care for, would any attempt 
 ever be made to blow it up. 
 
 Suppose now the orator seated at the treasury 
 board — the Marquis of Rockingham on the seat of 
 the first Lord, looking great and wise, the orator 
 himself thinking and writing, and speaking, and 
 acting in the character of Secretary. Let him fill 
 his own pockets, and those of his favourites and de- 
 pendants, ever so rapidly, ever so profusely, no man 
 can ever say to him, You have belied your princi- 
 ples; for, as will be seen, so long as there remained 
 in the country so much as a penny that could be 
 taken in a quiet way, his principles were such as 
 would bear him out in taking it. 
 
 All this while, honourable gentlemen on the 
 other side might have grumbled, and would of 
 course have grumbled. Undeserved ! undeserved! 
 would have been the exclamation produced by 
 every penny wasted. But Well-deserved! well- 
 deserved! would be the counter-cry all the while : 
 and, the ayes being in possession, the ayes would 
 have it. Unprincipled! unprincipled! would be 
 an interjection, from the utterance of which 
 honourable gentlemen would by their principles — 
 their real principles — their operating principles — 
 not their principles for show — but their principles 
 for use — be on both sides alike (as lawyers say) 
 estopped. 
 
 As to the principles thus relied upon by the 
 orator, they will be seen to be all of them reducible 
 to this one, viz. that as much of their property, 
 
§ II. Method here pursued, 10 
 
 as by force or fraud or the usual mixture of both, 
 the people can be brought to part with, shall come 
 and continue to be at the disposal of him and his ; 
 — and that, for this purpose, the whole of it shall 
 be and remain a perpetual fund of premiums, for 
 him who on each occasion shall prove himself most 
 expert at the use of those phrases, by which the 
 imaginations of men are fascinated, their passions 
 inflamed, and their judgments bewildered and se- 
 duced ; whereupon he, this orator, whose expert- 
 noss in those arts being really superior to that of 
 any man of his time (to which perhaps might be 
 added of any oilier time) could not but by himself 
 be felt to be so, would in this perpetual wrestling* 
 match or lottery, call it which you will, possess a 
 fairer chance than could be possessed by any other 
 adventurer, for bearing off some of the capital 
 prizes. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 METHOD HERE PURSUED. 
 
 Thus much as to the purpose pursued by the 
 orator in this part of his speech. A few words as 
 to the course and method pursued in the view here 
 given of it. 
 
 The passages to which the development of the 
 principles in question stand consigned, are con- 
 tained, most if not all of them, in that part of the 
 speech which in the edition that lies before me oc- 
 cupies, out of the whole 95 pages, from 62 to part 
 <>f (iS inclusive. This edition is the third — year in 
 the title page, 1/80; being the year in which the 
 bill was brought in ; and, as between edition and 
 edition, 1 know not of any difference. 
 
 My object is to present them to the reader in 
 
 c 2 
 
20 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 their genuine shape and colour, stripped of the 
 tinsel and embroidery with which they are covered 
 and disguised. 
 
 For this purpose the course that happened to pre- 
 sentitself to me was — dividing the text into its suc- 
 cessive component and distinguishable parts, — to 
 prefix to each such part a proposition of my own 
 framing, designed to exhibit what to me seemed the 
 true and naked interpretation of it. Next to this 
 interpretation, that the best and only adequate 
 means for forming a correct judgment on the cor- 
 rectness of it, may not in any instance be for a 
 moment wanting to my reader, comes the corres- 
 pondent passage of the text : viz. that passage in 
 which, as appeared to me, the substance of the 
 interpretation will be found to be more or less ex- 
 plicitly or implicitly contained. 
 
 Lastly follow in general a few observations, such 
 as seemed in some way or other conducive to the 
 purpose of illustration, and in particular as contri- 
 buting, and in some instances by means of extraneous 
 facts, to justify the preceding interpretation, and 
 clear it of any suspicion of incorrectness to which 
 at first view it might seem exposed. 
 
 In some instances the truth of the interpretation 
 will, I flatter myself, appear as soon as that portion 
 of the text which immediately follows it has been 
 read through ; in other instances, two or three such 
 extracts may require to have been read through, 
 before the truth of the interpretation put upon the 
 first of them has been fully proved ; in others 
 again, this or that extraneous fact may to this same 
 purpose seem requisite to be brought to view, as 
 it has been accordingly, together with a few words 
 of explanation or observation, without which the 
 relevancy of the facts in question might not have 
 been altogether manifest. 
 
§111. Deductions from B u rke *s Speech . 2 I 
 
 As to the order in which the propositions here 
 succeed one another, should it present itself to the 
 reader, as differing in any respect from that by 
 which a clearer view of the subject might have 
 been exhibited, he will be pleased to recollect, 
 that the order thus given to the effusions of the 
 rhetorician, is the order given to them by himself; 
 and that by their being exhibited in this order of 
 his own choosing, the thread of his argument is 
 delivered unbroken, and the parts of it untrans- 
 posed. 
 
 Having thus before him two sets of principles, 
 one of them in the preceding part suggested by a 
 perfectly obscure, the other, in this present part, 
 laid down by a transcendantly illustrious hand, the 
 reader will take his choice. 
 
 SECTION lit. 
 
 PROPOSITIONS DEDUCED FROM BURKE's ECO- 
 NOMY SPEECH.* 
 
 1. Concerning Public Money — What the proper Uses 
 of it. Propositions 1, 2, 3. 
 
 Proposition I. On condition of employing, upon 
 occasion, in conversation or elsewhere, the word 
 reward, in phrases of a complexion such as the 
 following: viz. " furnishing a permanent reward 
 to public service," j" public money ought, at the 
 pleasure of Kings and Ministers, to be habitually 
 
 * " Speech on presenting on the 11th of Feb. 1780, A Plan 
 for the better security of the independence of parliament and 
 the economical reformation of the civil and other establish- 
 ments." Dodsley, 1780, 3d Edition. The part from which 
 the following extracts arc made is contained in pages from 62 
 to 68 inclusive. 
 
 t Page 63. 
 
22 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 applied to the purpose of making the fortunes of 
 individuals; and that in such manner as to raise 
 their families to a state of grandeur and opulence. 
 
 Proposition 2. To this power of parcelling out 
 the property of the public among the nominees of 
 Kings and Ministers, there ought to be no limit: 
 none to the quantity capable of being thus put 
 into the hands of each nominee ; none to the 
 whole quantity of public property thus disposed of. 
 
 Proof. " Whoever (says he) seriously considers 
 the excellent argument of Lord Somers in the 
 Banker's case, will not he bottom himself upon 
 the very same maxim which I do ? and one of his 
 principal grounds for the alienability of the domains 
 in England, contrary to the maxim of the law in 
 France, he lays in the constitutional policy of 
 furnishing a reward to public service; of making 
 that reward the origin of families, and the founda- 
 tion of wealth as well as of honours." 
 
 Then, to the word England, comes a note, 
 which says " Before the Statute of Queen Anne, 
 which limited the alienation of land." 
 
 Observations. 
 
 Proof. At the time of this " excellent argument 
 of Lord Somers," (7th Will. 3.) the whole of this 
 domain was alienable; alienable to the utmost 
 farthing; and, so faithfully and efficiently had it 
 been applied to this its destined, and as we are 
 desired to persuade ourselves, properly destined 
 purpose, as to have brought the subject matter of 
 it to that state, of which a description may be 
 given in the words of the existing Committee on 
 Finance.* 
 
 * This was in March, IS 10. 
 
§111. Deductions from Burke's Speech. '-?;} 
 
 " The risrht of the crown over its own demesne 
 lands was formerly (say they, 3d Report, p. 127.) 
 as complete as its power of conferring offices ; and 
 yet the use which was made of that part of its 
 prerogative, occasioned Parliament frequently to 
 interpose ; and particularly, after the crown had 
 been greatly impoverished, an act passed whereby 
 all future grants, for any longer term than thirty- 
 one years, were declared void." 
 
 " The misfortune (continue they) is, as Mr. 
 Justice Blackstone remarks, that the act was made 
 too late, after every valuable possession of the 
 crown had been granted away for ever, or else 
 upon very long leases." 
 
 Such was the observation suggested by the case 
 to Mr. Justice Blackstone ; viz. that " it was made 
 too late." 
 
 But, according to the excellent argument of the 
 excellent Lord Somers, it was made too soon; for 
 the use of it, — the " principal " use, — at least if 
 the excellent Mr. Burke is to be believed, was, in 
 the conception entertained on the subject by the 
 excellent Lord Somers, the supplying the requisite, 
 matter for this " constitutional policy" to operate 
 upon ; — viz. "the constitutional policy of furnish- 
 ing a permanent reward to public service; of 
 making that reward the origin of families ; and the 
 foundation of wealth as well as honours." 
 
 Now of this Statute of Queen Anne (as far as 
 it went) the effect was to counteract the " consti- 
 tutional policy," and render it together with the 
 excellent "maxim" on which the excellent law 
 Lord is said to have " bottomed himself '," incapable 
 of being pursued; and, to a plain and un-Iavv- 
 learned understanding, they cannot both be good, 
 viz. the policy and the statute : the policy by 
 which the alienation of the property in question 
 for that purpose was prescribed, and the statute by 
 
24 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 which the alienation of that same property, for 
 that or any other purpose, was prohibited.* 
 
 Proposition 3. The progress of this revolution 
 ought not to be stopped, till it has received its 
 
 * After all, it was not by the "excellent" Lord Somers that 
 this profundity of policy was, or, considering the side taken by 
 him, could consistently have been displayed. It was to another 
 "excellent law Lord, though not noble Lord, viz. the Lord 
 Chief Justice Holt, that the glory of it should have been ascribed. 
 
 "Rewards and pwnishments" (says he) " are the supporters 
 of all governments : — and for that reason it is that there ought 
 to be a power in all governments to reward persons that deserve 
 well" :f — proof sufficient to the excellent Lord Chief Justice 
 that it was no more than right and fitting, that it should always 
 be, and so long as anything was left, remain in the King's power, 
 to give away, to any body he pleased, whatsoever part of the 
 people's money he could contrive to lay his hands on. 
 
 "But it is objected" (says the excellent Lord Chief Justice) 
 " that the power in the King of alienating his revenues may be 
 a prejudice to his people, to whom he must recur continually 
 for supplies." But to this objection, the excellent Chief Justice 
 had his answer ready. "I answer" (says he) "that the law 
 has not such dishonourable thoughts of the King, as to imagine 
 he will do any thing amiss to his people in those things in 
 which he has power so to do." Reason sufficient with the 
 excellent Chief Justice to trust the King, thus in the lump, 
 with the arbitrary and uncontrolled disposal of men's proper- 
 ties ; — reason not less sufficient might it have been, for trusting 
 the same royal person, on the same terms, with their liberties 
 and their lives. This was Whig Common Law. What more 
 could a King have had or wished for, from Tory Common Law ? 
 
 This theory then, which, to the views of our Orator being 
 so convenient, was in the judgment of the Orator so " excel- 
 lent ." — this theory was the theory — not of the excellent Lord 
 Keeper, but of the excellent Lord Chief Justice. Not that by 
 this mistake of John for Thomas any very material injustice 
 was done to the excellent Lord Keeper ; for, in this instance, 
 if anything was wanting in theory (not that any such deficiency 
 appears) it was made up in practice. 
 
 To the profits of the office — those profits, for an eventual 
 supplement to which even Lord Eldon required, or at least 
 obtained, not more than a floating 4,000L a year, these profits 
 
 t Modern Reports, Vol. 5, pp. 51, 55. 7 Will. 3d. The Banker's case. 
 
§ III. Deductions from Burke's Speech. 25 
 
 consummation as above described, i.e. so long as 
 any part of the property of the public (understand 
 
 not being sufficient for "making reward the origin of that family ;" 
 for affording to it a sufficiently broad "foundation of wealth as 
 well as of honours,'' a pension for life of 4,OOOZ. a year was 
 added: 4,000/. a year then equal at least to 12,OOOJ. a year now. 
 This, as not being in fee, being still insufficient, an estate,* 
 which was and is in fee, was added : an estate which according 
 to his own admission and valuation made for the purpose, was 
 producing at that time no more than a poor c 2,\OOl. a year, if 
 the statement thus given in general terms by the learned and 
 noble grantee for the purpose of his defence against an impeach- 
 ment is to be taken for correct : how much at present is best 
 known to some noble or not noble proprietor or other, related 
 or not related, into whose hands it has passed. 
 
 But this 4,OOOf . a year, and this 2, 100Z. a year and this 12,000/. 
 a year more or less, these et caeteras, were they, any of them, 
 ever begged for by the excellent Lord ? Oh no : so he himself 
 expressly assures us : — begged for, no more than the Teller- 
 ship was begged for by Mr. Yorke. These are of the number 
 of those gracious designs, which till the very moment of their 
 Taking effect, are never known of. While the eyes of the Right 
 Honourable person are, as usual, fixt on heaven, the grant is 
 slipped into his pocket, and when, putting in his hand by acci- 
 dent, he feels it there, his astonishment is not inferior to his 
 gratitude, f 
 
 Note that for no such expence as this, in so rare an article 
 as wisdom, was there any the smallest need. In the time of 
 Charles the 2nd (the Bank of England not as yet born or 
 thought of) money to the amount of " above a million" 
 (a vast sum in those days) part their own, part that of their 
 customers, having been lent to the King by a set of bankers, 
 
 * The Manor or Manors of Ri/gate and Howleigh, which according to 
 the Tory House of Commons were at that time worth upwards of 12,000/. 
 hut according' to the noble and excellent defendant " far short" of that 
 "value:" though how far short he was not pleased to say: also divers 
 other good gifts the amount of which became the matter of so many dis- 
 putes, which, the impeachment of the excellent Lord not having come to 
 a trial, was never settled.— V. State Trials, Vol. 5, pp. 350, 351, 352. 
 
 +• Of the relative quantity of the slice thus taken, relation being had to 
 the quantity left, some conception maybe formed from a note of Mr. Rose's 
 in his M Observations respecting the public expenditure and the influence 
 of the crown." 2nd Edition, ] H 1 . " In 15 years, to 1715, the whole in- 
 come from crown lands (*avs lie) including rents, 'fines, and grants of all 
 sorts, was 22,624/. equal to 1,500/. a year."— Journals of M. C Vol. XX. 
 p. 520. 
 
26 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 of the people) remains unapplied to the purpose 
 of giving effect to this " maxim" with its " con- 
 was by him the said King converted to his own use : in court 
 English, " the Exchequer was shut up." 
 
 In a succeeding reign, viz. that of King William, the ques- 
 tion was, whether there was power in the crown, sufficient 
 for applying a particular branch of its revenues in part restitu- 
 tion of the profit of this robbery. Yes, says this Lord Chief 
 Justice : for the branch in question (a new one — a portion of 
 the Excise) was given to the King in exchange for an old 
 branch, viz. the branch called "wards and liveries." Who- 
 ever has an estate in fee may alienate it 5 in the "wards and 
 liveries'' the King had an estate in fee ! the Excise was by Act 
 of Parliament given to him in lieu of those " wards and liveries ." 
 and what is more, by the express words of the act, he was 
 and is empowered to alien it. This, supposing the construc- 
 tion put upon the act not inconsistent with the words of it, 
 might, one should have thought, have sufficed for argument. 
 But this would not have sufficed to shew the learned Lord's ac- 
 quaintance as above with the depths of policy : nor yet the 
 " honourable thoughts" entertained of the King by the law : — and 
 so, ex abundantid the sage reasons that have been seen, were 
 added. 
 
 Whatsoever money the King could contrive to lay his hands 
 upon, that the virtuous Whig Chief Justice was content to 
 see him waste. Why ? For this plain reason : because "the law 
 has not" — (i. e. he, his predecessors and colleagues had not) 
 any such dishonourable thoughts of the King "as to imagine 
 he will do anything amiss to his people in those things in 
 which he has power so to do." 
 
 And what was the incident that called forth their effusion of 
 faith and confidence ? It was that of a King having robbed 
 his subjects : robbed them of so much money — and for what ? 
 to hire men with, for robbing in conjunction with their ene- 
 mies* — for robbing and murdering their allies. f 
 
 Now therefore in my humble conception of the matter, 
 whosoever it was that went thus far, whether it was the 
 excellent Lord Keeper, whether it was the virtuous and intre- 
 pid Whig Chief Justice went so far, it is no very easy matter 
 to imagine how the learned colleagues of the Chief Justice, 
 or any of them, should (as Edmund Burke says they did) 
 ' f go further :" and that for any imaginable set of existing 
 circumstances, for any imaginable purpose of accommodation , 
 convenience, reward of merit, reward of eminent services, and so 
 
 * The French. t The Dutch. 
 
§ III. Deductions from Burke's Speech. 27 
 
 stitutional policy ;" viz. " the furnishing a per- 
 manent reward to public service : of making that 
 reward the origin of families, and the foundation 
 of wealth as well as honours." 
 
 Proof. (Observations.) For, already, at the time 
 of this excellent argument, had this, quiet and 
 gradual revolution made such progress, that within 
 a trifle, the domain in question, — a mass of pro- 
 perty originally sufficient for the peace establish- 
 ment of the country — had been thus disposed of. 
 
 forth — not to speak of reasonable, useful, and honest pur- 
 poses, — it went far enough of all coneience. 
 
 Of these " honourable thoughts " one effect was to reduce to 
 such a state of debility the learned thinker's learned imagina- 
 tion^ to disable it from representing to him as possible, a state 
 of things which his memory, if consulted upon the occasion, 
 could not but have represented to him as realized, and that no 
 more than seven years before : that state of things expressed 
 — the half of it by the lawyer's word abdication, the whole of 
 it by the people's word revolutio7i, but for which (I mean the 
 revolution) his master could not have been a King, nor himself 
 a Lord Chief Justice. This master of his was now King : and 
 now, whatsoever power the King has, is become incapable of 
 being used amiss ; misuse being in such hands either the same 
 thing as use, or (what comes to the same thing) converted 
 into use. 
 
 This is the way the sort of a thing called common law is 
 made. Not content with exercising the poiccr which he has, 
 nothing will serve a man but he must display the wisdom 
 which he has not : he bewilders himself and raves : and his 
 ravings as often as it[happens to them to suit the interest or the 
 humour of those that come after him, these ravings of his 
 become law. 
 
 Principles and practice together, nothing could be better 
 matched : practice found by the excellent Lord Keeper, princi- 
 ples by the excellent Lord Chief Justice. 
 
 Note that while lawyers as well as favourites were thus 
 fattening (for the reign of William, though a reign of salva- 
 tion for England and for Europe, was a reign of waste and 
 favouritism) the state, for want of common necessaries, was 
 continually on the brink of ruin : expense unprecedented, 
 ways and means scanty, deficiencies abundant, losses distress- 
 ing, credit at deathV door. 
 
28 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 There remained, it is true, and still remains, in 
 part at least as yet undisposed of in the same 
 constitutional way, the private property of in- 
 dividuals. 
 
 But a principle adequate to this purpose, had 
 already been established — established by the same 
 or another provident set of hands — and, at the time 
 of this excellent oration still continued to be acted 
 upon; yes, and still continues to be acted upon, 
 under the eye and cognizance, and without cen- 
 sure from the above mentioned existing committee, 
 by which a diamond from this same excellent ora- 
 tion has, without acknowledgment, been picked 
 out, — picked out and employed in giving addi- 
 tional lustre to the jewel for which we are in- 
 debted to their hands.* 
 
 * Burke, p. 62, in the paragraph immediately preceding 
 the one above quoted : — "> I know, too, that it will be demanded 
 of me how it comes, that since I admit these offices" (sinecures) 
 "to be no better than pensions, I chose, after the principle of 
 law had been satisfied," (meaning the principle, with how little 
 propriety soever it can be termed a principle of law, the princi- 
 ple of policy and humanity, that forbids the abolition of them, 
 though it be by the legislature, to the prejudice of existing 
 rights of property, i. e. without adequate compensation) " I 
 chose to retain them at all." This being the question, now 
 reader, whether you have, or have not, read Part I. of this 
 Tract, Chapter 3, On Sinecures, be pleased to observe the 
 answer — " To this, Sir, I answer, that conceiving it to be 
 a fundamental part of the constitution of this country, and of 
 the reason of state in every country, that there must be means 
 of rewarding public service, these means will be incomplete, 
 and indeed wholly insufficient for that purpose, if there should 
 be no further reward for that service than the daily wages it 
 receives during the pleasure of the Crown." 
 
 Thus far Edmund Burke : and thus far, and without inver- 
 ted commas, or any other token of adoption, the existing 
 Committee on Finance, (3rd Report, p. 126) substituting 
 only for the words — " To this, Sir, I answer, that conceiving'' 
 the words " at the same time regarding." 
 
 Here we see what, according to the logic of the rhetorician, 
 constitutes a sufficient reason why the quantity of annual 
 
29 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 CONCERNING TITLE TO REWARD. 
 
 Propositio?i 4. 
 
 In the course of the disposition thus made of the 
 whole property of Government, with the growing 
 
 emolument in question should not be put into the shape of pen- 
 sion, but be continued in the shape of Sinecure. And this is the 
 flourish which, with the question between Sinecures and Pensions 
 before their eyes, the Committee copy : and though like the Orator 
 in the way of concession, exhibit not the less in the character of 
 a " fundamental part of the constitution of this country." 
 
 This principle consists in the habit, which under common 
 law, is the same thing as the power, of creating offices, with 
 fees annexed to the same, and receivable by the officers suc- 
 cessively invested with the same: of creating these fee-gather- 
 ing offices, or what comes to the same thing, annexing more 
 and more fees to offices of this sort already created ; fees, that 
 as taxes, are exacted by the sole authority of some official 
 person or persons, without allowance, special or general, from 
 the representatives of the people in Parliament. 
 
 This principle may be seen flourishing to this day, and with 
 unabated vigour ; for so long as the word tax is not mentioned, 
 and instead of a contribution to a tax, the money levied is called 
 a fee, and instead of the pocket of the public, the pocket it 
 goes into is that of the imposer, and the assembly in the 
 composition of which the people have some share have no 
 share in the imposition of it, nothing can exceed the acquies- 
 cence and complacency with which the good people of this 
 country, as well as its Parliament, are content to view itj 
 especially when the tax thus imposed, is imposed upon that 
 class of the community which is composed of the distress- 
 ed members of all the other classes, and by so fast a friend 
 to the rights of the people and to liberty, and to Juries, and to 
 the laws which forbid the levying money upon the people with- 
 out consent of Parliament, and to the Magna Charta which 
 forbids the delaying of justice, and to the Magna Charta 
 which forbids the sale of justice, and to the Magna Charta 
 which forbids the denial of justice (whether by putting a price 
 upon it beyond what they have to give, or otherwise) as the 
 Noble Ex-Chancellor, then Chancellor, legislating with the 
 advice and consent of his Right Honourable Subordinate, 
 
30 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 addition of the whole property of the people, the plea of its 
 having for its use and object the furnishing a reward to 
 
 whose experience in equity business found such a contrast to that of the 
 Common-Law-Learned Novice.* 
 
 * No. I. List of Law Sinecures, granted in fee, with the masses of emolument respectively 
 attached to theni : gleaned aud put together from the Reports of the Finance Committee of the 
 years 1707-8 and 1807-8 : distinguishing as well the different descriptions of the Offices and Officers 
 in question, as the different masses of emolument respectively received at the two different periods, 
 as exhibited by the two committees : with references to the Nos. of the Appendixes and Pages of 
 the two Reports ; the Reports being — of those of the committee of 1797-8, the 29th, and of those of 
 the committee of 1807-8, the 3d. Annual Sums 
 
 1797-8 1807-8 Description as per Description as per received as per 
 
 No. Page No. Page 1797-8. 1807-8. 1797-8 1807-8 
 
 aief Pro- "1 4. Chief Proclamator, Ara- ") 
 
 ker Hen- > bella Walker Heneage, > 
 
 j Widow. J 
 
 (1) I. COURT OF CHANCERY. £ £ 
 
 1 K. 7 84.5 72 280 1. Keeper or Clerk of His "J l.Hanaper, Clerk of; sisters "1 
 
 Majesty's Hanaper in Chan- r and co-heiresses of the Earl y 1,811 a 2,070 
 eery, Earl of Northington, )- of Northington. _J 
 
 and his heirs, during the \ 
 lives of (see next column.) J 
 (2) 
 2 K.3a... 2. Register of the Court of 2. No mention. 640 
 
 K.3 1) -'* Chancery, Duke of St. Al- 
 
 bans, or Drummond, his 
 Mortgagee, (see Vezey, Juxi. 
 V. 433.) 
 
 (3) II. COURT OF KING'S BENCH. 
 
 3 L. 10 160-1 72 180 3. Comptroller of the Seals') 2. Seal Office of King's ■) 
 
 of the Courts of King's t Bench and Common Pleas, (. 400 2,886 
 Bench and Common Pleas, /" Duke of Grafton. f 
 
 his Grace the Duke of V J 
 
 Grafton. J 
 
 (4) III. COURT OF COMMON PLEAS. 
 
 4 M 14 198-1 72 281 4. Hereditary Chief 
 
 clamator, J. Walker 
 eage. 
 
 (5) 
 
 5 M. 1 172 3 72 281 S. Custos Brevium, C. P. - 5. Custos Brevium, Ho- ^ 
 
 Honourable Lady Louisa J nourable Louisa Browning, { 
 
 Browning, one-eighth ; Hon. 1 Sir Fr. M. Eden, Lady B. f 5 9** 
 
 Lady Robert Eden., one- f Mostyn, Joseph Hankin. * 
 
 sixth ; John Hankin, Esq. 
 
 Tenant by the Curtesy, one- 
 
 tliird ; Edward Gore, Esq. 
 
 in right of his Wife, Lady 
 
 Mostyn, one-third. 
 
 (6) IV. COURT OF EXCHEQUER. 
 
 6N. 29 238-9 72 281 6. Hereditary Chief Usher ") 6. " Chief Usher, Arabella') 
 
 of the Exchequer, with the I " Walker Heneage, in fee, f ,,, 
 Appurtenances thereof, John )* " under Grant from Henry /• „ . 
 
 Walker Heneage. V " II. as well as the other \ c * " 
 
 J " office." J 
 
 Reference to the Reports of the Finance Committees. 
 No. (1) 1797-8, K. 7- p- 84,85—1807-8. No. 72. p. 280. 
 No. (2) 1797-8, K. 3 a, K. 3 b, p. 62, 63—1807-8. No mention. 
 No. (3) 1797-8, L. 16. p. 160, 161—1807-8, No. 72. p. 280. 
 No. (4) 1797-8, M. 14. p. 190, 191— 1807-8, No. 72. p. 281. 
 No. (5) 1797-8, M. 1. p. 172, 173— 1807-8, No. 72. p. 281. 
 No. (6) 1797-8, N. 29. p. 238, 239— 1807-8, No. 72, p. 281. 
 
 a Gross 19942. The beneficial interest is not in fee : the reversion was granted to a pair of 
 Thurlows in June 1792.— 27th Finance Report, 1797-8. p. S4. 
 
 6 " Viz. an ancient allowance of 5d. a day, (called diet money) during the time the Court is open, 
 which is uncertain."— 27th Finance Report, 1797-8, N. 29 (a) p. 23S. 
 
§ IV. Concerning Title to Reward. 31 
 
 public service, ought never to be any other than a 
 false pretence: at any rate nothing ought ever to 
 be done to prevent its being so. 
 
 Thus, from this Table, it appears, that of the four great 
 Westminster Hall Courts, there is not one in which the 
 principle of taking the property of the distressed to make 
 fortunes for Court favourites, or, in the Orator's language, to 
 " make it the origin of families and the foundation of wealth and 
 honours" was not applied, — not one. in which the application 
 of it is not to this very day continued. A natural question 
 here is— how in so great a length of time it comes to have 
 made so small a progress? The answer is — that in the hands 
 of the King, this mine having, soon after its discovery, heen 
 worked too openly and too rapidly, the consequence was, that 
 the thus working of it received the check we hear so much of, 
 and care so little about ; and that from that time it was given 
 up to those useful servants of his, whose professional dexterity 
 was now become necessary to enable a man, when working 
 under the Rose, to make a living profit out of it. 
 
 The earliest instance, of which any effect or memory is now 
 remaining is, as the Table shows, of as early a date as the 
 reign of Henry the Second. Soon after him came King John, 
 whom, besides his Magna Charta, so many details that have 
 come down to us on record prove to have kept an open shop 
 for the sale of the commodity which went by the name of 
 justice, and in which the prices were not then in any sort, as at 
 present they are in some sort, lixed. In King John's reign 
 comes this Magna Charta, and thenceforward, so far as con- 
 cerned the sort, of "public, service " rendered by the Gavcstons, 
 the Spencers, and the Mortimers, this source of " permanent 
 reicard to public service" was nearly dried up; and for what 
 few drops have here and there been collected by the successors 
 of those accomplished Gentlemen, they have been forced to 
 enter into a sort of partnership with the Gentlemen of the 
 Long Robe. 
 
 Had it not been for the obstruction just mentioned, the 
 present amount of that part of the produce of the stamp 
 duties which is levied upon those who are distressed whether by 
 or for want of the commodity sold under the name of justice, 
 would have composed but a part, and that a small one, of 
 that part of public money which would have followed the fate 
 of the Crown Lands, under and by virtue of the principle 
 thus maintained by Holt and fattened upon by Somers. 
 
32 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 Proof. (Observations.) Four modes of dispos- 
 ing of the public money, under the notion of re- 
 
 I say, but a small part: for had the mine continued in indi- 
 vidual hands, with the power and capital of the King openly 
 employed, as under King John, in backing them, it would 
 have continued to be worked with that zeal and consequent 
 success, by which labour in private is, so much to its advantage, 
 distinguished from labour on public account : and supposing 
 any remnants of it, as of the Crown Lands, to be still remain- 
 ing, the Percevals of the present day, instead of being occupied 
 in the augmentation of those taxes on distress for the benefit 
 of rich and poor together, defending inch by inch, and not 
 always without loss, those parts of the produce which stand 
 appropriated to the enrichment of the rich, would have been 
 exclusively employed in the more agreeable occupation of 
 giving additional breadth to " the foundation of wealth as well 
 as honours " upon the plan here sketched out by Edmund Burke, 
 and with as little reserve or mystery as was found necessary by 
 King John, in the halcyon part of his days. 
 
 In the Court of Chancery there exists a set of men called 
 from their number the sixty clerks, whose situation is something 
 compounded of or intermediate between, that of an officer of 
 the court and that of an attorney. 
 
 They are officers of the court, inasmuch as, through an inter- 
 mediate nomination, they are nominated by a subordinate 
 judge of the court (the Master of the Rolls) and inasmuch as 
 in every cause the parties on each side are obliged to employ 
 one or other of them; they are attornies, inasmuch as they are 
 agents of the parties, and, on each side of a cause, the party or 
 parties, through the medium of their respective attorneys, 
 (called here solicitors) have their choice which of them to 
 employ. 
 
 In the same court there exists another set of men called the 
 six clerks, whose situation seems to be purely that of an officer 
 of the court. To each of these six clerks belongs the nomina- 
 tion of ten out of the sixty clerks; which nominations he either 
 sells or gives, which ever mode of disposition happens in each 
 instance to be most for his advantage.* 
 
 Of these six clerks, the nomination belongs to the Master 
 of the Rolls for the time being : which nomination, like the 
 Lord Chancellor and Chief Justices of the King's Bench and 
 Common Fleas, he in like manner either sells or gives, accord - 
 
 * Harrison's Chancery. I. 61. Ord. Can. 33. 
 
§ iv. 
 
 Concerning Title to Reward. 33 
 
 *5 
 
 ward for public service — extraordinary public ser- 
 vice — all of them in frequent use — lay open to the 
 rhetorician's view. 1. Remuneration by Act of 
 Parliament. 2. Allowance out of secret service 
 money. 3. Pensions granted by the Crown without 
 concurrence of parliament. 4. Sinecure offices 
 granted by the Crown without concurrence of par- 
 liament. 
 
 In the case of Remuneration by act of Parlia- 
 ment, every thing is open to view; every thing is 
 open to discussion; l.The nature and reality of 
 the service supposed to have been performed. 
 2. The part taken by the person in question in the 
 
 ing to the mode of disposition, that happens to he most to his 
 advantage. 
 
 The greater the annual value of a sixty clerk's place, the 
 greater the value of the place of a six clerk who has the gift 
 or sale of it. The greater the value of a six clerk's place, the 
 greater the emolument of the place of the Master of the Rolls 
 who has the gift or sale of it. 
 
 By order of the Court of Chancery, dated 26th February, 
 1807, signed by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Erskine, and by the 
 Master of the Rolls, Sir William Grant, by whose advice and 
 assistance he states himself as acting therein, a new " schedule 
 of fees," is established and authorized to be taken by each one 
 of those sixty clerks : — fees described in so many articles, 43 in 
 number, and the amount avowedly increased in the instance of 
 each article. 
 
 A prior instance had been found in which in like manner, 
 viz. by a law enacted in the same way by the joint authority 
 of the two judges, bearing the same offices, money had in this 
 way, about the middle of last century, been levied upon those 
 children of distress called suitors without consent of parliament. 
 Coupled with power, sinister interest begets precedent, and pre- 
 cedent begets, or rather precedent is law. 
 
 Of the two modes in which, without, consent or privity of 
 parliament, law is made by the sole authority of the King's 
 nominees in the character of judges, this (it must however be 
 confessed) is beyond comparison the least mischievous ; it not 
 involving, as the other does, the attribute of uncognoscibility, 
 and the tyranny of an ex post facto law. 
 
 D 
 
34 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 rendering of that service. 3. The importance of 
 the whole service and of the part taken by him in 
 the rendering it. 4. The magnitude of the pro- 
 posed reward. 
 
 In the case of remuneration out of secret service 
 money, all these particulars are left in darkness ; 
 and in time of war, and thence at all other times 
 (since there are none in which the approach or 
 danger of war may not be imminent) it being ne- 
 cessary that in the hands of the administration 
 there should exist means of purchasing services, 
 such as under any apprehension of disclosure 
 would be unobtainable : hence a fund for this pur- 
 pose ever has been, and ever ought to be, on foot. 
 
 In the case of pensions, some of the above four 
 particulars are open to discussion: two of them, 
 and two only, are open to view ; viz. 1. The per- 
 son on whom so much of that matter, viz. Money, 
 which is in use to be applied, and in this case is 
 applied, to the purpose of remuneration, has been 
 bestowed. 2. The quantity of that matter thus 
 bestowed. What is not open to view is whether it 
 is under the notion of his having rendered any pub- 
 lic service, that the money has been bestowed ; 
 much less whether such notion, supposing it really 
 entertained, be in any degree just or no. 
 
 4. In the case of Sinecures, he saw all these helps 
 to misapplication having place, and as compared 
 with the case of pensions, acting in much greater 
 force. In the case of a pension, what is bestowed 
 constitutes a new article, put upon an already ex- 
 isting list: a list, which if not already public, is 
 liable to become so at any time ; — a list, which in 
 the mean time, whether made known or not to the 
 public, cannot but be kept constantly in view by 
 various members of administration, if it were only 
 lest the fund on which it is settled should be over- 
 
§ IV. Concerning Title to Reward. 35 
 
 loaded ; — a list such, that no fresh article can ever 
 be placed on it, without producing a fresh sensa- 
 tion, as constituting a manifest addition to the mass 
 of public burthens; and in relation to which it is 
 impossible, but that to many persons the question 
 must occur — on what grounds, and with what pro- 
 priety, has this addition been made ? 
 
 In the case of sinecures, not one of these spurs 
 to attention had, in his view, any more than they 
 have at present, any existence. Sinecure list, 
 none: no, nor so much as a future possibility of 
 making out any such thing, without a course of 
 intricate inquiry, such as even now, in the fourth 
 year of the sitting of a second Finance Committee, 
 has not been completed. A sinecure office falling 
 vacant, the vacancy is in case of this inefficient, as 
 in the case of any efficient sort of office, filled up in 
 course; filled up under no other impression than 
 the general one, viz. that in the list of offices, as 
 often as one name drops out, another must accord- 
 ing to usage be put in the room of it. 
 
 In two different situations, he saw the same set 
 of hands, viz. those of the servants of the Crown, 
 habitually employed in disposing of the property 
 of the public, whether to the purpose, real or sup- 
 posed, of remuneration, or to any other purpose. 
 In two different situations, viz. out of parliament 
 and in parliament ; in parliament, since without 
 their concurrence, even in parliament, no such 
 power can under the established rules be exer- 
 cised. Of this difference, what is now, what in 
 his view could have been, the consequence ? Dis- 
 posed of in parliament, the money had never been 
 disposed of, but that to the misapplication of it 
 there had been some check, though how far from 
 being so effectual a one as might be wished, is but 
 too notorious. Disposed of, out of parliament, as 
 
 d 2 
 
3(5 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 in the shape of a sinecure emolument, the misap- 
 plication of it had never experienced, nor in the 
 nature of the case was capable of experiencing, any 
 check whatever. It is in this shape that we see 
 him defending it. 
 
 Of this state of things, the consequence was and 
 is as obvious and natural as the existence of it is 
 incontestable. When, at the expense of the peo- 
 ple, on the ground of service rendered to the peo- 
 ple, a case can, it is supposed, be made, be it ever 
 so weak a one, recourse is had to parliament, and 
 parliament is the hand by which the favour is 
 bestowed. When no such case can be made — 
 when the very mention of public service might be 
 regarded as mockery and insult, when the annihi- 
 lation of the precious matter thus bestowed would 
 be a public blessing, a secret hand acting out of 
 parliament, is the hand occupied in such ser- 
 vice : windfalls are waited for, Tellerships are 
 bestowed. 
 
 Whatever you want in force of reason, make up 
 in force of assertion. Whatever is wanting in merit, 
 make up in eulogy. Maxims these the use and 
 value of which are perfectly understood by so- 
 phists of all classes. 
 
 Our Rhetorician goes on. " It is indeed" (mean- 
 ing by it the principle which prescribes the divid- 
 ing the substance of the people among great fami- 
 lies, and families that are to be made great by such 
 means) " it is indeed the only genuine, unadulte- 
 rated origin of nobility." Peculation the only 
 genuine and unadulterated origin of nobility ! 
 What a character of nobility ! What a plea for the 
 House of Lords ! What a lesson to the people! 
 
 " It is" (continues he) " a great principle in 
 Government ; a principle at the very foundation of 
 the whole structure." O yes, such a principle 
 
§ V. Concerning virtuous Ambition, 6)'c\ 37 
 
 exactly as a running stream would be, running 
 under the foundation of a structure erected on 
 a quicksand. 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 CONCERNING VIRTUOUS AMBITION, GRATITUDE, 
 AND PIETY. 
 
 Propositions 5, 6, 7, 8. 
 
 Proposition 5. When ambition is virtuous, no- 
 thing but money is capable of acting with effect as 
 an incitement to it; power in whatever shape — 
 power of management — power of patronage; dig- 
 nities, honours, reputation — respect, by whatever 
 cause created, are all without effect. 
 
 Proof. " Indeed no man knows" (continues 
 the rhetorician) " no man knows when he cuts 
 off the incitements" (" the incitements," i. e. the 
 sole incitements) " to a virtuous ambition, and 
 the just rewards of public service, what infinite 
 mischief he may do his country through all gene- 
 rations. Such saving to the public may be the 
 worst mode of robbing it." 
 
 " The incitements;" meaning those alone which 
 are composed of money. For thereupon comes a 
 panegyric on the virtue of money ; an eulogium 
 composed of a string of phrases, which in the 
 common-place book of a university poem-maker, 
 might, if the subject of the poem were the virtues 
 of money, perform the sort of service performed to 
 genius in the bud in that useful manual called the 
 Gradus ad Parnassian, under the head of synonyms 
 or phrases. 
 
 " The means for the repose of public labour" — 
 " The fixed settlement of acknowledged merit" — 
 " A harbour into which the weather-beaten vessels 
 
38 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 of the state ought to come ; a retreat from the 
 malice of rivals, from the perfidy of political friends, 
 and the inconstancy of the people." 
 
 How pitiable under this view of it, must be the 
 condition of every man, who without a certainty 
 of raising a family into overgrown opulence at the 
 expense of the people, employs his time, or any 
 part of it, in any branch, at least in any of the 
 higher branches, of the public service! — of every 
 member of parliament, at least (for to honourable 
 gentlemen of this description do the regards of the 
 rhetorician appear on this occasion to have con- 
 fined themselves) of every member of parliament 
 who ventures his bark in any such stormy latitude, 
 without the certainty of a ; ' harbour" in the shape 
 of an auditorship, or a cut-down Tellership at 
 least ! 
 
 Storms and tempests forsooth 1 Yes, such as we 
 see on canvas at Covent Garden, and hope to see 
 again at Drury Lane. Labour as severe almost as 
 what is undergone on the Cricket Ground, or at 
 the Card Table, and standing about as much in 
 need of remuneration at the expense of the people : 
 labour such as, without receiving the value of a 
 farthing from any hand that did not itself cheer- 
 fully take the money out of its own pocket, Mr. 
 Gale Jones and his company would have under- 
 gone, and continued to undergo, if the Honourable 
 House could have prevailed upon itself to suffer 
 them: labour far short of that which on the same 
 ocean the newspaper reporters were in the habit of 
 undergoing, and if Mr. Yorke and his honourable 
 and worthy nephew had suffered them, would have 
 continued to undergo, without ceasing: and even 
 (how " incomplete" soever, " and indeed wholly 
 insufficient for that purpose ;" " for that public 
 service must" (as Mr. Burke says) " be those 
 
§ V. Concerning virtuous Ambition, §c. 39 
 
 means of rewarding" that " public service") yes, 
 even without " further reward for that service 
 than the daily wages received during pleasure : — 
 daily labour beyond comparison more compulsory, 
 more assiduous, more severe, than that which, be- 
 sides so many contingent sweets, has present ho- 
 nour for a sweetening to it; — daily labour without 
 pension of retreat, without provision for superan- 
 nuation; provision, actual or eventual, for widows or 
 mistresses, children or grandchildren, uncles or 
 aunts, brothers or sisters, nephews or, nieces ; 
 without power either of management or patronage, 
 without either possession or prospect of honour, 
 dignity, reputation or respect in any shape. 
 
 Proposition 6. So as the place be permanent, the 
 hope of receiving it, how large soever the mass of 
 emolument attached to it, " does not operate as 
 corruption" — does not produce " dependence. " 
 
 Proof. " Many of the persons who in all times 
 have filled the Great Offices of State, have" (says 
 he) " been younger brothers, who had originally 
 little, if any fortune. There ought to be" (conti- 
 nues he) "some power in the Crown of granting 
 pensions out of the reach of its own caprices." — 
 Caprices ! The hand by which the whole property 
 of the people is thus to be disposed of, has it then 
 its caprices ? O yes, for the moment, and for the 
 purpose of the argument. What is it that it may 
 not happen to a thing to have or not have, for 
 the purpose of the argument? "The intail of 
 dependence" (continues he) " is a bad reward of 
 merit." 
 
 " I would therefore leave to the Crown," says 
 he (viz. to the " caprices" of the Crown) " the 
 possibility of conferring some favours, which, 
 whilst they are received as a reward, do not ope- 
 rate as corruption; — as if, to this purpose, call it 
 
40 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 good, call it a bad one, a pension might not be 
 made to operate with the same effect as a sine- 
 cure, both being equally for life. 
 
 Proposition 7- When a man is in parliament, 
 whatsoever be the conduct of the servants of the 
 Crown, and whatsoever be the quantity of money 
 he may gain or hope to gain by giving them his 
 indiscriminating support, virtue requires that, to 
 protect him against the charge of corruption, he be 
 provided with the plea of gratitude; which plea 
 pleaded, acquittal follows of course. 
 
 " When men receive obligations from the Crown 
 through the pious hands of a father, or of connec- 
 tions as venerable as the paternal, the depen- 
 dencies" (says he) " which arise from them are 
 the obligations of gratitude, and not the fetters of 
 servility. Such ties" (continues he) " originate in 
 virtue, and they promote it." 
 
 Proposition b. When a man happens to have 
 children, " piety" on his part consists in filling 
 their pockets with public money. 
 
 Proof The epithet " pious" applied with so 
 much unction to paternal hands thus occupied. 
 
 Observations. In the WolPs Bible, piety would 
 indeed naturally enough consist in providing lamb, 
 as much as she could lay her paws upon, to feed 
 her cubs with. But in the Shepherd's Bible, at 
 least the Good Shepherd's Bible, piety will pro- 
 bably be found rather to consist in keeping the 
 lambs from being disposed of to such pious uses. 
 The orator, though not a no-popery-man, was fond 
 of his Bible, and here we have a sample of the uses 
 he was fond of making of it. 
 
41 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 CONCERNING PARTY-MEN AND THEIR PRIN- 
 CIPLES. 
 
 Propositions 9, 10. 
 
 Proposition 9. Men, who have at any time 
 joined together in the way of party, ought not 
 ever, any one of them, to differ from any other ; 
 nor therefore to act, any one of them, according to 
 his own conception of what is right. Sinecures, 
 if not absolutely necessary, are highly conducive at 
 least, and thence proportionally useful, to the pur- 
 pose of preventing all such differences. 
 
 Proof. " They" (" such ties" as above) " con- 
 tinue men" (says he) " in those habitudes of 
 friendship, those political connections, and those 
 political principles" (we have seen what principle) 
 " in which they began life. They are antidotes 
 against a corrupt levity, instead of causes of it." 
 
 Observations. Sinecures, according to this ac- 
 count of them, seem to be as necessary to secure 
 fidelity at the expense of sincerity in parliament, 
 as test oaths and subscriptions are to secure various 
 good things, at the expense of reason or sincerity 
 there and elsewhere. 
 
 Two things here call for notice, the proposed end 
 and the proposed means. Proposed end, each 
 man's persevering in the principles (whatever is 
 meant by principles) in the professions and habits, 
 right or wrong, in which he " began life;" i. e. 
 which it happened to him to have imbibed from the 
 instructors under whom it had happened to him to 
 bo placed, and the society in which it had hap- 
 pened to him to have lived. Proposed means; 
 
42 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 his having got into his hands as much public mo- 
 ney as his parents and other connections could 
 contrive to put into them by means of sinecures. 
 Means and end, it must be acknowledged, are not 
 ill matched. 
 
 Proposition 10. On a change of Ministry, were 
 it not for the sinecures, the comers-in would cut 
 the throats of the goers-out; whereupon " the 
 " sons" of the goers-out would " cringe" to the 
 same comers-in (now ins) and " kiss their hands." 
 
 Proof. " What an unseemly spectacle would it 
 afford, what a disgrace would it be to the common- 
 wealth that suffered such things, to see the hopeful 
 son of a meritorious minister begging his bread at 
 the door of that treasury from whence his father 
 dispensed the happiness and glory of his country ? 
 Why should he be obliged to prostrate his honour, 
 and to submit his principles at the levee of some 
 proud favourite, shouldered and thrust aside by 
 every impudent pretender, in the very spot where 
 a few days before he saw himself adored ? — obliged 
 to cringe to the author of the calamities of his 
 house, and to kiss the hands that are red with his 
 father's blood ? No, Sir ; — these things are unfit, 
 they are intolerable." 
 
 Observations. And so there are, it seems, such 
 things as proud favourites. But if so, what sort 
 of food is their pride fed upon ? Sinecures ? And 
 if so, is not one of these proud favourites on every 
 occasion a dangerous rival to the hopeful son of a 
 meritorious minister ? But the plan was — that 
 there should be enough of them for every body : 
 and thus every thing would be as it should be. 
 
43 
 
 SECTION VII. 
 
 CONCERNING MINISTERS AND THEIR DUTY TO 
 THEMSELVES. 
 
 Propositions 11, 12, 13, 14. 
 
 Proposition 11. The danger of a man's being 
 too bountiful to himself, when, in and by the adju- 
 dication of reward claimed on the ground of service 
 said to have been rendered to the public, he is 
 allowed to be judge in his own cause, affords no 
 reason, at least no conclusive reason, against the 
 allowing him to act in that character. 
 
 " As to abuse," (says he) " I am convinced, 
 that very few trusts in the ordinary course of admi- 
 nistration, have admitted less abuse than this. 
 Efficient ministers have been their own paymasters. 
 It is true. But their very partiality has operated 
 as a kind of justice ; and still it was service that 
 was paid. When we look over this Exche- 
 quer List, we find it filled with the descen- 
 dants of the Walpoles, of the Pelhams, of the 
 Townsends, names to whom this country owes its 
 liberties and to whom his Majesty owes his Crown.* 
 It was in one of those lines that the immense and 
 envied employment he now holds, came to a cer- 
 tain Duke/' (" the Duke of Newcastle," says a 
 note) " whose dining room is under the House of 
 Commons, who is now probably sitting quietly at 
 
 * Their co-operation within doors by hundreds, and without 
 doors by millions, he would have us believe, having had no 
 share in the business, or at least no merit in it. These men 
 stand up in a room (abs'U verbo invidia) and pronounce a set of 
 phrases, and by these men alone (we are desired to believe) by 
 t hesc men alone it is, that every thing that is done, is done. 
 
44 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 a very good dinner directly under us, and acting 
 high life below stairs, whilst we his masters are 
 filling our mouths with unsubstantial sounds, and 
 talking of hungry economy over his head." 
 
 For merited wealth and honour he declares his 
 " respect:" " respect" which accompanies it 
 " through all its descents, through all its transfers, 
 and all its assignments." In plain English, the 
 object of his respect is wealth itself, whatever 
 hands he sees it in. As for " original title." and 
 "first purchase " and the epithet " merited" pre- 
 fixed to " wealth" all this is for decency and 
 delusion. For as to merited, the orator's notion 
 about merits have surely by this time become suffi- 
 ciently apparent. 
 
 And as to title, what is it that on the subject of 
 title, specific title, so much as asserted, not to speak 
 of proved, he ever drops so much as a hint of his 
 looking upon as requisite ? No: with him, to the 
 purpose of approbation, though without reason, as 
 in a lawyer's point of view, to the purpose of pro- 
 tection, for the best reason, possession of wealth, 
 acquired at the public expense, is regarded as proof 
 of title: and that proof not only presumptive and 
 provisional, but conclusive. 
 
 As for transfer and assignment — wealth sure 
 enough is transferable and assignable. But merit/ 
 is merit too a subject of bargain and sale ? A 
 manor ? yes. But manners, those " manners" 
 which, in the language of Edward the Third's 
 chancellor " maketh man," are these manners with 
 an e, appendages and appurtenances that by the at- 
 traction of cohesion adhere to, and are rendered in- 
 separable from, the manors with an o? 
 
 Wealth or power, wherever you see them, 
 " prostrate" yourself before them : " cringe to" 
 them, and though they be " red with" your "/«- 
 
§ VII. Ministers and their Duly to themselves. 45 
 
 ther's blood," " kiss the hands" that grasp them. 
 This is what you are " obliged" to do: and that 
 which is matter of obligation, how can it be matter 
 of blame ? Such are the precepts which call for 
 the observance of that pupil whose preceptor is 
 Edmund Burke. 
 
 After the predilection he thus declared, predi- 
 lection for vicarious reward, in short for any thing 
 that can afford to political rapacity a colour or a 
 cloak, to complete the system of corruption and 
 tyranny, what more can be wanting than a like de- 
 claration in favour of vicarious punishment ! 
 
 Observations. " But" (continues the orator) "he 
 is the elder branch of an ancient and decayed 
 house, joined to, and repaired by the reward of 
 services done by another." Thus far the orator. 
 
 " Done by another " Yes, done by George the 
 Second's old favourite the minister Duke of New- 
 castle, whose culinary profusion and political inap- 
 titude were alike proverbial, whose inefficiency the 
 efficiency of the first Pitt had for such a length of 
 time to struggle with, and whose services consisted 
 in the sacrifice made of his patrimony to his palate 
 and his pride. 
 
 " I respect" (continues the rhetorician) " the ori- 
 ginal title, and the first purchase of merited wealth 
 and honour through all its descents, through all its 
 transfers, and all its assignments. May such foun- 
 tains never be dried up ! May they ever flow with 
 their original purity, and fructify the common- 
 wealth for ages." 
 
 May such fountains never be dried up! exclaims 
 the ejaculation, poured forth with fervency, with 
 almost the solemnity, and with at least the sin- 
 cerity, of a prayer. " May such fountains never be 
 dried up." As if he had not all this while in full 
 view a fountain of this sort, the patrimony of the 
 
46 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 Crown, all but dried up, and that almost a century 
 before the utterance of this prayer : as if any thing 
 could operate more speedily, or more effectually, 
 towards the drying up of all such fountains, than 
 the acting up to those laws of profusion to the 
 keeping of which it was the object of this prayer 
 to incline men's hearts. 
 
 Proposition \ L 2. If it be admitted that the masses 
 of emolument, respectively attatched to the great 
 efficient offices, are not excessive, this admission 
 will be sufficient to justify the possessors of them 
 in putting into their pockets additional masses of 
 emolument to an unlimited amount, on condition 
 of creating or keeping on foot inefficient offices, to 
 which such additional masses of emolument shall 
 respectively stand attached. 
 
 Proof " If I were to give judgment" (says he) 
 " with regard to this country, I do not think the 
 great offices of the state to be overpaid. When 
 the proportion between reward and service" (re- 
 sumes he) " is our objective must always consider 
 of what nature the service is, and what sort of 
 men they are, who are to perform it. What is just 
 payment for one kind of labour, and full encou- 
 ragement for one kind of talents, is fraud and 
 discouragement to others." 
 
 Observations. True enough. But what is it to the 
 purpose ? and what is it that it amounts to ? and 
 what is it that by volumes of phrases thus floating 
 in the air would be proved ? 
 
 " Not overpaid." For the purpose of the argu- 
 ment let it pass. 
 
 " Not overpaid!" Admitted. But does it fol- 
 low that they are underpaid I 4,000/. a year, or 
 6,000/. a year not excessive? Good: but does it 
 follow that 23,000/. a year, or that 38,000/. a year 
 must be added ? 
 
§ VII. Ministers, and their Duty to themselves. 47 
 
 Proposition 13. To justify the leaving to the 
 possessors of public offices, in an unlimited num- 
 ber, the power of putting each into his own pocket, 
 and into the pockets of his relatives, and friends, 
 and dependents, and their respective descendants, 
 such supplemental masses of emolument, each to 
 an unlimited amount, it is sufficient to point out 
 one office and one class of offices, which present 
 a reasonable claim to larger masses of emolument 
 than what are attached to the rest. 
 
 Proof. "Many of the great officers have much 
 duty to do, and much expense to maintain." 
 
 " A Secretary of State, for instance, must not 
 appear sordid in the eyes of Ministers of other 
 nations. 
 
 " Neither ought our Ministers abroad to appear 
 contemptible in the Courts where they reside." 
 
 "In all offices of duty" (continues he) " there 
 is almost necessarily a great neglect of all domestic 
 affairs. A person in high office can rarely take a 
 view of his family-house. If he sees that the 
 state takes no detriment, the state must see that 
 his affairs should take as little." 
 
 Proposition 14. In the case of a real efficient 
 office, no mass of emolument which either is or can 
 be attached to it, ever is or ever can be too great. 
 
 Proofs. " I am not" (says he) " possessed of 
 an exact measure between real service and its 
 reward." 
 
 "lam" (continues he) " very sure that states 
 do sometimes receive services, which it is hardly 
 in their power to reward according to their worth." 
 
 "I do not" (continues he) "think the great 
 efficient officers of the state to be overpaid:" he, 
 Edmund Burke, who in so many words, has just 
 been saying, " If 1 knew of any real efficient office 
 which did possess exorbitant emoluments I should 
 
48 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 be extremely desirous of reducing them. Others" 
 (continues he) " may know of them. I do not." 
 
 Observatiojis. Of the sincerity of this declara- 
 tion, no question need be made. If so it had 
 been, that any such office, " possessing emoluments" 
 which in his eyes were "exorbitant" had been 
 known to him, a "desire" and that an "extreme" 
 one, " of reducing" those exorbitant emoluments 
 would have been the result of such knowledge. 
 But in his eyes no such emoluments could be 
 exorbitant. Therefore in his breast the formation 
 of such desire must, notwithstanding the extreme 
 desire he could not but have had to form such a 
 desire, have been impossible. 
 
 At that moment, and for the purpose of the 
 argument, such was the ignorance of Edmund 
 Burke that he "was not possessed of," i, e. he 
 knew not of " an exact common measure between 
 real service and its reward." But except Edmund 
 Burke, no man is thus ignorant, any more than 
 Edmund Burke himself could be at any other time 
 than that in which such ignorance had its conve- 
 nience. 
 
 Between " real service and its reward " the exact 
 common measure is the least quantity of the mat- 
 ter of reward that he who is able to render the 
 service consents to take in return for it. This is 
 the measure of all prices: this is the measure of 
 the value of all good things that are at once valua- 
 ble and tangible. This is the measure of the value 
 of all labour, by which things tangible are pro- 
 duced : as also of all labour by which, though 
 nothing tangible is produced, valuable service in 
 some other shape is rendered. This was the com- 
 mon measure, by which the exact value had been 
 assigned to the coat he had on his back. This 
 was the exact common measure of the value of 
 
§ VII. Ministers, and their Duty to themselves. 49 
 
 those real services which had been rendered 
 him by the person or persons by whom his coat 
 had by means of one kind of brush, and his shoes 
 by means of two others, been qualified for their 
 attendance on the lips, by which this brilliant 
 bubble was blown out. 
 
 But (says the sophist, or some disciple for him) 
 there is no analogy (says he) between the service 
 rendered to the public by a Minister of State, and 
 the service rendered to one individual, by another 
 individual, who removes extraneous matter from 
 his coat, or puts a polish upon his shoes. 
 
 O yes there is — and to the purpose here in ques- 
 tion, analogy quite sufficient. 
 
 1. They stand upon the same ground (the two 
 services) in point of economy. There is no more 
 economy in paying 38,000/. a year for the wearer 
 of the coat, if he can be had for nothing, than in 
 paying 20/. for a coat itself, if he can be had for 10/. 
 
 For the wearer of the coat — I mean, of course, 
 for his services : his services; I mean his services 
 to the public, if so it be that he be capable of 
 rendering any. 
 
 But the misfortune is, that when once the 
 " reward for service" has swelled to any such pitch, 
 any question about the service itself — what is it ? 
 what does it consist in ? who is it that is to render 
 it? what desire, or what means has he of render- 
 ing it? of rendering to the public that sort of 
 service, or any sort of service ? Any question of 
 this sort becomes a joke. 
 
 Where Sinecures, and those " high situations" 
 in which they have now and then become the sub- 
 jects of conversation among "great characters," 
 are taken for the subject of conversation among 
 little characters in their low situations, questions 
 and answers are apt to become giddy, and to turn 
 
 E 
 
50 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 round in a circle. What are Sinecures of 38,000/. 
 a year good for? to maintain the Sinecurists. What 
 are the Sinecurists good for? to maintain the Sine- 
 cures. Thus on profane ground. — Thus again, 
 on sacred ground. What are Bishopricks good for? 
 to support Bishops. What are Bishops good for ? 
 to support Bishopricks. 
 
 2. So again as to probability of efficiency, and 
 meritoriousness on the part of the service. Com- 
 petition — preference given to the best bidder 
 among candidates bidding upon each other, under 
 the spur applied by that incentive — competition, 
 affords in the instance of the party chosen, a better 
 chance of fitness for the office and its services, than 
 will in general be afforded by preference given, 
 either without a thought about fitness for the ser- 
 vice, or about merit in any other shape, or with 
 thoughts confined to such merit of which Parlia- 
 ment is the only theatre, and in the composition of 
 which, obsequiousness is the principal ingredient, 
 and that an indispensable one. But of this propo- 
 sition the truth, it is hoped, has been rendered suf- 
 ficiently apparent elsewhere.* 
 
 SECTION VIII. 
 
 CONCERNING GRATUITOUS SERVICE, AND THE 
 PROFLIGACY INVOLVED IN IT. 
 
 Propositions \5, \6. 
 
 Proposition 1 5. — If a man were to decline receiv- 
 ing at the public expense, money which it were in 
 his power to receive without danger either of pu- 
 nishment or of disgrace, it would be a conclusive 
 
 * Part I. 
 
§ VIII. Concerning gratuitous Service, Sfc. $\ 
 
 proof that his designs were to endeavour to filch 
 money from the public, in some mode that would 
 subject him to danger in one or other of the two 
 shapes, or in both. 
 
 Proof. " I will even go so far," (says he, p. 67) 
 " as to affirm, that if men were willing to serve in 
 such situations" (viz. offices of duty, " all offices 
 of duty" p. 66) " without salary, they ought not 
 to be permitted to do it. Ordinary service must 
 be secured by the motives to ordinary integrity. 1 
 do not hesitate to say, that, iliat state which lays 
 its foundation in rare and heroic virtues, will be 
 sure to have its superstructure in the basest profli- 
 gacy and corruption. An honourable and fair 
 profit is the best security against avarice and rapa- 
 city ; as in all things else, a lawful and regulated 
 enjoyment is the best security against debauchery 
 and excess." 
 
 Observations. " If men were willing to serve in 
 such situations without salary, they ought not" (says 
 he) " to be permitted to do it" Here we have the 
 theory — the* waste-and-eorruption-defendi ng So- 
 phist's theory. What says experience ? In Part 1. 
 of this tract may be seen a list, nor that yet a 
 complete one, of men of various classes serving in 
 such situations ; and not merely without salary, 
 but without neat emolument in any shape : and as 
 for the not permitting them to do so, whether in 
 in such non-permission, in whatsoever manner 
 effected, whether by prohibition or otherwise, there 
 would be any, and what use, let the reader, if any 
 such there be, on whom this rhapsody has passed 
 for reason or for reasoning, learn from it, if he be 
 able. 
 
 " Ordinary services" (says the orator) " must 
 be secured by the -motives to ordinary integrity." In 
 Part 1. the reader, it is hoped, has already seen, 
 
 e 2 
 
52 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 that for the securing of ordinary service, to furnish 
 any motive whatever, is not in the nature of Sa- 
 lary: that in so far as ordinary service comes to be 
 rendered, it is by apprehension of eventual punish- 
 ment that it is produced, that all that by salary can 
 ever be done towards the production of it, is by 
 engaging a man to subject himself to such eventual 
 punishment ; and that, if so it be, that without sa- 
 lary, he is content to subject himself to such 
 eventual punishment, the service (it being ordi- 
 nary service) is not merely as likely, but more 
 likely, to be produced without salary than with it. 
 
 " That state which lays its foundation in rare and 
 heroic virtues," says the orator, meaning (for there 
 is nothing else to which the word " virtues" can 
 have any application) the disposition manifested 
 by him, who " without salary is willing to serve in 
 such situations." Now, in a disposition of that 
 sort, though there be great use, there is nothing 
 that can bear the name of virtue. For (as is suffi- 
 ciently proved by every morsel a man puts into his 
 mouth, and every draught or sip he takes) so it is, 
 that out of mere utility, even though it rise to the 
 height of absolute necessity, no such thing as virtue 
 can be made. Not that in these " situations," or 
 any of them, whether " served in," " with or 
 " without salary," virtue rising even to heroism 
 may not perhaps by accident be displayed : but 
 any such accidental display is quite another bu- 
 siness. 
 
 Now, if even by actual service in such situa- 
 tions, no " virtue" at all is displayed, or, by the 
 man himself, who thus serves, is so much as con- 
 ceived to be displayed, whether in the mere wil- 
 lingness so to serve there be any room for " rare 
 or heroic virtue," may be left to any reasonable per- 
 son to pronounce. 
 
§ VIII. Concerning gratuitous Service, fyc. 53 
 
 Proposition \6. In any office of duty, " to be 
 willing toserve without salary," is to pretend to 
 " rare and heroic virtue, " and is a " sure" indica- 
 tion of" the basest profligacy and corruption." 
 
 Proof. " In all offices of duty," (says he, p. o'(i) 
 " there is almost necessarily a great neglect of all 
 domestic affairs. A person in high office can rarely 
 
 take a view of his family house." " 1 will even 
 
 go so far as to affirm," (continues he, p. 6?) " that 
 if' men were willing to serve in such situations with- 
 out salary, they ought not to be permitted to do it. 
 I do not hesitate to say," (continues he) " that, 
 that state which lays its foundation in rare and 
 heroic virtues will be sure to have its superstructure 
 in the basest profligacy and corruption." 
 
 Observations. In Part I. of this publication, may 
 be seen a list, though by no means a complete one, 
 of offices " willingly served," not only without 
 salary, but even without emolument ; as also a list 
 of others, by and for the obtainment of which, 
 men are found who are willing to be out of pocket. 
 
 Observations. The Office of Member of the 
 House of Commons — the Office of Delegate of the 
 people in Parliament — is that, or is it not, in the 
 number of his " Offices of Duty ?" Is that, or is it 
 not, in the number of his " high Offices ?" Mem- 
 bers of the House of Commons as such — the Mem- 
 bers of the House of Commons taken together — 
 have they not, in conjunction with their duty, 
 more power than the Members of Administration 
 taken together ? In the Members of the House 
 of Commons taken together, do not the Members 
 of Administration taken together, behold their 
 Judges, to whom, for their conduct as such they 
 are continually accountable, and by whom, under 
 the form of an address to the King, they are in 
 effect displaceable? This assertion then, to the ab- 
 
54 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 surdity of which men are to be made to shut their 
 eyes by the violence, the unhesitating and auda- 
 cious violence, with which it is endeavoured to be 
 driven down their throats — try it, try it in the first 
 placed upon the Members of the House of Commons. 
 
 A Member of the House of Commons, who, in 
 that his office, " is willing to serve without salary, 
 ought not to be permitted to do it." Whoever does 
 serve on any such terms, is a most " base and cor- 
 rupt profligate. " 
 
 From this charge of base and corrupt profligacy, 
 having for its proof the fact of a man's performing 
 public duty without salary, the impossibility of ob- 
 taining any portion of this his specific against cor- 
 ruption, may, it is hoped, according to the orator's 
 system, serve in the character of an extenuation, in 
 a case where the inability is real and unaffected. 
 
 But within the compass of his knowledge, what 
 man, public or private, can beat any loss to find 
 public men — men of distinguished talents — men 
 even of distinguished eloquence — who in that very 
 station have served, and for a long continued 
 course of years, with as much assiduity as it is 
 possible for men to bestow, even for and with the 
 most overflowing measure of reward ? serving and 
 toiling with an assiduity equal to that of the most 
 assiduous minister all the time, yet without fac- 
 titious reward in any shape, all the time having at 
 command rewards to the highest amount, and even 
 at the public expense ? 
 
 Of these base and corrupt profligates, as Edmund 
 Burke called them, and would have persuaded us 
 to think them, I had even began a list, none of 
 them unknown even to Edmund Burke, when I 
 was stopped at once by a concurring cluster of con- 
 siderations : the personality of the detail, my own 
 incompetency for it, the room it would have 
 
§ VIII. Concerning gratuitous Service, S\'e. 65 
 
 occupied, and, as it seemed to me, the superfluity 
 of it. 
 
 As between individual and individual, that with- 
 out expectation of money or money's worth, in any 
 shape, in return, it may not happen to an individual 
 to render a service to another, nay, even to persevere 
 as towards him it) a course of service of any length 
 and degree of constancy, and this, too, without any 
 sort of prejudice to probity, not to speak of base 
 and corrupt profligacy, is surely more than any 
 man, even the orator himself, was ever heard to as- 
 sert : why not then to the public at large — to that 
 all comprehensive body, of which individuals 
 taken together are component parts? 
 
 For the labour or the self-denial necessary to 
 the rendering the service to the individual, pure 
 sympathy, pure of all self-regarding considerations, 
 is frequently the sole, and being at the same time 
 the efficacious, is thereby the self-sufficient motive. 
 But when the public is the party to whom the 
 service is rendered ; in this case, in addition to 
 whatsoever emotion of sympathy is called forth 
 by the contemplation of the welfare of this 
 aggregate body, in aid of that purely social spring 
 of action, comes the prospect of gratification to the 
 self-regarding affection, love of reputation, accom- 
 panied or not with the love of that power, which, 
 whether put to use or not, reputation brings with 
 her in her hand. 
 
 Besides the shape in which he would receive 
 payment for the service, if no more than a single 
 individual were the better for it, he who renders 
 service to the public receives, or at least may not 
 unreasonably expect to receive, payment for it, in 
 those two other shapes besides. Yet, in the eyes 
 of the orator, if he is to be believed, so unnatural 
 
56 Defence of Economy a gainst Burke. 
 
 and incredible is the disposition to be on any oc- 
 casion content with this treble payment, thatshould 
 any such disposition find any man to manifest it, 
 what the orater is quite " sure" of, and insists upon 
 our believing, is, that that man belongs to the list 
 of " base and corrupt profligates." Such is his sin- 
 cerity, or such his knowledge of human nature. 
 
 After an answer thus conclusive, it may be 
 matter of doubt, whether the inanity of the argu- 
 ments, considered with reference to the state of 
 things the orator saw at that time before him, be 
 worth touching upon. 
 
 As in a magic lantern, the scene shifts every 
 moment under his hands. On the occasion in 
 question, to be of any considerable use, the view 
 taken, it was necessary, should embrace the whole 
 field of official emolument — the whole field of 
 office. So, in his hands, but a page or two before 
 it accordingly did. Now, and without warning, 
 the extent of it is shrunk, perhaps to that of half 
 a dozen offices, perhaps to that of a single office. 
 To a single office confined it must be — to a single 
 office, viz. that of the chief Minister, if, of the 
 plan oHii/pocrist/ he speaks of, the sort of despotism 
 he speaks of is, in case of success, to be the conse- 
 quence. 
 
 " Unfair advantage to ostentatious ambition over 
 unpretending service," — " invidious comparisons," 
 — " destruction of whatever little unity and agree- 
 ment may be found among Ministers :" — all these 
 words, what is it they amount to ? words, and 
 nothing more. 
 
 Realized they might be — all these supposed dis- 
 asters ; and still, on the part of the people, the 
 question might be — What then ? what is all that 
 to us ? how is it that we should be the worse 
 for it ? 
 
§ VIII. Concerning gratuitous Service, §'c. 57 
 
 1. Says A, I don't want all this money. Says B, 
 I do. Here the thing which A is ambitious of is 
 power, and power only : the thing coveted by B 
 is the same power, with the money into the bar- 
 gain. On the part of A, where now is the os- 
 tentation, where the ambition, more than on the 
 part of B : and, if there were, where would be the 
 specific mischief of it in any tangible shape ? 
 
 2. Invidious comparisons / What is choice with- 
 out comparison f and if invidious meant any thing, 
 where is the comparison, which being made for the 
 purpose of choice, is not invidious ? What is par- 
 liamentary debate, what is any debate, but a topic 
 of invidious comparisons ? 
 
 3. Destruction of unity and agreement among 
 Ministers! According to circumstances, such de- 
 struction is either a misfortune or a blessing:. 
 Misfortune to be sure it is, and nothing else, with 
 reference to the ten or a dozen persons spoken of: 
 but with reference to the people and their in- 
 terests, a " destruction" of this sort is perhaps the 
 most efficient, though it be but a casual, check 
 upon misrule. In case of that system of miscon- 
 duct, which it is so constantly their interest, and 
 almost constantly in their power to persevere in, it 
 affords the only chance — of punishment it cannot 
 be said ; for of that never, for this last half century, 
 has there been any chance, — but of exposure. 
 And in this character, the people, thanks to able 
 instructors, begin to be not altogether insensible to 
 its value. 
 
 But a Government in the quondam Venetian 
 style — a Government, in which, under theguidance 
 of upstart Machiavelism, titled and confederated 
 imbecility should lord it over King and people, 
 and behind the screen of secrecy, waste, oppression, 
 
58 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 and peculation, should find themselves for ever 
 at their ease ; such was the Utopia of Edmund 
 Burke. 
 
 To dispose men, if it be possible, to distinguish 
 from solid argument, empty froth, such as this of 
 Edmund Burke's, to distinguish it, and, when- 
 ever found, to cast it forth from them with the 
 scorn which is its due, such has been the object ; 
 such, if they have had any, has been the use, of 
 these four or five last paragraphs. 
 
 SECTION IX. 
 
 A PROPHECY, AND BY BURKE THE KING WILL 
 
 SWALLOW UP THE WHOLE SUBSTANCE OF 
 THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Proposition \J. — The King, with the advice and 
 consent of Lords and Commons, will " infallibly" 
 one of these days, possess himself of the whole pro- 
 perty of the country. 
 
 Proof " For," (says he, p. 67) " as wealth is 
 power, so all power will infallibly draw wealth to 
 itself by some means or other : and when men are 
 left no way of ascertaining their profits but by their 
 means of obtaining them, those means," (continues 
 he, but the argument, it will be seen, required 
 him to say, those " profits ") " will be increased to 
 infinity. This is true" (continues he) " in all 
 the parts of administration as well as in the 
 whole." 
 
 Observations. These doctrines, I mean of the ex- 
 posure thus made of them, the use is, to show what 
 extravagances imagination is apt to launch into, 
 where, to bring down an ignis fatuus for the defence 
 of an indefensible proposition, it mounts without 
 
§ IX. A Prophecy by Burke. 5[) 
 
 rudder or compass into the region of vague and 
 aerial generalities. 
 
 The result, to any such extent as that in which, 
 for the purpose of the moment, the sophist tried, 
 or pretended, to regard it as infallible, is as far, 
 let us hope, from being in any degree a probable 
 one, as at another time he would have been from 
 speaking of it as such. 
 
 In the situation of Chief Minister, or in any 
 other situation, if, by means of an artifice, which, 
 long before it had travelled any considerable length 
 in the tract of success, must have become trans- 
 parent and visible to the whole people, it depended 
 upon a single individual to possess himself of the 
 whole " power" and by means of it the whole 
 " wealth " of the country, what is it that should 
 have prevented this conquest of the whole wealth 
 from having been achieved, achieved ages ago, by 
 those who have had the whole power in their 
 hands ? 
 
 To the poiccr, that exists in the hands of the 
 members of the sovereignty as such — to this power 
 is to be ascribed as to its cause, the aggregate mass 
 of the several portions of the matter of wealth, 
 which, in their individual capacities, are at any 
 given point of time respectively possessed by them. 
 To the power itself there are not any legal limits : 
 there ought not to be any. But to the aggregate 
 mass of wealth actually possessed by them, how ex- 
 cessive soever, limits there always are: limits compa- 
 ratively narrow: and, at all times, seeing what that 
 mass is, we see what those limits are. The King, 
 with the advice and consent of the Lords and 
 Commons, might, if such were his pleasure, might, 
 viz. by act of Parliament, take into his hands the 
 whole wealth of the country, and share it between 
 himself and them. Nothing could be more cor- 
 
60 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 rectly lawful: but, as few things would be more 
 manifestly inexpedient, it is what never has been 
 done, and what nobody sane or insane is afraid of 
 seeing done. 
 
 Not but that the advances made towards this 
 point of consummation have been somewhat nearer 
 than could have been wished: and in this way, as 
 in every other, in the eyes of those who profit by 
 what is wrong, " whatever is is right :" yes, and 
 not only right, but necessary. 
 
 But of the necessity where lies the proof? 
 Here, as elsewhere, it lies in the existence of the 
 practice: which where the thing to be proved is 
 the necessity of that same practice, is, according to 
 the logic of practical men, proof abundantly suf- 
 ficient. 
 
 Pressing on the people with so heavy a pressure 
 as this vast portion of their burthen does, on what 
 ground is it that it is concluded to be, to wit, in 
 the whole of it, necessary ? On this ground, viz. 
 that it is — that in the whole of it, it is — customary. 
 And how came it to be customary? Because 
 those whose interest it was to make it as great as 
 possible, as great as the people would endure to 
 see it made, found they had power, and without 
 preponderant inconvenience, in the shape of danger 
 to themselves, viz. from discontent on the part of 
 the people, to make it what it is. 
 
 This power, the word power being here taken in 
 the practical sense, is all that, to the purpose here 
 in question, has ever been attended to. As to 
 need, demand in respect of public utility, of that 
 utility which is such with reference to the interest 
 of the whole people, need or necessity in this sense, 
 never is — never has been — felt to be worth a 
 thought. 
 
 As to all those things, in respect to which it is 
 
§ IX. A Prophecy by Burke. 61 
 
 the interest of rulers that the mode of Government 
 should be bad, it of course always has been, and of 
 course always will be, as bad as, in their judgment, 
 the people will quietly endure to see it. 
 
 This Economy Bill of Edmund Burke, for 
 example, was it produced by virtue, by public 
 spirit, on the part of Edmund Burke ? No : nor 
 so much as by policy alone — if by policy be meant 
 any spontaneous policy on his part, how personal 
 soever and pure of public spirit. Towards the pro- 
 duction of this measure, such as it is, prudence, 
 meaning apprehension of nearer inconvenience, 
 howsoever assisted by policy, meaning hope of 
 more or less distant power, with its concomitant 
 sweets, operated, and with no small force as it 
 should seem, on his mind. The proof is in certain 
 petitions which he speaks of. 
 
 As to these "petitions " they are such as could 
 not have been all of them of his calling forth, at 
 least not all of them of his dictating-, since some 
 of them were troublesome to him. Amongst the 
 things called for by them was, in the instance of 
 several of them, the thing which in this place is 
 more particularly in question, viz. " the reduction 
 of exorbitant emoluments to efficient offices." This, 
 though spoken of by him as an article, " which 
 seems to be a sj)ecijic object in several of the pe- 
 titions" is an object with which he expressly 
 declares himself " not able to intermeddle."* 
 
 * That the thread of the rhetoric may be under view in its 
 entire state, and without a break, here follows the whole 
 passage : — 
 
 " Sir, I think myself bound to give you my reasons as clearly 
 and as fully, for stopping in the course of reformation as for 
 proceeding in it. My limits are the rules of law; the rules of 
 policy; and the service of the state. This is the reason why I 
 am not able to intermeddle with another article, which seems to 
 
02 
 
 SECTION X. 
 
 GRATUITOUS SERVICE, BURKE's OBJECTIONS TO 
 
 IT REFUTED. NECKER. BURKES EAST 
 
 INDIA BILL. 
 
 The orator continues — " If any individual were 
 to decline his appointments, it might" (continues 
 he, p. 67) " give an unfair advantage to osten- 
 tatious ambition over unpretending service; 
 might breed invidious comparisons ; it might 
 tend to destroy whatever little unity and agree- 
 ment may be found among ministers. And, after 
 all, when an ambitious man had run down his com- 
 petitors by a fallacious show of disinterestedness, 
 and fixed himself in power by that means, what 
 security is there that he would not change his 
 course, and claim as an indemnity ten times more 
 than he has given up?" 
 
 be a specific object in several of the petitions; I mean the reduc- 
 tion of exorbitant emoluments to efficient offices. If I knew 
 of any real efficient office which did possess exorbitant emolu- 
 ments " — (continues he) and then comes the profession of the 
 hypothetical and hypocritical wish to reduce them, as above. 
 
 " Rules of law," — " rules of policy " — " service of the state" — 
 all these quiddities may here be seen held up to view, as so many 
 distinct limits, serving as bars to reformation, let down, on this 
 occasion, for the particular purpose of stopping the reduction 
 of exorbitant emoluments : precious bars composed of rhetorical 
 jargon, void of meaning. " Rules of law," — no attempt to bring 
 forward any such rule : nor could any such attempt have been 
 other, than an absurd one. " Rules of law ?" Yes, to a judi- 
 catory. But to the legislator, what sort of a bar can that be, 
 which is removed or broken through of course, at every step 
 he takes. 
 
 " Rules of policy " and " the service of the state" — the same 
 idea ; as, in a strolling company, the same performer brought 
 on upon the stage, twice over in two different dresses. 
 
§ X. Gratuitous Service, Sfc. 63 
 
 To these arguments, such as they are, against 
 gratuitous service, my answer, so far as regards the 
 plan above alluded to, is a simple and decisive one. 
 To the plan of adequate salary, coupled with sale 
 so far as applicable, for the account of the public, 
 with the benefit of competition they have not, any 
 of them, any application. For '* ostentation, 3 * under 
 that plan there is no room: the retrenchment, 
 whatever it may amount to, being to all competitors 
 matter of necessity, to none more than another 
 matter of choice : and if it be in this ostentation, 
 that the two other alleged mischiefs, whatever 
 they may be, meant to be denoted by the words 
 " invidious comparison ," and "destruction of unity," 
 have their supposed source, the ostentation being 
 out of the case, so will these other supposed mis- 
 chiefs be likewise. 
 
 Here (to speak in his own words) there would 
 be no such "declining" — no such "unfair ad- 
 vantage'" — no such peculiarly '■'•invidious compa- 
 rison " — no such mischievous " destruction of 
 unity and agreement " — no such " running down 
 of competitors" (for one and the same call would 
 be given to all competitors) — no such " self-fixa- 
 tion" of one man alone " in power " and by means 
 peculiar to himself. 
 
 " And after all" (continues he, as above) " and 
 after all, when an ambitious man had run down his 
 competitors by a fallacious show of disinterested- 
 ness, and fixed himself in power by that means, 
 what security is there that he would not change his 
 course, and claim as an indemnity more than he 
 has given up?" 
 
 Gratuitous official service — and, under the name 
 of gratuitous official service, reduction of official 
 emolument being the object still contended against, 
 here we have a quite new argument. Till now, it 
 
64 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 was in other shapes, though indeed in all manner 
 of shapes other than that of frugality, that, in case 
 of any such reduction, the service was to suffer: 
 now it is in the shape even of frugality itself. 
 Whatsoever a man (the sort of man in question) 
 gives up in appearance, in reality (says our sophist) 
 he will take to himself" ten times more." 
 
 To the above proposed plan of retrenchment, 
 the objection, such as it is, has not, it must have 
 been seen already, and for the reasons already 
 given, any the slightest application. But even 
 with reference to the then existing state of things, 
 what could be more extravagant ? 
 
 On the part of the orator, suppose on this occa- 
 sion any the smallest particle of thought, and at 
 the same time of sincerity, what must have been 
 the opinion entertained by him of the state of 
 government in this country, and how profound at 
 the same time his indifference to it ? The state of 
 government such, that on so easy a condition as 
 the giving up a mass of lawful emolument for a 
 time, a man might make sure of gaining, in the 
 way of" base profligacy and corruption," ten times 
 "as much" in the long run! and this sort of 
 speculation, promising and feasible enough, not 
 only to be worth guarding against, but to be neces- 
 sary to be guarded against, and that at such an 
 expense as that of making an all-comprehensive 
 addition to the mass of official emolument ! and 
 this too an addition without bounds ! 
 
 Oh no! (cries the orator) not make sure, those 
 were no words of mine: '■'■claim" was my word, 
 " claim " and nothing more. Oh yes, Mr. Orator, 
 " claim " was indeed the word you used ; but make 
 sure was the idea it was your object to convey by 
 it: for, sure enough, where public money is the 
 subject, it is only by what a man gets, and not by 
 
§ X. Gratuitous Sen-ice, <$'c. (>."> 
 
 what he claims, and wit/tout getting it, that any 
 mischief can be done. 
 
 In writing, no man ever weighed his words in 
 nicer scales ; no author ever blotted more. To 
 find, for each occasion, a set of words that shall 
 comprehend two meanings, one for attack, another 
 itt case of necessity for retreat and self-defence ; 
 such throughout is the study of the rhetorician, 
 whom devotion to a party reduced to that species 
 and degree of servitude, with which sincerity is in- 
 compatible. In this sinister art no man ever la- 
 boured more— no man surely ever made a greater 
 proficiency — no man, one may venture to say, ever 
 made so great a proficiency as this Edmund Burke. 
 
 Here we have a picture (shall we say) or a plan 
 of Machiavelism, sketched out by his own hand. 
 In itself it is but a loose sketch, for, by anything 
 like a complete and correct draught, too much 
 would have been brought to view. But in its 
 exact shape, no small part, and in outline the 
 whole, was already in his own breast. Nor, so far 
 as concerned his own portrait, was it from fancy 
 but from the looking-glass that he drew. 
 
 The Treasury Bench — the Castle of Misrule — 
 stood before him. Sham-Economy, an instrument 
 of " Young Ambition," the ladder by which it 
 was to be scaled. Already the ladder was in his 
 hand. A bill for "independence" and so forth — and 
 for "economical reformation " and so forth — was the 
 name — the wordy name — he had found for it. 
 
 At the end of a long contest, the ladder per- 
 formed its service. But when the fortress was in 
 his hands, a buttress was deemed necessary to 
 enable him to maintain his ground. The buttress 
 fell, and he in it, and along with it; the buttress 
 fell, and great was the fall thereof. 
 
 F 
 
66 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 And what was this buttress ? Few readers can 
 be at a loss for it. 
 
 Four years after, when under the pressure of the 
 mass of corruption, in the hands of the secret 
 advisers of the Crown, they betook themselves 
 for relief, he and his party, not to the legitimate 
 influence of the people, as it would have been 
 manifested in an equalized representation, accom- 
 panied with the exclusion of dependent votes, but 
 to a counter mass of corruption, to be drawn from 
 the East Indies — it was to the "fallacious show of 
 disinterestedness" made by this his Economy Bill, 
 already carried and turned into an Act, that he 
 trusted for that blind support, which he had looked 
 for at the hands of a supposed blinded people. The 
 result is known to everybody. 
 
 As to the picture we here see him drawing, it 
 was at the time of his thus drawing it, half history, 
 half prophecy : the prophetic part left unfinished, 
 as everything in the shape of prophecy must 
 necessarily be. 
 
 The picture dramatised, the characters and other 
 objects in it, might stand as follows : 
 
 1. " Ambitious man " Edmund Burke. 
 
 2. " Fallacious show of disinterestedness ;" the 
 show made by this Economy Bill of his with the 
 inconsiderable retrenchments (60,000/. a year, or 
 some such matter) effected by it. 
 
 3. " Competitors run down " by means of it (in 
 addition to the force derived from other sources, 
 such as the unpopularity and ill success of the 
 American war, together with the exertions of 
 arbitrary vengeance in the case of Wilkes, &c.) 
 Lord North and his Ministry then in power, with 
 the secret advisers of the Crown for their sup- 
 port. 
 
§ X. Gratuitous Service, 6fc. 67 
 
 4. Instrument attempted to be made for the 
 "fixing himself in power" Burke's East India Bill: 
 a steadiment, containing in it a sort of pump, con- 
 trived for drawing from the East Indies the matter 
 of wealth, to be applied in the character of matter 
 of corruption, by hands of his own choice, to the 
 purpose of engaging a sufficient number of work- 
 men for the fixing him and his party as above, to 
 wit, with such a force of resistance as it should 
 not be in the power of the secret advisers of the 
 Crown, with all the assistance they could get from 
 the people, to overcome. 
 
 As to the particular " course," which, for the 
 purpose of reaping the fruits of his conquest, had 
 this machinery of his succeeded, it might have 
 happened to him to take, and with the word in- 
 demnity in his mouth, the quantity of public 
 money he might have claimed, — so it is, that his 
 grand instrument of steadiment and "fixation" 
 having failed, all these, together with so many 
 other quondam future contingencies, remain in 
 darkness inscrutable. But, supposing the indem- 
 nity no more than " ten times" the amount of the 
 sacrifice, still would it have fallen short, as anybody 
 may see, of the ground prepared for it by this 
 his speech. 
 
 Some years after, viz. about the year 1790, a 
 decent quantity of public money, even though not 
 in office, he did contrive to get: but forasmuch as 
 for this donation there was a pretence made out 
 of a Pamphlet, with the help of which the embers 
 of war between Britain and France were blown 
 into a flame, and, for security against anarchy, the 
 good people of Great Britain driven, as far as by his 
 pious endeavours they could be driven, into the 
 arms of despotism, so it was, that the bread of 
 
 f 2 
 
6S Defence of llconomy against Burke. 
 
 sinecure — the sacred show-bread, destined and ap- 
 propriated to the Chief Priests of the Temple of 
 Corruption — was not, any part of it, profaned and 
 diverted to this use : reward in the ordinary shape 
 of pension being regarded as applicable to, and 
 sufficient for, this ordinary service.* 
 
 * " This rule," (continues he, p. 67) " this rule, like every 
 other, may admit its exceptions. When a great man has some 
 ime great object in view to be achieved in a given time, it may 
 be absolutely necessary for him to walk out of all the common 
 loads, and if his fortune permits it, to hold himself out as a 
 splendid example. I am told" (continues he) " that something 
 of this kind is now doing in a country near us. But this is for 
 a short race : the training for a heat or two, and not the proper 
 preparation for the regular stages of a methodical journey. I 
 am speaking of establishments, and not of men." 
 
 As to the splendid example he was here alluding to, it was 
 that of Necker; and here, as the sequel showed, the orator was 
 completely in the wrong. What he could not make himself 
 believe, or at least could not bear that others should believe, 
 was, that this training of Necker's (meaning the serving in the 
 office of Finance Minister without salary) could last for more 
 than " a heat or two." It lasted however during the whole of 
 his "journey " nor that an " unmethodical" one. He did more 
 than serve the public without being paid for it: he trusted the 
 public, that child of his own adoption, with his own money — 
 with the greatest part of his own money : and that public — that 
 "base and profligate" though, in a pecuniary sense, not in 
 general corrupt, trustee of his, betrayed its trust. 
 
6Q 
 
 SECTION XL 
 
 BURKE'S OBJECTION TO THE APT IK ATIOV OF 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF COMPETITION TO THIS 
 PURPOSE — ITS FRIVOLOUSNESS. 
 
 After denying that the great efficient offices arc 
 overpaid, " The service of the public" (continues 
 he) "is a thing which cannot he put to auction, and 
 struck down to those who will agree to execute it 
 the cheapest." 
 
 Cannot ! Why cannot it ? Upon the face of it, 
 the proposition bears not so much as the colour of 
 reason ; nor in the sequel is cither substance or 
 colour so much as attempted to be found for it. Of 
 possibility, what is the sort of evidence that in this 
 case he would require ? Wou\<\fact have been 
 regarded as admissible ? " The service of the 
 public is a thing, which," a year afterwards, after 
 the orator had been in, and out again, Pitt the 
 Second did u put up to auction" — " did strike down 
 to those ivho would agree to execute the cheapest ;" 
 and this to such an extent, that, in comparison of 
 the saving thereby effected, whether money or im- 
 probity be the article considered, the utmost saving 
 so much as projected by this our sham-reformer, 
 shrinks into insignificance.* 
 
 This, it is true, the pseudo-reformer had not as 
 yet witnessed. But there was nothing in it that was 
 not in the most perfect degree obvious : what diffi- 
 culty there was in the business consisted not in 
 the thinking of it, but in the doing of it. 
 
 But what the sophist trusted to was the word 
 
 * Viz. in the instances of Loans, Lotteries, and Victualling 
 contracts. — See Mr. Rose's Observations, &c. pp. 2(i to 31. 
 
70 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 auction, and the sentiment of ridicule which, if 
 applied to the subject in question, he hoped to find 
 prepared for the reception of it in men's minds. 
 Mention the word auction, the image you present is 
 that of a man with a smirk upon his countenance 
 mounted on the burlesque of a pulpit, with a 
 wooden hammer in his hand, expatiating upon the 
 virtues — sometimes of statues and pictures, some- 
 times of chairs and tables. 
 
 The hyperboles employed by orators of that class 
 while expatiating on the virtues of the vendible 
 commodities consigned to their disposal, are, as 
 he in common with every body else must have 
 remarked every now and then, such as while in 
 some parts of the audience they produce the desired 
 impression, excite in the minds of others the idea 
 of the ridiculous. 
 
 But no panegyric that was ever bestowed by any 
 such orator on the picture or the screen of a Mar- 
 quis or a Duke, had more of exaggeration in it than 
 the pictures which this vender of puffs was so ex- 
 pert at drawing, naming them after this or that one 
 of his most noble patrons and originals. His 
 piece of still life, called the Marquis of Rocking- 
 ham — his Duke of Portland, into the picture of 
 which a Kneller or a Reynolds would have put 
 more thought than Nature and Art together had 
 been able to force into the original — that original 
 whose closest resemblance to a picture that had 
 thought in it was the property of being vendible — 
 that puppet, whose wires after playing for a time so 
 easy, ran rusty at last under the hand of Mr. Can- 
 ning — viewed through the raree-show glass of Ed- 
 mund Burke, these and so many other "great cha- 
 racters" appeared no less fit for their "high situa- 
 tions" than the Counsellors of King Solomon, when, 
 with Punch for their interpreter, on the drawing up 
 
§ XII. Concluding Observations. 71 
 
 of the curtain, they are displayed in the act of pay- 
 ing tributes of wisdom to the wise. 
 
 Competition. — This word would not, as auction 
 so well did, serve the sophist's purpose. To the 
 word competition no Smirk stands associated — no 
 pulpit — no hammer. Competition — a power, the 
 virtues of which had already been so well displayed 
 by Adam Smith, not to speak of Sir James Stewart. 
 In competition he beheld that security against waste 
 and corruption which would have been mortal to 
 his views. 
 
 SECTION XII. 
 
 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. BURKE, WHY 
 
 THUS EXAMINED. 
 
 Erasmus wrote an elogium on Folly : but Eras- 
 mus was in jest : Edmund Burke wrote an elogium 
 — he wrote this elogium — on Feculalion: — and 
 Edmund Burke was serious. 
 
 In thus exhibiting the orator in one of those fits 
 of extravagance to which he was but too subject — 
 in exhibiting the orator's own figure, according 
 to the monstrous caricature we have seen him 
 drawing of himself, viz. that of a man, in whose 
 estimation nothing but money has any value — a 
 man by whom all breasts that have anything in 
 them that is not sordid, are to be marked out as fit 
 objects of abhorrence, — let me not be accused of 
 wasting time and paper. 
 
 It is out of this his book — meaning always such 
 parts of it as are found suitable, that our statesmen 
 of the present day may be seen taking their lessons. 
 It is out of this his garden of sweet flowers that the 
 still existing Finance Committee, and without 
 
72 Defence of Economy against Burke. 
 
 acknowledgment, have culled, as we have seen, 
 a chaplet wherewith to decorate their brows. It 
 is in this his school, that by another Right Honour- 
 able Teacher of Econom}', those maxims have 
 certainly been found, and to all appearance learnt, 
 which we shall come to presently. 
 
 Had the purpose of his argument, or of his life, 
 required it — here, in this very place, instead of 
 declaiming and writing for money, and trying to 
 persuade men that nothing but money is of any 
 value, the orator might, and naturally would, have 
 declared against money, — shown in the way that 
 so many other declaimers have shown, that it is of 
 no value, that it is even worse than useless, and 
 that without " the basest profligacy and corrup- 
 tion" no man — no public man at least — can ever 
 get, or try to get, any of it. 
 
 In exaggerations, improbity or folly may behold 
 a use on either side ; but to common honesty, 
 nothing is here needful but common sense. 
 
 Money is a good thing; a very good thing in- 
 deed : and, if it were not a good thing, scarce 
 would any thing else be : for there are few good 
 things which a man may not get by means of it: get, 
 either in exchange for it, or (what is still better) 
 even without parting with it. 
 
 But the misfortune is, that from us the people, 
 for paying orators of the class of Edmund Burke, 
 it is nut to be had without our being forced to part 
 with it : and if the orator suffer in case of his not 
 having it, in case of his never having got so much 
 of it as he could have wished, we the people, who, 
 after having had it, find ourselves, for the use and 
 benefit of the orator, forced to part with it, suffer 
 still more. 
 
 Thence it is, that if there be anything else, 
 which, the people not feeling themselves forced 
 
§ XI 1. Concluding Observations. 73 
 
 to part with it, the orator can persuade himself to 
 be satisfied with, so much the better. Upon this 
 plan, every body is satisfied ; orator and people 
 both : whereas, upon the orator's plan, only one of 
 the parties is satisfied, viz. the orator ; the orator, 
 who is the agent and spokesman of the ruling few ; 
 while the other party, viz. we the people, are 
 suffering and grumbling, and as it should seem not 
 altogether without reason; for we are the many; 
 and in our number consists our title to regard: a 
 very unpretending title, but^not the less a good 
 and sufficient one. 
 
DEFENCE 
 
 OF 
 
 ECONOMY 
 
 AGAINST THE 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 GEORGE ROSE. 
 
 FIRST PRINTED IN SEPTEMBER 1817. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 While committing to the press so free an exami- 
 nation as this will be found to be, of Mr. Rose's 
 declared principles, as published by him on the 
 subject of public expenditure, there would, as it 
 strikes me, be something ungenerous at least, if 
 not unjust in the omission, were I not to make 
 acknowledgment, as, without any communication, 
 direct or indirect, with the Right Honourable 
 Gentleman, I hereby do, of such proofs of due 
 regard for economy as by incidents falling exclu- 
 sively within my own observation have been fur- 
 nished by his practice. Of the measures alluded 
 to — two in number — both were in a very con- 
 siderable degree important: one of them, in respect 
 of extent as well as difficulty, pre-eminently so: 
 and, on both occasions, in his instance as well as 
 that of Mr. Pitt, by such tokens, as in the nature 
 of the case could not have left room for doubt in 
 the mind of any person in any situation, it fell in 
 my way to be assured that a real regard for eco- 
 nomy, forming a striking contrast with the mixture 
 of waste, corruption, and dark despotism which in 
 one of the two cases has since been exemplified, 
 was an actuating motive : and that with the spon- 
 
78 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 taneously expressed desire of receiving those 
 suggestions, which, had not circumstances above 
 their control stood in the way, would accordingly 
 have been received, any such design on the parts of 
 either of them, as that of giving on the particular 
 occasions in question, any such increase as, on 
 one of those occasions has since been given, to 
 corruptive influence, was plainly incompatible. 
 
 As to the tract itself, with the exception of a 
 few inconsiderable verbal alterations, which the 
 nature of the case necessitated, it is exactly in 
 the state in which it was written ; which was in 
 in the months of April and May, 1810. 
 
DEFENCE OF ECONOMY 
 
 AGAINST ROSE. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Having taken my leave of the departed orator, I 
 have now to pay my obeisance to the surviving 
 statesman; who, though in the line of politics not 
 always conjoined with him, will, in the track of 
 principle, be on the ground here in question, found, 
 as there has already been occasion to observe, se- 
 parated from him by no great distance. 
 
 For principles such as on this same ground may 
 serve as a standard for comparison, I must, on this 
 occasion, as on that other, take leave to refer the 
 reader to these closely compressed thoughts, which 
 are about to take their chance for obtaining a small 
 portion of his notice. 
 
 For the convenience of such persons whose taste 
 or whose disposable time shrinks from any such 
 mass as would be formed in the union of all three 
 papers, I detach in advance these two parts from 
 that which had been intended to precede them. 
 But forasmuch as throughout this third part, re- 
 ference, either express or tacit, is all along una- 
 
80 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 voidably made to the principles laid down in the 
 postponed part, and enforced by that by which this 
 one has now lately been preceded ;* 1 find myself 
 in this respect reduced to the necessity of suppos- 
 ing, or at least writing as I should do, if I supposed 
 the postponed, as well as the already published 
 part, to have already made its experiment upon the 
 reader's patience. 
 
 In the production of Edmund Burke, the quan- 
 tity of matter taken for the subject of examination, 
 was that which happened to be contained between 
 the 62d and 6Sth pages, both inclusive. Within 
 the pages designated by the same numbers, hap- 
 pens to be contained the only part of Mr. 
 Rose's work, to which the like tribute of unre- 
 mitted attention has on the present occasion 
 been paid. 
 
 A coincidence rather more material, is — that of 
 the discrepancy, not to say the repugnancy, which 
 in this instance as in that, will, if I do not greatly 
 deceive myself, be seen to have place. By the one 
 architect as by the other, to the same virtue, viz. 
 economy, a temple erected in the first part, beaten 
 down in the second. -\ 
 
 * In the Pamphleteer, No. XVII. January 1817. 
 
 f As to the method pursued in the present instance — whe- 
 ther it was that by the statesman in question, no such elaborate 
 art, having here, as there, been employed in wrapping up pec- 
 cant matter in splendid language — or in short, howsoever it 
 happened, so it has happened that the course taken on that oc- 
 casion by the commentator, so far as concerns the prefixing 
 interpretations to text, has not been pursued here. But, to avoid 
 all design, as well as charge of mis-representation, the same 
 care that was taken there has been continued here, viz. that of 
 not hazarding in any instance any thing in the shape of a com- 
 ment, without laying at the same time before the reader, in the 
 very words, whatever passage served or contributed to form 
 the ground of it. 
 
81 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 MR. ROSE'S PLEAS IN BAR TO ECONOMY. 
 
 Plea I. — Vastness of the Expenditure. 
 
 1. The first of his pleas thus pleaded, in bar to 
 any defalcations that might be proposed to be made 
 from the mass of public burdens, is that which, 
 with that ingenuity which will not pass unobserved, 
 has been made out of the very magnitude of the 
 mass. 
 
 " The whole revenue of Great Britain," says the 
 Right Honourable Gentleman (p. 62) " is more 
 than 60,000,000/. a year ; the charge on which of 
 242,000/. for pensions and sinecure employments 
 at home and abroad, is between three farthings and 
 one penny in the pound. By the extinction, 
 therefore, of all sinecures and pensions, a person 
 paying taxes to the amount of 50/. a year, would 
 save about 4s. ; such a saving, " continues he, " we 
 (who are we/) are far from thinking should be 
 treated as trifling or insignificant, it would ill be- 
 come the author to do so : on the other hand, how 
 infinitely short would this fall of the expectation 
 that has been held out. 
 
 " But if," continues he, " from the total sum 
 received from sinecures, places, and pensions, de- 
 duction were made of such as have been given as 
 rewards for public services, the amount would be 
 very greatly reduced ; pensions to foreign minis- 
 ters in particular, whose appointments are hardly 
 in any instance sufficient for their maintenance." 
 
 It is to " sinecures and pensions" alone, that this 
 argument has, by the ingenious author, been ap- 
 
 G 
 
82 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 plied, to the extra pay of over-paid places, not : 
 but, applying as it does to both branches of expen- 
 diture, and with equal force, it would be wronging 
 the argument not to give to both of them the full 
 benefit of it. 
 
 Now, true it is, that were this argument to be 
 received in the character here proposed for it, it 
 would, it must be confessed, be a very convenient 
 one, and save others in abundance. For every 4s. 
 a year which you wish to give away without any 
 public use, contrive to spend 50l. a year, for which 
 such a use or the appearance of such a use can be 
 found, and your justification is then made. 
 
 Meantime, some reasoners there are, to whom 
 the contrary inference would appear the more rea- 
 sonable one: unnecessary or even necessary, the 
 heavier the mass of our burdens is already, the less 
 able are we to bear any addition to it, or even this 
 or that existing part of it. 
 
 In my own view of the matter, I must confess the 
 consideration of the magnitude of the mass, is a 
 consideration to which, on a question such as the 
 present, there can be no necessity nor any great use 
 in recurring. 
 
 Whatsoever it be that at the expense of the peo- 
 ple, is by the trustees of the people, given to this or 
 that individual without equivalent, and that an ade- 
 quate one, I mean without either receiving or rea- 
 sonable expectation of receiving on account of the 
 publica preponderate advantage, is so much waste, — 
 and if given with eyes open to the misapplication 
 of it, so much peculation. 
 
 When by indictment a man is prosecuted for 
 theft, or by bill in equity for a breach of trust in 
 the way of peculation, that of the pecuniary cir- 
 cumstances of the party to whose prejudice the act 
 of dishonesty has operated, any account should be 
 
§ II. Mr. Rose's Fit as in Bar to Economy. S3 
 
 taken, is never looked upon as necessary, or so 
 much as admissible. And not being so on that 
 individual scale, 1 see not why it should be so on 
 i his all-comprehensive scale. 
 
 Hut if so it were, that 1 found myself under an 
 obligation of bringing this topic to view, it seems 
 to me, that in the vastness of the existing burdens, 
 1 should be more apt to view an argument for de- 
 creasing it, than either for giving increase to it, or 
 so much as keeping it from decrease. 
 
 The misfortune is, that without being thus ex- 
 pressed, this consideration has in experience ope- 
 rated, and with too much effect, in disposing the 
 people to acquiesce without remonstrance, under 
 unnecessary pressure. Turn over the book of his- 
 tory, you will find that the heavier the burdens 
 have been with which the people have been loaded, 
 the greater the facility that has been found for ren- 
 dering the load still heavier: or, what comes to the 
 same thing, look backward, and you will find that 
 the more considerable the load they had been ac- 
 customed to, the greater was the difficulty that was 
 experienced in persuading them to submit, though 
 it were but for a year or two, to any addition to it. 
 
 If as the facility of engaging them to submit to 
 increased burdens increased, the suffering produced 
 by those burdens diminished, this disposition of 
 mind would be as desirable as it is natural : but 
 unfortunately this is not the case. By heaping law 
 taxes upon law taxes, and law fees upon law fees, 
 you may ruin a thousand families one year, two 
 thousand the next year, and so on : and, the greater 
 the number that are thus ruined, the better enabled 
 and the better satisfied will the man of finance and 
 the man of law be to go on receiving more and 
 more: it will be to both of them, as it has been to 
 both of them, and to both in one, a motion of 
 
 g 2 
 
84 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 course; but it does not appear, or (to speak intel- 
 ligibly to learned gentlemen) non constat, that when 
 the number thus ruined is two thousand, the afflic- 
 tion is to each or any of them lighter than when 
 the number was but one thousand. 
 
 For forming a gag to stop complaints in the 
 mouth of the party tormented, as well as a callus 
 to case the heart of the tormentor, precedent is in- 
 deed a mighty good thing; and the more manifold 
 the precedent the more effective the gag, as well 
 as the harder the callus: and the latter use is that 
 to which these several pleas against economy, and 
 this first plea in particular, seems more especially 
 destined and adapted. The misfortune is, that by 
 the callus formed round the one heart, the afflic- 
 tion that rends the other is not assuaged. 
 
 Oh, but sir, (cries somebody) what is it you are 
 about all this while ? and how sadly have you been 
 misrepresenting the Right Honourable Gentle- 
 man ! Here are you imputing to him this sad 
 purpose, and that immediately after having read 
 and passed over (fie upon you !) a paragraph in 
 which he tells you himself the purpose he had in 
 view, and that a very different one. 
 
 True it is that I have read that paragraph ; but 
 as to the purpose spoken of in it, I feel myself 
 under a sort of embarrassment which I shall pro- 
 ceed to state. 
 
 " The opinion already alluded to," (says the pa- 
 ragraph, p. 62) " as prevailing to a certain extent, 
 that if sinecures and pensions were entirely sup- 
 pressed, the burdens of the country would be in- 
 stantly lightened to a great amount, and by some 
 entertained that they would in that case be re- 
 moved altogether, renders it necessary that a com- 
 parison should be made of the before-mentioned 
 total, (viz. of sinecures and pensions) large as it is, 
 
§ II. Mr. Rose's Pleas in Bar to Economy. $5 
 
 with the amount of the taxes raised upon the 
 people." 
 
 Now then — what is expressly averred here, is — 
 that an opinion to the purpose in question is 
 " prevailing to a certain extent." 
 
 What seems to be insinuated — I should rather 
 say — what from the idea of " necessity " thus 
 brought to view, some readers might be apt to 
 imagine, is — that the purpose the Right Honour- 
 able Gentleman had in view, was only the setting 
 the people right in respect of this supposed preva- 
 lent error, and not the persuading the imposers of 
 public burdens to consider the enormity of the 
 mass as affording an argument for not diminishing 
 it. 
 
 Now then, as to this supposed error : what seems 
 to me is, that it must have been in some vision or 
 some dream, and no where else, that any person 
 not in the care of a keeper, could have presented 
 themselves to the conception of the Right Ho- 
 nourable Gentleman, as entertaining it. The in- 
 terest of the debt paid without money — the ex- 
 pense of the army defrayed without money — the 
 expense of the navy defrayed without money — 
 all this, not to speak of anything more, must have 
 been believed by any person, in whose mind any 
 such opinion should prevail, as that if sinecures 
 and pensions were suppressed, the burdens of this 
 country would be removed altogether. 
 
 Another thing that passes my comprehension is, 
 how should it be that, 'supposing them to have 
 found " to a certain extent " whatever that extent 
 be — that is to a certain number, whatever that 
 number be, a set of people among whom any such 
 opinion was prevalent, how it should be that it 
 should have entered into their conception, other- 
 wise than in dream or vision, as above, that for 
 
86 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 the purpose of setting right any such people, and 
 weaning them from their error, there could be 
 either necessity or use, in bringing forward any 
 such ingenious and accurate calculation as that 
 which has just been seen, and which he was 
 thereupon immediately about to treat us with: as 
 if, supposing the existence of any such swine, 
 such pearls could be of any the smallest use to 
 them ! 
 
 If to so Right Honourable a Gentleman anything 
 could be attributed, that would bear any such 
 appellation as that of artifice, (no, I will not call it 
 artifice, I will call it astulia — and then everything 
 will be as it should be) what, on an occasion such 
 as this, one should be tempted to suppose, is, that 
 the agreement thus brought forward, and put in 
 front of the battle, was the result of a consultation 
 with some learned, or quondam learned, as well as 
 Right Honourable or Honourable Gentlemen, 
 profoundly learned in that superior and purer 
 branch of the law called equity ; one of the rules 
 of which is, that in the drawing of the initiative 
 instrument called a bill, to entitle yourself to ask 
 a question of the defendant, you must, in the first 
 place, impute to him the having told some story 
 or other, no matter how extravagant, which he 
 never told, to serve him in the character of a 
 " pretence" for defrauding the orator (your client) 
 of his due ; he himself neither having heard of 
 the defendant's ever saying any such thing, nor 
 believing him to have ever said it ; which falsehood 
 having thus with all due regularity been come out 
 with, serves by way of licence, as well as intro- 
 duction, to whatsoever other falsehoods, mixed 
 with whatsoever truths, it may have been deemed 
 convenient to introduce. 
 
87 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 PLEA 2. — NEED OF PROVISION FOR DECAYED 
 NOBILITY, &C. 
 
 2. The next plea is that which is founded on 
 the alleged necessity of making provision for noble 
 and respectable families fallen into decay. 
 
 " The pension list " (continues the Right 
 Honourable Advocate, p. 63) " also contains pro- 
 visions for noble and respectable families fallen into 
 decay ; this is, however/' (continues he) " an 
 exertion of national generosity, if not oi justice, 
 which the most scrupulous economist will hardly 
 consider as improper. Something v (continues 
 he) " must certainly be allowed for mere favour; 
 but when the instances are clearly improper, (and 
 it is not meant to contend there are no such) they 
 are at least open to public animadversion, as the yare 
 now regularly laid before parliament, and printed 
 from time to time, which certainly affords a consi- 
 derable, if not an effectual check against abuse." 
 
 Thus far the Right Honourable Gentleman. 
 For my own part I am doomed to fall into sad dis- 
 grace with him. The conception entertained by 
 him of any " the most scrupulous" sort of person, 
 in the character of an "economist," is far outstripped 
 by me. Under what denomination it may be my 
 lot to fall in his black dictionary, I know not; if it 
 were that of Jacobin or Leveller, it would be no 
 surprise to me. 
 
 Of the sort of justice, which can so much as 
 permit, not to speak of commanding, any such 
 disposal of public money, 1 have no conception, 
 nor yet of generosity, unless it be of that pernicious 
 
88 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 and hypocritical sort, which gratifies itself at the 
 expense of justice. 
 
 My protest is in the first place against the prin- 
 ciple; as being founded on oppressive extortion, 
 and breach of trust; as affording encouragement 
 to extravagance, and to every vice that is fed 
 by extravagance; as being still unjustifiable, even 
 though there were a certainty of its not having 
 either vice or extravagance for its consequence any 
 more than for its cause. 
 
 My next objection is to the amount; as being 
 without limit ; as scorning all limit: and being of 
 itself capable of effecting a revolution in the 
 state of property, if it did not, in a revolution in 
 the state ot power, find a preventive remedy. 
 
 I. In the first place, as to principle. I 
 
 Now, to a provision of the sort in question, 
 what is it that, according to the Right Honourable 
 Gentleman's law, is to constitute a man's title? It 
 is " decay;" — mere decay; — the having fallen into 
 decay; i. e. the being at the time in question in a 
 state of indigence. Mark well, that to indigence 
 at that degree, to which the next degree is death, 
 or at least disease, his argument does not look ; for 
 indigence in that shape, provision is made already 
 — made, to wit, by the species of tax called thePoor 
 Hates: a tax which, even by the Right Honourable 
 Gentleman himself, on whose feelings public bur- 
 dens sit thus lightly, has never been spoken of as a 
 light one. 
 
 This provision then is not the sort and degree 
 of provision he has in view : of the sort and degree 
 of provision which he has in view, what more ade- 
 quate or unexceptionable description can begiven, 
 than that which has been given in and by his own 
 words? for " noble" families then, it must be noble, 
 for " respectable" families, it must be respectable. 
 
§ III. Provision for decayed Nobility, §c. 89 
 
 Against provision of even the scantiest kind, 
 an objection that by many has been regarded as a 
 peremptory one, is, that it operates as a provision 
 tor idleness and extravagance. By myself any 
 more than by the Right Honourable Gentleman it 
 has never been regarded in that light ; not seeing 
 that so long as it is confined to what is absolutely 
 necessary to keep a person alive and free from dis- 
 ease, and given on condition of working, where 
 work can be made profitable (and beyond this I un- 
 dertake not for the defence of it) subsistence is ca- 
 pable of acting to any preponderantly formidable 
 extent in that character: and considering that, 
 without some such provision, multitudes there are, 
 that by infirmity, the result of infamy, or decrepi- 
 tude, or disease, would without any default of their 
 own, be exposed to perish, and would accordingly 
 perish, by lingering disease or famine. 
 
 But by any such provision, neither the generosity 
 of the Right Honourable Gentleman, nor so much 
 as h\s justice is to be satisfied ; for noble families, 
 satisfied it never can be by any thing less than a 
 noble provision : for respectable families by any 
 thing less than a respectable one. 
 
 In the provision already made by law — a provi- 
 sion neither limited, nor, unfortunately for the 
 country, capable of being limited — some have view- 
 ed a gulph capable, of itself, of swallowing up one 
 of these days the whole produce of national indus- 
 try. Of any such disaster I have not for my own 
 part any serious apprehension ; but, of the gene- 
 rosity of the Right Honourable Gentleman, or by 
 whatever other name this article in the catalogue of 
 his virtues be to be called, of this virtue, if once 
 admitted to operate, and in the character of a 
 principle set the law to practice, I cannot but regard 
 this catastrophe as an inevitable consequence. 
 
90 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 II. For now let us think a little of the amount: 
 and to this the Right Honourable Gentleman has 
 not attempted to set any limits. Vain indeed 
 would have been any such attempt; the principle 
 scorns all limits. Taken by itself, nobility, had 
 that been the only source of demand on this score, 
 would not have scorned all limits. Noble families, 
 for example, so many : — in each family, generations 
 reckoning downwards from each peer, to be regard- 
 ed as still ?wble, so many : — minimum of the pen- 
 sion to each individual in a state of decay, accord- 
 ing to the rank occupied by the family in the scale 
 of the peerage, is so much. — Here would have been 
 one exercise for the Right Honourable Gentle- 
 man's skill in figures. 
 
 But neither for the Right Honourable Gentle- 
 man's generosity, nor fovh\sjustice t \$> it enough, that 
 for noble families in decay a noble provision be thus 
 kept up; for respectable families in the same state 
 there must moreover be a respectable one. Here 
 all powers of calculation, even those of the Right 
 Honourable Gentleman, would find themselves at 
 a stand. 
 
 For the moment, let me take the liberty of pro- 
 posing for them an analogous, though a somewhat 
 different exercise. 
 
 By the taxes, as they stand at present — (I pre- 
 sume it is out of taxes, and not out of heaven- 
 dropped manna or heaven-dropped quails, that, ac- 
 cording to his plan, the noble and the respectable 
 provision would be to be made) — by the taxes, 
 as they stand at present, a certain number of fami- 
 lies are every year pressed down from a state of 
 independence into a state of pauper and parochially- 
 supported indigence. Now then, for every branch 
 of a noble and respectable family, which by the 
 noble or respectable provision respectively, is kept 
 
§ III. Provision for decayed Nobility, 6; e. Ql 
 
 above indigence, meaning, that which to the noble 
 or respectable family would have been indigence, 
 how many branches that, without being either 
 noble or respectable, or as yet independent, would 
 be pressed down into that which really is indigence. 
 If thought be too much to ask for, a calculation 
 of this sort from aright honorable hand, in which 
 figures are so plenty and so much at command, 
 might, at any rate, be not undeserving, it is hoped, 
 of a few lit; tires. 
 
 Another exercise for the mathematics of the 
 Right Honourable Gentleman. The respectable 
 families, let them for the moment be laid out of the 
 question — let the calculation still confine itself to 
 the noble ones. 
 
 After observations taken of the rate of the in- 
 crease given to nobility by his still present Majesty, 
 or even of that part of it that was given with the 
 advice of the Right Honourable Gentleman's de- 
 parted hero, let him, with Cocker in his hand, carry 
 on the increase through a portion of future con- 
 tingent time. Considering that neither Scotland 
 nor Ireland, nor any thing that is noble in either 
 kingdom, can on this occasion be left out of the 
 account, let him inform us what are the number 
 of years that will have elapsed antecedently to 
 that point of time at which the amount of the 
 provision made on his plan for noble decay, will 
 have outstripped that of the provision at the same 
 time made for ignoble indigence, 
 
 " Oh, but you are confounding classes — you are 
 confounding species. This is the way with you 
 jacobins and you levellers. You confound every 
 thing. The noble and respectable families are of 
 one species : the ignoble and unrespectable families 
 arc of another. The ignoble and unrespectable 
 families are of the species that arc sent to Walche- 
 
92 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 ten; the noble and respectable families are of the 
 species that send them there. The families whose 
 branches are to be preserved from decay, are those 
 whose feelings have a right to be consulted : the 
 families that are to be helped on in the. road to 
 ruin, are those whose feelings have no such right." 
 A smile beams on the countenance of the Right 
 Honourable Gentleman. He calls for his extinct 
 peerage: he foresees his triumph : he beholds the 
 confusion of the jacobin ; when, at the end of the 
 calculation, it has been made as plain as figures 
 can make anything, how many centuries will have 
 elapsed before any such outstripping can have 
 taken place. 
 
 Well then ; having, by the success of the ope- 
 ration thus performed upon the noble families, 
 given vigour to his hand, let him try it upon the 
 respectable ones. 
 
 What has just been seen, is what the Right 
 Honourable Gentleman has not anywhere said. 
 True ; — but it is what (I fear much) from the 
 beginning of his pamphlet to the end of it, is but 
 too much like what he has thought. 
 
 " Something " — (says the Right Honourable 
 Gentleman, such is his candour) "something must 
 certainly be allowed for mere favour." Good sir, 
 you already forget your own argument : it is all 
 mere favour, or it is none. " Decay," not service ; 
 " decay," not merit in any shape, real or imagined, 
 was your title : decay, by what cause soever pro- 
 duced, as well as in whatsoever quantity; pro- 
 duced by eating and drinking, — produced by car- 
 rying about seraglios in foreign missions, — pro- 
 duced by horse-racing, — produced by dice or 
 E. O.; is decay less decay? Is nobility the less 
 noble ? Is respectability (I mean your sort of 
 respectability — the respectability which consists 
 
§ III. Provision for decayed Nobility, ty c. [)3 
 
 in having or spending money of one's own or 
 other people's) the less respectable ? 
 
 Talk of justice and injustice. So long as any 
 one individual is, whether on the score of nobility, 
 or of respectability, preserved in this way from 
 decay, it is not mere disfavour, it is no better than 
 mere injustice, to refuse it to any other. 
 
 " But where the instances are clearly im- 
 proper, and it is not meant, " continues the Right 
 Honourable Gentleman, " to contend that there 
 are no such, they are at least open to public 
 animadversion." Good sir, once more your can- 
 dour carries you too for. What you do not mean 
 to contend for, I must, even I ; indeed, sir, there 
 are not any such instances: your principle ad- 
 mitted, there cannot be any. 
 
 " They are at least open to public animadversion" 
 Your pardon, sir; indeed they are not. Indivi- 
 dually they are not : they are not common : to the 
 ''public" two things altogether necessary to the 
 purpose are wanting, viz. information and time. 
 Mr. Brown has 1200/. a year: two Miss Vandals 
 have 600/. Who knows who this Mr. Brown or 
 those Miss Vandals are? At the moment when 
 the necessity of providing for noble or respectable 
 decay in the person or persons of this Mr. Brown 
 or these Miss Vandals, has by some noble or right 
 honourable person been whispered into the royal 
 ear, the whisperer knows: but the next moment 
 nobody knows. Even now there are more of them 
 than the public patience can endure so much as 
 to count: and shall we talk of scrutiny ! More 
 than can be so much as counted even now ! and 
 what shall we say when, your principle being in 
 full operation, there are with us in England, as 
 you know when there were in France, enough of 
 
94 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 them to fill a red book, and that, like the army list, 
 no small book, of themselves. 
 
 No, sir; individually open to public animad- 
 version they are not, even now : much less at the 
 time in question would they be. But in the lump, 
 in the principle on which they are proposed to be 
 multiplied, and that to infinity, they are " open to 
 animadversion:" and on this consideration it is 
 that the presumption, betrayed by the present weak 
 and inadequate attempt at " animadversion," has 
 found its cause. 
 
 On the wing, who can think to catch, who can 
 so much as follow, all such wasps ? But in the egg, 
 if the people have but spirit enough, they may be 
 crushed. 
 
 " Something" (says the candour of the Right 
 Honourable Gentleman) "must be allowed for mere 
 favour." Yes: and something must also be al- 
 lowed for an affection of an opposite nature. This 
 candour of his shall not go unrequited : it shall be 
 paid for in the same coin. If profusion be, as it 
 appears to be, all that is meant by " the abuse," a 
 check that abuse "certainly" has; — and that 
 check but too " certainly " is " considerable," 
 though unhappily it is far from being " an effec- 
 tual" one. Of itself, profusion, were that the 
 whole of the disorder, would have no check : but, 
 complicated as it is with another disorder, corrup- 
 tion, in that other disorder, odd as the case may 
 seem at the first mention of it, it does find a sort 
 of a check : the diarrhoea finds in the septic dia- 
 thesis a sort of astringent. 
 
 The paradox will disappear immediately. When 
 it happened that the Right Honourable Gentleman, 
 by whom the case of the sprig of decayed nobility 
 or respectability had been submitted to royal " ge- 
 
§ IV. Need of Subsistence for Official Persons. 95 
 
 nerosity " or royal "justice," had been voting on 
 the improper side, the instance (could any such 
 hopeless intrusion be supposed on the part of the 
 Right Honourable Gentleman) would be one of 
 the clearly improper ones, and the decay would be 
 left to its own natural course. When so it hap- 
 pened that on all occasions the patron had properly 
 understood, as in duty, I mean in loyally, every 
 such patron is bound to understand, what on each 
 occasion is the proper side, the decay would find 
 its proper preservative, and the profusion would be 
 left to the operation of that check, with the virtue 
 of which the Right Honourable Gentleman is so 
 nearly satisfied ; 1 mean, that " certainly considera- 
 ble, if not effectual check 37 against abuse, which is 
 " afforded " by the pensions forming, when the 
 mischief is past remedy, part and parcel of that 
 almost completely unintelligible, and effectually 
 inscrutable, mass of information or non-informa- 
 tion, which is "now" " so regularly laid before 
 parliament." 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 PLEA 3. NEED OF SUBSISTENCE FOR OFFICIAL 
 
 PERSONS. 
 
 3. A third plea is that which is composed of 
 the alleged non-excess, or even insufficiency, of 
 official incomes. 
 
 " If we look to official incomes, it will be found 
 they are in most cases " (says the Right Honoura- 
 ble Gentleman) " barely equal to the moderate, 
 and even the nccessari/ expenses of the parties : in 
 many instances they are actually insufficient for 
 these." 
 
96 Defence of Econoifty against Rose. 
 
 Under the modest guise of a plea against re- 
 trenchment, we have here a plea/or increase, and 
 that again an inexhaustible one. 
 
 In this plea, two points present a more particular 
 call for observation. 
 
 One consists in the indefiniteness and thence in 
 the universality of the terms by which the incomes 
 in question, and thence the i?icomists are designated. 
 By " official incomes ," unless some word of limita- 
 tion be annexed — and no such word is annexed — 
 must be understood all official incomes. Less 
 than all cannot be meant ; for, if anything less be 
 meant, the argument falls short of its undissembled 
 purpose. In most cases, scantiness being asserted, 
 and in many, insufficiency — and that even without 
 a view to the single purpose of a bare subsistence, 
 whether there be any of these incomes that are 
 more than " barely equal " to that object, is left to 
 conjecture. 
 
 2. The other the word necessary, viz. in the appli- 
 cation here made of it to a mass of expenses that 
 are to be defrayed at the public charge : an aggregate 
 composed of the several individual expenditures 
 of all these several official persons; and when the 
 present Mr. Rose comes to be in the situation 
 (poverty excepted) of the late Mr. Pitt, let any 
 one calculate, whose skill in calculation is equal 
 to the task, how many are the hundreds of thou- 
 sands, not to say the millions, a year, that will 
 depend on the construction of these two words. 
 
 To assist us in this calculation, an example, 
 though unfortunately but one, has been afforded 
 us by the Right Honourable Gentleman : and, so 
 far as this carries us, it will appear that, even where 
 by the frugality of the Right Honourable Gentle- 
 man, it is confined to what is "necessary,'* (the 
 inflexibility of this virtue not suffering it to rise 
 
§ V. Need of Momy for making Fortunes, Sfc. 97 
 
 to so high a pitch as even to be '■moderate'') what, 
 in speaking of an official person, is meant by his 
 expense, is composed of the official income, what- 
 ever it be, which he finds provided for it by law, 
 together with a capital to the amount of between 
 eight and nine years' purchase of it, or reckoning 
 by the year, about "25 per cent, upon it, the per- 
 son's own patrimony, if he happens to to have any, 
 included or not included. But of this under ano- 
 ther head.* 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 PLEA 4. — NEED OF MONEY FOR MAKING FOR- 
 TUNES FOR OFFICIAL PERSONS AND THEIR 
 FAMILIES. 
 
 4. The next plea is that which is founded on 
 the alleged necessity of enabling persons in official 
 situations — all persons in all official situations — to 
 provide for their families at the public expense. 
 
 " May we not then venture to ask " (continues 
 the argument from the passage last quoted) — " may 
 we not then venture to ask whether it is reasonable, 
 or whether it would be politic, that such persons 
 should, after spending a great part of their lives 
 with industry, zeal, and fidelity, in the discharge 
 of trusts and public duties, be left afterwards 
 without reward of any sort, and their families 
 entirely without provision ?" 
 
 The skill of the Right Honourable Gentleman in 
 arithmetic is above, far above, dispute ; but, if we 
 may venture to say as much, his logic seems to be 
 not altogether upon a par with it. 
 
 * Chap. 9. 
 
 H 
 
98 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 His antecedent, as delivered in the last preceding 
 sentence, is, that the "official income* 5 of the 
 official man is " in many instances insufficient," 
 even for his necessary expenses, meaning his ne- 
 cessary current expense ; and in this next sentence 
 the consequent or conclusion drawn, is that, in plain 
 English and to speak out, he ought to be enabled 
 to make his fortune always at the public expense; 
 and that to so good a purpose, that after his decease 
 his family may in respect of current expenses, so 
 long as it continues, find itself— in what plight? in 
 the same plight (we are left to conclude) or there- 
 abouts, as its founder, the official man himself. 
 
 As to the being preserved as long as it lasts, 
 preserved in all its branches, from decay, that any 
 such provision would be short of the mark, though 
 not to what degree short of the mark, is what 
 we are assured of; for if the family of an official 
 person be a respectable family, (and if not, what 
 family can be a respectable one?) if this be ad- 
 mitted, " trusts," or no trusts, " public duties," 
 or no public duties; the being kept in a state of 
 perpetual preservation from decay is a right that, 
 in the preceding paragraph, has been claimed for 
 them by the Right Honourable Gentleman's 
 " generosity ," supported by his justice. 
 
 The form of the argument is indeed rather of the 
 rhetorical than the logical cast — May we not ven- 
 ture to ask ? The answer is, good sir, no apology — 
 ask boldly ; but ask one thing at a time. First, let 
 us make up the deficiency in respect of current 
 and present expenses, and as the supply we are to 
 provide for these " discharges of trusts and duties" 
 is to keep pace with their expenditure — with the 
 expenditure of each and every of them (for your 
 "generosity" makes no exception) " may we not 
 then venture to ask" on our parts, for a little breath- 
 
§ V. Need of Money for making Fortunes, 6\c. 99 
 
 ing time? If so, then, after we have taken breath a 
 little, will be the time for entering on the further 
 employment you have found for us: viz. the making 
 provision for the families of those official, and there- 
 fore meritorious persons, whose " industry, zeal, and 
 fidelity," as we have not the honour of being ac- 
 quainted with them, it is impossible for ustodispute. 
 
 To this industry, zeal, and fidelity, the " reward" 
 which your generosity and justice, your reason and 
 your " policy" have in store for them, is doubtless 
 to be proportioned : for otherwise those virtues of 
 theirs would, as to a part of them more or less 
 considerable, be left without reward — (virtue left 
 without its reward 1) and as, in the estimate to be 
 formed of the degree in which these several virtues 
 will, by the several official, and therefore meritori- 
 ous, persons be displayed, your "policy," under 
 the guidance of your " generosity," will not find 
 itself under any restraint; the quantity of the 
 reward will be as little in danger of finding any 
 such limits, as would pinch and straiten it. 
 
 The " insufficiency" of their respective " offi- 
 cial incomes," for the respective " necessary ex- 
 penses" of these officially industrious, zealous, 
 and " faithful" persons — as such is the title on 
 which the " generosity," "justice," "reason- 
 ableness," and " policy" of the Right Honourable 
 Gentleman rests their right to have their " neces- 
 sary expenses" defrayed for them, and at the same 
 time their fortunes made for them ; and as no 
 other man can be so good a judge of what is neces- 
 sary for a man as the man himself is, there is a sort 
 of comfort in the reflection — how small the danger 
 is, that, upon the principles and plans of the Right 
 Honourable Gentleman, virtue, in any such shape 
 at least as that of " industry, zeal, and fidelity," 
 (meaning alwavs official ditto) will be left without 
 h 2 
 
100 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 its reward. Having got your official situation, you 
 spend in it so much a year as you find necessary. 
 Having so done, thus and then is it that you have 
 entitled yourself to the benefit of the Right Ho- 
 nourable Gentleman's conclusion — his logical con- 
 clusion, embellished and put into the dress of -a 
 rhetorical erotesis; — that you are entitled to receive 
 out of the taxes as much more as will secure to 
 your " family" that " provision" which, in virtue 
 of your " industry, zeal, and fidelity ," speaking 
 without partiality, or with no other "partiality" 
 than that which, according to the Head-Master* in 
 the school of official economy is a kind 'of justice, 
 it appears to you to deserve. 
 
 After so exemplary a pattern of diffidence as has 
 been set by a Right Honourable Gentleman, whose 
 grounds for confidence are so manifest and so 
 unquestionable, a plain man who feels no such 
 grounds, nor any grounds, for any such pleasurable 
 sensation, can scarce muster up enough of it to put 
 a question of any kind, for fear of being thought 
 encroaching : but, if any one would save me harm- 
 less from that charge, 1 would venture to ask whe- 
 ther it may not have been by a too unqualified 
 adherence to these principles, a too rigid adherence 
 to these precepts, of the two great masters, and 
 without taking the benefit of those precautionary 
 instructions, which the prudence or even the ex- 
 ample of one of them might, if sufficiently studied, 
 have furnished them with, that their Right Ho- 
 nourable friend Mr. Steele, and the Honourable Mr. 
 Villiers, and till theotherday Honourable Mr. Hunt, 
 and the Gallant General Delancv, and the " indus- 
 trious, zealous, and faithful" Mr. John Bowles, with 
 his et caeteras, and so many other et caeteras. were 
 led into those little inaccuracies, which time after 
 
 * Burke, p, 65. 
 
§ V. Need of Money for making Fortunes, &;c. 101 
 
 time have afforded matter of so much, though 
 happily as yet fruitless, triumph to Jacobins, level- 
 lers, and parliamentary reformers? 
 
 It is necessity alone, and not inclination, that in 
 the performance of the task 1 have set myself in the 
 school of economy, so frequently imposes upon me 
 so great a misfortune as that of being seen to differ 
 from so great a master as the Right Honourable 
 Gentleman : and accordingly wherever 1 am fortu- 
 nate enough to be able to descry between us any- 
 thing like a point of coincidence, it is with pro- 
 portionable eagerness that 1 lay hold of it, and en- 
 deavour to make the most of it. 
 
 His plan is — that " official persons," among 
 whom, for the purpose in question, he includes 
 (I presume) persons proposed or proposing them- 
 selves for official situations, should determine for 
 themselves what mass of emolument is sufficient 
 for their own expenses, and what for the expenses 
 of their respective families, in present and in 
 future. Now, thus far, this is exactly my plan. 
 Thus far then we are agreed ; but now comes the 
 unfortunate difference. 
 
 My plan (it will be seen) is, that having formed 
 his own calculations, each candidate, in taking his 
 determination, should take it once for all : and 
 moreover, that, as in the case of stores, in which 
 instance, instead of skilful labour itself, the produce 
 of skilful labour has, with such well-grounded 
 approbation on the part of the Right Honourable 
 Gentleman, been, ever since the time he speaks of,* 
 regularly furnished for the public service, there 
 should be a "competition;" whereupon that one 
 of them, whose judgment concerning what is suf- 
 ficient for him and his. is most favourable to the 
 public interest, should (unless for, and to the cx- 
 
 30 
 
102 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 tent of, special cause to the contrary) be ac- 
 cepted. 
 
 Thus far my plan. But, according to the Right 
 Honourable Gentleman's, the accepted candidate, 
 who without any such competition is to be ac- 
 cepted, viz. in consideration of that "industry, 
 zeal, and fidelity " which will be so sure of being 
 found in him — this accepted candidate, after his 
 calculation has been formed, and the office, with 
 its emolument, taken possession of, is to have the 
 convenience of remaining at liberty to correct by 
 the light of experience (as we shall see* the illus- 
 trious chief and pattern of all official men did) any 
 such errors as the calculation shall, from time to 
 time, have been found to contain in it. By this 
 practical test, having ascertained what is " neces- 
 sary" for his own present expenses, he will have 
 put himself in a condition to determine, and 
 ought accordingly to stand charged with the " trust 
 and duty" of determining, what further provision 
 will be necessary for the " necessary expenses" 
 of his family, considered in its several branches, 
 present and future contingent, for and during the 
 continuance of that portion of time called future 
 time. 
 
 Another unfortunate difference is — that accord- 
 ing to my plan, no exclusion, either express or 
 implied, is put upon such candidates to whom it 
 may happen to have property or income of their 
 own : unable as I am to discover any such office, 
 for the " trusts and duties" of which, any such 
 property or income can reasonably be considered as 
 constituting, in any point of view, a ground of 
 disqualification, or to understand, how it can be 
 that a hundred a year should, in the case of its be- 
 
 1 Infra, § 9. 
 
§ V. Need of Money for making Fortunes, fyc. 103 
 
 inga man's own private money, go less far towards 
 the defraying the " necessary expenses" of him and 
 his, than if it were so much public money, received 
 in the shape of official emolument out of the pub- 
 lic purse. What, in regard to my official man, my 
 plan accordingly assumes, is, — either that he has 
 more or less property or income of his own, or 
 (what in my view comes to much the same thing) 
 what, if any thing, remains to the official situation, 
 after the offer made by him, in relation to it, has 
 been accepted, is, in his own judgment, sufficient 
 for his " expenses," " necessary" and unnecessary, 
 upon every imaginable score. 
 
 Of this assumption, that which seems all along 
 to have been proceeded upon by the Right Ho- 
 nourable Gentleman's plan, is exactly the reverse. 
 
 True it is, that no disqualification Act, exclud- 
 ing from official situations all such persons as shall 
 have either property or income, is any where pro- 
 posed by him ; — no, nor is so much as any recom- 
 mendation given by him to the wisdom of the 
 Crown in the choice it makes of persons for filling 
 these situations, to act as if a law to some such 
 effect were in force. But, all along, the suppo- 
 sition proceeded and argued upon by him is, — 
 that there exists not in the quarter in question, any 
 such relatively superfluous matter: a state "en- 
 tirely without provision" is the state in which 
 '; afterwards" to wit, after " a great part of his life 
 spent" by the official person " in the discharge of 
 trusts and duties," his "family" is spoken of as 
 being " left:" and it is upon this supposition that 
 at least the "policy" of the Right Honourable Gen- 
 tleman (not to speak of his humanity) grounds 
 itself in the appeal it makes to that same endow- 
 ment, which he beholds as fixed in the breasts of 
 those Honourable persons for whose use this lesson 
 
104 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 of economy is designed. Would it be "reason- 
 able"/ — would it';be "politic" ? — are the questions 
 which on this occasion he asks leave to " venture 
 to ask." 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 PLEA 5. — NEED OF MONEY FOR BUYING MEN 
 OFF FROM PROFESSIONS. 
 
 .5. A fifth plea is composed of the alleged ne- 
 cessity of buying off men from private pursuits : in 
 other words, of the want of'- wisdom" there would 
 be in failing to allow to official men — to all official 
 men — in the shape of official emolument, as much 
 money, at the least, as any body can gain " by 
 trade or manufactures." 
 
 " It would hardly" (says he, p. 64) " be wise, on 
 reflection, to establish a principle, which would 
 have a tendency at least to exclude from the service 
 of their country men likely to be useful to it. 
 Great numbers of those who engage in trade and 
 manufacture (than whom none are held in greater 
 estimation by the author) or who enter into va- 
 rious professions, frequently acquire very large 
 fortunes" (very true indeed) "and seldom, if they 
 have talents and perseverance, fail to obtain inde- 
 pendence. What fairness, justice, or reason, is 
 there then in marking the character of the official 
 man alone with disrespect, and himself as unfit to 
 have reward in any case, beyond an annual stipend 
 for his labour and services, just sufficient for his 
 current expenses, however faithfully and diligently 
 he may have discharged an important trust for a 
 long series of years ?" " Surely" (concludes he) 
 " it is not unwise or unreasonable that the public 
 
§ VI. Need of Money for buying Men, §c. lOi 
 
 should be in a situation to bid to a limited extent 
 for talents, in competition with other honourable 
 and lucrative professions, and various branches of 
 trade and manufactures." 
 
 Thus far the Right Honourable Author : — as for 
 the obscure commentator, perplexity is once more 
 his fate. The Right Honourable Author speaks of 
 8 principle: a principle which, such as it is, he 
 disapproves of". But what this principle is, the 
 obscure commentator can no otherwise take his 
 chance for declaring aright, than by a very random 
 guess. 
 
 The omitting in the instance of an official per- 
 son to make for his family a provision, such as he 
 (the official person) or the Right. Honourable Au- 
 thor, or somebody else (and who else ?) shall pitch 
 upon as being " necessary ," and, according to the 
 just-described plan of estimation, sufficient/ An 
 omission to this effect is it the thing to which, by 
 the style and title of a " principle" the Right Ho- 
 nourable Gentleman, " on reflection" means to at- 
 tach the censure (for gentle and considerate as it is, 
 it is still a censure) — attached to it, viz. by saying 
 of it that " it would hardly be wise" ? Ves; this 
 must be it ; at any rate, it is the nearest approach 
 to it that the perplexed commentator is able to 
 make. 
 
 But of this principle, which " it would hardly be 
 wise to establish/'' though unfortunately we have no 
 such specific and particular description, as (were it 
 only to save us from wishing to see an unwise prin- 
 ciple established) we cannot but wish for, we have 
 at any rate a general description, viz. such a de- 
 scription as is given of it by the designation, its 
 imputed tendency ; — and that in so many words : 
 — " a principle 1 ' (says he) k ' which would have a 
 
106 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 tendency at least to exclude from the service of 
 their country men likely to be useful to it." 
 
 Now in this principle, if so it be that the per- 
 plexed commentator has succeeded in his humble 
 endeavours to pierce the cloud that covers it ; in 
 this principle we have another measure of the 
 quantity of emolument which on this single score, 
 not to speak at present of any other — on this one 
 account, viz. that of money to be employed in mak- 
 ing the fortunes of their respective families, the 
 Right Honourable Author, did it depend on him, 
 would, in the situation of minister, annex to office, 
 — annex to every office. 
 
 Let us distinguish what requires to be distin- 
 guished. What, under the last head, we learned, 
 was one of the purposes for which the official emo- 
 lument was necessary; — what, under this head, 
 we receive, is a sort of standard of reference, from 
 which the quantity of that necessary emolument 
 may be estimated, and finally set down in figures. 
 True it is that, on the present occasion, not that 
 same purpose but a fresh purpose is named and 
 brought to view ; there, the purpose was, enabling 
 the official man to make his family; here, it is — 
 inducing a man, not as yet official, to become such 
 by buying him off from other pursuits; from all 
 pursuits, how lucrative soever, in any one of which, 
 if not thus bought off, it might have happened to 
 him to engage. 
 
 But, if the quantity allowed for this fresh pur- 
 pose (viz. the buy ing-off purpose) be ample enough, 
 (and the necessity of not being niggardly on this 
 score will be no secret) — the consequence is, that 
 by the help of a little economy, such as at the hands 
 of so enlightened a professor of economy it might 
 not be too much to venture to ask for, one and the 
 
§ VI. Need of Money for buying Men, fyc. 107 
 
 same mass of money might be made to serve both 
 purposes. The reason is — that on the occasion of 
 the two purposes, two different periods are in ques- 
 tion : viz. that of possession, and that of expectancy. 
 When actually in possession, whatsoever it be that 
 is necessary to a man, for the good purpose (what- 
 ever it be) which is in question (making a family, 
 for example, and so forth) that it is that he must 
 have in hand. But, before he has taken posses- 
 sion, and till he has taken possession, it is not ne- 
 cessary, how desirable soever on some accounts it 
 might be, that at the public expense he should 
 have any thing. So as you do but give him in 
 prospect, and sufficiently secured, as much as, if 
 in possession, would be, by ever so little, more 
 than any man ever got into possession of by means 
 of trade or manufactures — a million for example — 
 that same million will, when the time comes, be 
 accepted of, upon account at least, as and for the 
 money necessary to make his family. Of this same 
 million, the eventual possession being sufficiently 
 secured, the bare expectation will suffice to buy 
 him oft' from all trades and manufactures in the 
 lump : so that in fact, if when measured according 
 to the standard laid down by this fifth plea, the 
 allowance made on the sum mentioned in plea the 
 fourth be sufficiently liberal, the advantage men- 
 tioned in this same fifth plea is so much got for 
 nothing. 
 
 Money, it must all this while be carefully kept 
 in mind — money is the only sort of matter, which, 
 accordingto theprinciples of our Right Honourable 
 Author, is to the purpose here in question ; viz. 
 to the purpose of providing recruits for the official 
 establishment, capable of officiating in the character 
 of matter of reward. Even so substantial a thing as 
 power — power of management — power of patronage. 
 
108 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 — titles, — honours, not to speak of any such empty 
 bubble as reputation — all this, in the estimation of 
 the Right Honourable Author, is, to the purpose 
 here in question at least, without force or value. 
 
 Money, therefore, and in the same quantity as if 
 there were nothing else that had any value, is the 
 matter of which the reward, or whatever it be that 
 is to constitute a man's inducement to engage in 
 the service of the country, is to be composed. 
 
 But, as is very truly observed by the Right Ho- 
 nourable Gentleman, so it is, that in virtue of the 
 money, the prospect of which they present to those 
 who engage in them, there are not only " other 
 honourable and lucrative professions," but " various 
 branches of trade and manufactures," that enter 
 into " competition " with the money, which, in the 
 character of official emolument, stands annexed to 
 official service. 
 
 Equally true it is, that every instance, in which, 
 in case of a man's " engaging in any of those 
 non-official lines of industry, and in particular 
 in any branch of trade or manufacture, it might 
 happen to him to get more money than he could 
 by official service, the difference, whatever it may 
 be, has " (to use the words of the Right Honour- 
 able Gentleman) " a tendency at least to exclude 
 from the service of their country men likely to be 
 useful to z7." True, on the other hand, it is, that 
 the character in which this "tendency" operates, 
 is not that of a physical bar : no, nor so much as 
 that of a penal statute. It is, however, in the 
 character of that sort of obstacle, the resisting 
 force of which is in his eyes so powerful, that the 
 whole paragraph, with the whole of the deobstruent 
 force therein contained, is devoted to the sole pur- 
 pose of removing it ; viz. by persuading those on 
 whom it depends, so to order matters, that by this 
 
§ VI. Need of Monet/ for buying Men, &;c. IQJ 
 
 "discharge of trusts and duties 1 "' more money may 
 so be got by somebody or anybody, than can begot 
 by anybody in the exercise of any " lucrative pro- 
 fession, trade, or manufacture." 
 
 Now, then, to get the better of so troublesome 
 a thing as this "principle of exclusion " and ena- 
 ble the " service of the country 9i to have as good 
 a chance as " trade and manufactures" have, for 
 " engaging nun likcltf to be useful to it" what is 
 then to be done? two courses there are, and in 
 the nature of things but two, by which any such 
 effect is capable of being produced. One consists 
 in lessening the quantity of money capable of be- 
 ing gained in the way of trade and manufactures; 
 the other, in increasing the quantity of money 
 capable of being gained in the shape of official 
 emolument in the way of official service. 
 
 To the quantity of money capable at present of 
 being gained in trade or manufactures there are no 
 limits. A million or more one hears spoken of as 
 the amount of the money gained in this or that 
 instance, and even from no very considerable be- 
 ginnings: of half that money or thereabouts one 
 hears of in numbers of other instances. Fixations 
 of this sort must remain exposed, not only to ori- 
 ginal uncertainty, but to continual variation. By 
 a select committee, with the Right Honourable 
 Gentleman at the head, this point, however, is 
 one that needs not despair of being settled : settled, 
 if not with mathematical exactness, at any rate 
 with that rough degree of precision which is suf- 
 ficient for practice. 
 
 True it is, all this while, that on behalf of the 
 public — that public which he has thus taken under 
 his protection — the sum which the Right Honour- 
 able Gentleman requires for this purpose is but a 
 " limited" sum. To enable the public to maintain, 
 
1 10 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 on the occasion in question, the proposed " com- 
 petition" with so formidable a host or' competitors 
 as the " other honourable and lucrative professions, 
 and various branches of trade and manufactures" 
 all he asks is — that it " should be in a situation to 
 bid to a limited extent." 
 
 But, the limits here alluded to — at what point 
 shall they be set ? If set at a sum, the effect of 
 which will leave to these rival pursuits so much 
 as a " tendency to exclude from the service of their 
 country men who are likely to be useful to it," 
 they will " exclude" from the faculty of regulating 
 practice on this head, the Right Honourable Gen- 
 tleman, with those "wise" principles of his which 
 he is thus supporting against the unwise ones he 
 complains of. 
 
 For a maximum, beginning with the highest 
 situation, shall we, to make sure, say, for example, 
 a couple of millions, to be laid up over and above 
 " his necessary current expenses" by an official per- 
 son who, with that " industry, zeal, and fidelity," 
 the union of which the Right Honourable Ac- 
 countant gives him credit for, as a matter of course, 
 shall, in that highest situation, have spent in the 
 " discharge of trusts and, public duties a great part" 
 — say for example five and twenty years — of his 
 life. 
 
 For our maximum, taking then these two mil- 
 lions, or even so scanty an allowance as a single 
 million, and setting out from this point, shall we 
 proceed downwards till, after the manner of that 
 other state lottery, which is commonly so called^ 
 we have got for our lottery a number of prizes, 
 equal to the aggregate number of official situa- 
 tions ? 
 
 This is what, " on reflection," the " wisdom" of 
 the Right Honourable Gentleman requires us to 
 
§ VI. Need of Money for buying Men, fyc. 1 1 1 
 
 do, on pain of seeing " established, the principle," 
 against the "exclusive tendency" of which we 
 have been seeing him remonstrate so pathetically: 
 this in short is what we must do, unless, embracing 
 the only other branch of the alternative, and going 
 to work in the other quarter, we set ourselves to 
 restrict the quantity of money that a man shall be 
 " in a situation" to gain by any of the " various 
 brandies of trade and manufactures," 
 
 In the " bidding " thus proposed by him "for 
 talents" if on his plan the public service is to 
 have any chance of bearing off the prize or prizes, 
 there remains therefore but one other expedient; and 
 that is, the " limiting " and thus eventually lessen- 
 ing, the quantity of the emolument which men shall 
 have it in their power to make in trade or manu- 
 factures. 
 
 But this is what the Right Honourable Gentle- 
 man would never permit himself to endeavour at. 
 For this would be to " mark with disrespect the 
 character" — not now indeed " of the official man," 
 but what in the Right Honourable Gentleman's 
 estimation would be quite as improper a character 
 thus to mark, viz. that of the mercantile man. It 
 would be to stigmatize by this invidious mark 
 " great numbers of those who engage in trade and 
 manufactures:" — persons "than whom none," not 
 even the official man himself, " are by the author," 
 (as the Right Honourable Author is himself pleased 
 to assure them) " held in higher estimation" This, 
 then, is the objection to the setting limits to the 
 sum, which a man shall be " in a situation to gain 
 by trade or manufactures :" and after an objection 
 thus conclusive it were lost time to look for minor 
 ones. 
 
112 
 
 SECTION VII. 
 
 DIGRESSION* COXCERNIXG THE VALUE OF 
 MONEY. 
 
 Such, as we have seen, is the course one or 
 other branch of which is, " on reflection," in the 
 sight of the Right Honourable Author, so neces- 
 sar\', that the omitting to pursue it is considered 
 by him as that which would have the effect of 
 " marking the character of the official man with 
 disrespect ;" which to do would, as, in the way 
 of interrogation, the Right Honourable Gentleman, 
 with most incontestable propriety, observes, would 
 be to act without "fairness, justice, or reason." 
 
 Now as to " disrespect" for this protege of the 
 Right Honourable Gentleman — disrespect for him 
 I do protest that i feel none. But, as to the 
 allowing to him out of the taxes all that money 
 which the "generosity" and "justice" and "rea- 
 son", and " policy" and " wisdom" and "fairness" 
 of his Right Honourable Patron lays claim to on 
 his behalf — without knowing exactly what it is, 
 thus much I know, that so expensive a proof of 
 the absence of disrespect is more than I could 
 afford to pay my share of: mine being one of the 
 " many instances in which income" even though 
 not "official" is insufficient (to borrow the Right 
 Honourable Gentleman's words) " actually in- 
 sufficient for these" 
 
 What I am therefore reduced to, is — the plea 
 that my declining to do that, to the doing of 
 which my limited means are so far from being 
 sufficient, is not a mark of disrespect to any body; 
 and by this plea, in so far and so long as it can be 
 
§ VII. Concerning the Value of Money. 1 13 
 
 maintained, as I humbly conceive it may be to 
 the very last, without disrespect to the Right 
 Honourable Gentleman, I am determined to abide. 
 
 My notion of him (I mean the " official man") 
 is — that, besides money, there are other things that 
 are capable of being objects of his regard : other 
 things that are capable of engaging him to take 
 upon himself the obligations of office, in the words 
 of the Right Honourable Author (of the value of 
 which, when they are to be had, I am too fully 
 sensible to take up with any other) to " spend" 
 even " a great part of his life in the discharge of 
 trusts and public duties:" and in proof of this, 
 regarding fact as no bad proof of possibility, I have 
 referred to several most conspicuous, and happily 
 very extensive lines of practice.* 
 
 If it be by either of us,- — if it be by any body, — 
 that this same " official man" is treated with "dis- 
 respect," 1 would venture to appeal to every man, 
 in whose eyes there may be anything besides 
 money that has a value, whether it is not, by the 
 Right Honourable Gentleman himself, whose sym- 
 pathy can so ill brook the imputation, and whose 
 imagination paints to him a set of unreasonable 
 people ; a set of people, into whose company, 
 spite of all protestations, I cannot but expect to 
 find myself forced ; — people who, being sworn 
 enemies to this same officially " industrious, zea- 
 lous, and faithful" person, exercise themselves in 
 " marking his character with disrespect," in despite 
 of" fairness, reason, and justice." (p. 65.) 
 
 What the Right Honourable Gentleman insists 
 upon — and in a manner much stronger than by 
 direct assertion -what he insists upon in the way of 
 assumption, is — that upon the mind of his official 
 
 * Part I. 
 
1 1 4 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 person there is nothing in the world but money 
 that is capable of operating, whether in possession 
 or expectation, with any adequate degree of effici- 
 ency, in the character of" reward" 
 
 Now, in regard to this same sort of person, my 
 notion is quite opposite : — quite opposite, and so 
 determinately so, that the supposed contrariety of 
 his disposition to the character given of him by the 
 Right Honourable Gentleman, is all that that plan 
 of mine, which has so often been alluded to, has 
 to ground itself upon. 
 
 Money, money — nothing else, Sir, is of any value 
 in your eyes. . . . 
 
 Many things there are, Sir, besides money, that 
 have their value in your eyes. . . . 
 
 The first is the language in which this respect- 
 able person is addressed by the Right Honourable 
 Gentleman, his declared patron. The other is the 
 language in which he is addressed by the obscure 
 man, his supposed enemy. 
 
 In which of these two modes of address is there 
 most of respect, most of " disrespect?" — Gentle 
 reader, judge between us. 
 
 For my part, the former mode of address is one 
 that I could not prevail upon myself to use to 
 any man ; no, not even to the Right Honourable 
 Gentleman himself; not even his own licence, 
 clear as it is, — not even his own express command 
 would prevail upon me ; neither to him, nor of 
 him, could I prevail upon myself ever to say any 
 such thing : for 1 do not, no, that I don't, — I 
 would say it to his face — believe it to be true. 
 1 beg pardon for the seeming contradiction that 
 I put upon what he says: 1 mean not anything 
 of disrespect to him in this shape, any more than 
 
§ VII. Concerning the Value of Money. 1 lo 
 
 in the other. I mean not that, should he abso- 
 lutely insist upon giving any such account of 
 himself, he would, at the moment, be saying that 
 of which he would be conscious of its not being 
 true. All I mean is, that if such be his opinion 
 of himself, he does not do himself justice : that, 
 for want of leisure, engrossed as his attention has 
 been by the " discharge of trusts and public du- 
 ties," he has not looked closely enough into a 
 subject— a human subject — which if he were to 
 become a little better acquainted with it, than he 
 appears as yet to be, might afford him more en use 
 of satisfaction than he seems to be aware of. 
 
 Yes, on this ground, defend him 1 will, though 
 it be against himself, and, fierce as his attack upon 
 himself is, it is not pushed with so much skill, but 
 that 1 will make him parry it. 
 
 For this purpose, 1 do insist upon it — I will take 
 no denial — that he shall look once more at the last 
 of his own pages but one. After reading, mark- 
 ing, and learning them, that " the most degrading 
 corruption of a statesman, or his friends, is indeed 
 by the influence of money," he will find it written 
 — and that immediately after — that " public men 
 may be corrupted by the love of power, as well as by 
 lust of gain." Now, then, if by this same love of 
 power men may be " corrupted" by this same love 
 of power, (I say) they may be operated upon; and 
 if operated upon to a bad purpose, so may they, 
 and (let us hope) still more easily and effectively, 
 to a. good one: for when operated upon to a bad 
 purpose, they must be strange men indeed if they 
 do not find themselves operated upon, with how 
 little force and effect soever, by some principle or 
 other, in a counter direction: in a counter direction 
 by some principle or other, call it fear of disrepute^ 
 
1 16 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 call it conscience, call it what you please* — which 
 they would find acting, not in opposition to, but 
 in concert with, the love of power, in any case, in 
 which the purpose, towards which it operated 
 upon them, and towards which it tended to direct 
 their exertions, were a good one. 
 
 And is it really any opinion of the Right Ho- 
 nourable Gentleman's, that to the love of power it 
 is impossible to act upon the mind of man in any 
 direction but a sinister one ? Impossible to act upon 
 it with effect in any other way than by corrupting 
 it? — No; that it is not : for if it were, he would 
 shake off from his hands whatsoever, in the shape 
 of power, he felt sticking on them ; he would 
 shake it off as he would a viper. Adieu all Trea- 
 surerships ! adieu even all Clerkships/ for to the 
 Clerkship, even of Parliament, though no such 
 troublesome appendage as that of obligation has 
 ever been felt cleaving to it and incumbering it, 
 yet (not to speak of money, — that not being here 
 in question) power enough, and in a variety of 
 shapes, might be found thereunto appertaining, if 
 a gentleman happened to be in a humour to make 
 use of it. 
 
 Thus it is that in and by every line, I am labour- 
 ing and toiling to prove, and if possible persuade 
 gentlemen to be of opinion, that the sun shines at 
 noon-day. But why? Only because in and by 
 the argument of the Right Honourable Gentleman 
 the contrary fact is assumed. 
 
 * In the Table of the Spring of Action, lately published by 
 the author, all the principles in question may be found, with 
 explanations. 
 
117 
 
 SECTION VIII. 
 
 PLEA 6. NEED OF MONEY AS A STIMULUS TO 
 
 OFFICIAL EXERTION. 
 
 A sixth plea, if I understand it right, consists 
 in the alleged need of money for the purpose of 
 serving in the case of official men in the character 
 of a stimulus: to be applied, viz. to men of here- 
 ditary wealth and independence, to spur them on 
 to the acquisition of talent, or else to be applied 
 somewhere else, in order to enable us to do without 
 them and their talents, by having better men in 
 their stead. 
 
 Of this plea the account I am thus giving, is, 
 I must confess, besides its not being quite so clear 
 as I could wish, a little long-winded ; but it is the 
 best I am able to give. Meantime the reader will 
 see whether he can make anything better of it. 
 
 " It has always been justly held" (*says the 
 Right Honourable Gentleman) " in a free country, 
 and particularly in this, to be one of its greatest 
 privileges, that the chief aristocracy, as far as 
 relates to the management of its public concerns, 
 should be an aristocracy of talent and of virtue, as 
 well as of rank and of property; which principle 
 would be destroyed, if remuneration for public ser- 
 vices should he withheld; and the community would 
 be deprived of all its advantages. Not only the 
 great offices of state, but some others of most 
 efficiency" (Secretaryships to the Treasury, per- 
 haps, for instance) " must then be" (meaning pro- 
 bably, would in that case necessarily be) " confined 
 to men of hereditary wealth and independence; and, 
 
 * P. 65. 
 
1 1 8 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 with all the proper respect which should be enter- 
 tained for such men, it must be allowed that, for 
 the acquisition and improvement of talents neces- 
 sary for the higher offices, the passing occasionally 
 through the inferior situations, and that principle of 
 activity which animates men in the attainment, so 
 much more than in the mere possession, of power 
 and station, are much more favourable than the 
 honours claimable by descent alone/' 
 
 The exertions made by the Right Honourable 
 Gentleman, in the endeavours he uses to prevail 
 upon himself, and enable himself, to pay whatever 
 respect it may be " proper" to pay to men of a 
 certain description, present an edifying spectacle. 
 It is what he has been trying at, and labouring at 
 throughout the whole course of his paragraph, 
 (which, as the reader feels, is not a very short one) 
 and after all without having any great success to 
 boast of. Stationed, and for so long a course of 
 time, close to the very door of the Cabinet, though 
 not yet on the right side of it — seeing the Duke of 
 Portland every day, seeing the Earl of Liverpool, 
 seeing the Lord Viscount Castlereagh, son and heir- 
 apparent to the Earl of Londonderry, seeing the 
 Earl of Westmoreland, seeing the Earl of Chatham, 
 seeing Earl Camden, seeing the Lord Mulgrave — 
 (seeing in a word almost everybody that is worth 
 seeing) all of them not only " men of hereditary 
 wealth and independence," but even nobles of the 
 land — among all those great men there is not one, 
 no not one, whom he has found it possible to " hold 
 in any higher estimation" than great numbers of 
 those who engage in trade and manufactures. I 
 mean antecedently to the exertions betrayed or 
 displayed in this present paragraph ; and how small 
 the progress is, which in this same paragraph he 
 has succeeded in making, let this same paragraph 
 itself declare. 
 
§ VIII. Need of Money as a Stimulus, tyc. 1 19 
 
 His Majesty, tor whom also the Right Honour- 
 able Gentleman (1 will be bound for him) has all 
 along been labouring, and with at least equal 
 energy, to entertain " all the proper respect tchich 
 should be entertained for" him, all these great 
 men, his Majesty, or those whose estate (as the law- 
 yers say) he hath, were, at one time or other, at the 
 pains of decking out with titles, and even some of 
 them with ribbons: yet after all, and upon so good 
 a judge of merit as the Right Honourable Gentle- 
 man — one moreover who has had such good and 
 such near opportunities of observation — so inconsi- 
 derable has been the effect that has been produced 
 at all this expense — that " in the estimation" of 
 the Right Honourable Gentleman, they are still so 
 unfortunate, every one of them, as not to occupy 
 any higher place, than is occupied by, alas ! alas ! 
 " great numbers of those who engage in trade and 
 manufactures." 
 
 Of the difficulties which he had to struggle with, 
 in his endeavours to find or make any higher place 
 for them, the magnitude is betrayed (shall we say ?) 
 or manifested, in every line: as is likewise, when 
 all is over, the delicacy with which, to the very 
 last, he avoided giving any direct expression to 
 that conclusion, which having, in an unlucky mo- 
 ment, before the commencement of this paragraph, 
 burst out unawares, had, throughout the whole 
 course of it, been labouring once more to find vent 
 and utterance. Of all these great men, if we may 
 take the word of so good a judge, there is nothing 
 to be made without money ; nor, if it were " proper" 
 to speak out, any great matter even with the help 
 of it : especially in comparison of some other great 
 men that he knows of, who, "for the acquisition 
 and improvement of talents''' necessary for the 
 higher offices — including a consummate skill in 
 the application of the four rules of arithmetic, 
 
1 20 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 and without wasting time upon any such specula- 
 tive and theoretical science as logic, have had the 
 benefit of " passing occasionally" (pour passer le 
 terns, as the French say) " through the inferior 
 situations." 
 
 When the antagonists whom the Right Honour- 
 able Gentleman has to contend with, are the off- 
 spring of his own genius, they give him little 
 trouble. 
 
 In his 62d page we find him setting to rights a 
 set of men (but whether these were " among his 
 reasonable and candid men" that he had just been 
 meeting with, I cannot take upon me to be certain) 
 a set of men, however, of some sort or other, ac- 
 cording to whose conception, the whole amount of 
 what is levied on the people by taxes, goes to 
 pay " sinecures and pensions :" from which, if 
 true, it would follow that, on so simple a condition 
 as that of suppressing these nuisances — taxes, 
 those still greater nuisances, might be cleared away 
 at any time. But that any such conception is a 
 misconception, and " consequently, although there 
 were no sinecures or pensions, there would still 
 be taxes," he proves immediately beyond all dis- 
 pute ; and his antagonists, let them be ever so 
 " reasonable ," have not a word more to say for 
 themselves. 
 
 This misconception being set to rights in that 
 his 62d page, here again in his 66th page we find 
 him employed in instructing and undeceiving ano- 
 ther set of men, or perhaps the same set in another 
 dress, who are for " withholding remuneration" 
 (meaning nothing less than all remuneration, how- 
 soever ashamed they may be to say so) " for public 
 services." 
 
 A strange set of men they are whoever they 
 are — and what is to be done with them ? The 
 course he takes with them (and if he does not 
 
§ VII J. Need of Money as a Stimulus, §c. 121 
 
 convince them, heat least reduces them to silence) 
 is, the setting them to think of a " principle," 
 which he knows of, and which, if such remunera- 
 tions were withheld, would" (he says) " be de- 
 stroyed : and the principle once destroyed," " the 
 community" (he concludes with an irresistible 
 force of reasoning) " would be deprived of all its 
 advantages." 
 
 Now, if so it be that he really knows of any 
 such men, it is pity but he had told us where some 
 of them are to be seen : for as a raree-show they 
 would be worth looking at. 1, for my part, jacobin 
 as 1 suppose 1 am, — I, for my part, am not one of 
 them. And this too 1 am happily enabled to 
 prove : having, for a particular purpose, proposed 
 some good round sums to be disposed of in this 
 way ; and that according to another plan, in my 
 opinion of which, every day I live confirms me. 
 
 Of the only sort of thing which in his account, 
 — at least while this paragraph lasts, — is of any 
 value, viz. money, my plan (I speak now of that 
 which relates to the present subject) goes some- 
 what further than any other which it has happened 
 to me to see, in reducing the quantity to be admi- 
 nistered at the public expense: and yet not even 
 in this shape do I propose to withhold it, except 
 in so far as the public service would be performed, 
 not only cheaper but better without it : and, be the 
 Right Honourable Gentleman's "principle" what 
 it may, I disclaim altogether any such destructive 
 thought, as that of" destroying" it. 
 
 All this while, a difficulty, which has been per- 
 plexing me, is — that of comprehending what sort 
 of an aristocracy this new sort is, the discovery of 
 which has been made by the Right Honourable 
 Gentleman, and to which, exercising the right 
 which is acknowledged to belong to all discoverers, 
 
 i* 
 
122 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 he has given the name of " an aristocracy of talent 
 and of virtue." Not that by any such description, 
 if taken by itself, any great difficulty would have 
 been produced, but that it is by the sort of rela- 
 tion, which is represented as subsisting between 
 this sort of aristocracy and the sort of thing called 
 money, that my perplexity is occasioned. 
 
 So far as money is concerned, " virtue " accord- 
 ing to what we have been used, most of us, to 
 hear and read of at school, and at college, such 
 of us as have been to college, consists, though not 
 perhaps in doing altogether without money, at any 
 rate in taking care not to set too high a value on it. 
 But, with all its virtue, or rather in virtue of its 
 very virtue, the aristocracy, which the Right 
 Honourable Gentleman has in view, is a sort of 
 aristocracy, of which the characteristic is, that they 
 will not (the members of it) do a stitch without 
 money : and in their eyes, " remuneration" in any 
 other shape is no remuneration at all: why? be- 
 cause in their eyes, to this purpose at least, 
 nothing whatever but money is of any value. 
 
 We have seen who they are that must have 
 been sitting for the Right Honourable Gentleman's 
 Kit-Cat Club — his "aristocracy of rank and of 
 property:" where now shall we find the originals 
 of his ik aristocracy of talent and of virtue ?" 
 
 Consulting the works of Dr. Beatson and Mr. 
 Luffman, the only channels, the periodical ones 
 excepted, through which, in my humble situation, 
 a man can form any conception concerning any 
 such " great characters" 1 can find no others but 
 Mr. Percivaf Lord Eldon, Air. Canning, Sir 
 David Dundas, and a Gentleman (Right Honour- 
 able, I presume) who, in Mr. LufTman's Table of 
 Great Characters, occupies at present his 1,5th 
 column, by the description of" Mr. G. Rose." 
 
§ IX. Need of Money for the Support, 6,'c. Iff 
 
 Meantime money, — meaning public money, — 
 being in the Right Honourable Gentleman's sys- 
 tem of aetiology, the causa sine qua non, not only 
 of" virtue/* but of that "talent" whieh is found in 
 company with virtue, and being on that score ne- 
 cessary to the constitution of that one of the two 
 branches of his aristocracy, if it has two, or of 
 the whole of it, if it is all in one, — what 1 would 
 submit to him is — whether the task which in en- 
 tering upon this work, he appears to have set him- 
 self, will have been perfectly gone through with, 
 till he has found means for securing to this talent-' 
 and-cirtue branch of bis " aristocracy " a larger 
 portion of his one thing needful than appears to 
 have as yet fallen to its lot. 
 
 Running over, in this view, such parcels of the 
 matter of remuneration as exceed each of them the 
 amount of 10,000/. a-year (the only part of the 
 sinecure list a man can find time for looking over 
 and speaking to in this view), 1 find them all, or 
 almost all of them, in possession of the " ranle-and- 
 proptrty" branch : while the " lalcnt-and virtue'" 
 branch, starved and hide-bound, has found itself 
 reduced to take up with the other's leavings. 
 
 SECTION IX. 
 
 PLEA 7. — NEED OF MONEY FOR THE SUPPORT 
 OF OFFICIAL 1MGN1TV. 
 
 A seventh plea, and the last I have been 
 able to find, consists in the alleged need of money 
 for a purpose that seems to be the same with one, 
 which in other vocabularies is meant by the words 
 " support of dignity:"* in the words of the Right 
 
 * Finance Committee, 1797-8; do. 1807-S. 
 
12i Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 Honourable Gentleman (for, on pain of misrepre- 
 sentation, the very words must be taken where 
 words are everything) "preservation of a certain 
 appearance" 
 
 " It is true" (continues he) " that magnanimity 
 and genuine patriotic ambition will look for a 
 nobler reward for their services than the emolu- 
 ments of office; but in the present state of society, 
 a certain appearance is essential to be preserved 
 by persons in certain stations, which cannot be 
 maintained without a liberal provision." 
 
 From this paragraph, one piece of good news 
 we learn, or should learn at least, if it could be de- 
 pended upon, is — that the time is now come when 
 " magnanimity and genuine patriotic ambition will 
 look for a nobler reward for their services than the 
 emoluments of office." So late as the moment 
 when the last hand was put to the Right Honour- 
 able Author's last preceding paragraph, this mo- 
 ment of magnanimity was not yet arrived : down 
 to that moment, had " remuneration" (meaning as 
 afterwards explained, in the shape of emolument) 
 been withheld, " principle,'* of some kind or other, 
 would have been destroyed — and so forth. 
 
 Fortunate is this change for the country, and 
 in particular, not a little so for the somewhat defi- 
 cient plan here, by an unofficial hand, ventured to 
 be proposed.* Here then we have it ; — and from 
 such high and competent authority,— that besides 
 emolument, there is a something, which, in the 
 character of" reward for their services," " magna- 
 nimity and genuine patriotic ambition" " will look 
 for:" and (what is better still) this unspecified 
 something is capable of being received not only in 
 the character of a reward, but in the character of a 
 
 * The plan here, as elsewhere alluded to, is the plan, the 
 publication of which was suspended as above. 
 
§ XI. Need of Money for the Support, Sfc. 12.5 
 
 reward of " a nobler'''' sort than emolument — that 
 sine qua non, without which, till this paragraph of 
 the Right Honourable Gentleman's was concluded, 
 or at least begun upon, nothing was to be done. 
 
 Having this, 1 have all I want, and (as will be 
 seen, and as I hope has even been seen already) 
 even more than I mean, or have any need to use. 
 
 Unfortunately for me, no sooner has the Right 
 Honourable Gentleman's wisdom and candour 
 and discernment obtained from him, and for my 
 use, this concession, — than some others of his 
 virtues, 1 know not exactly which, join hands and 
 take it back again : and, though no otherwise than 
 by implication, yet — so necessary to his argument 
 is this implication — that, if he had taken it back 
 in direct words, he could not have done more than 
 he has done, if so much, towards depriving me of 
 the benefit of it. 
 
 " But," (continues he, and now comes the re- 
 tractation) " a certain appearance is essential to be 
 preserved by persons in certain stations, which" 
 (meaning probably " which appearance) " cannot 
 be maintained without liberal provision." 
 
 " In certain stations, a certain appearance" — 
 Nothing can be more delicate, — nothing at the 
 same time more commodiously uncertain, — than 
 this double certainty. Meantime, if, in the mean- 
 ing of the whole paragraph there be anything cer- 
 tain, it appears to me to be this: viz. that on 
 behalf of " the magnanimity and genuine patriotic 
 ambition" which the Right Honourable Gentleman 
 has taken under his protection, what he claims is 
 — that, in the account debtor and creditor, as be- 
 tween service and reward, this reward which, not 
 being emolument, is nobler than emolument, 
 (meaning by nobler, if anything at all be meant by 
 
126 Defence of Economy against Base. 
 
 it, that which, in their estimate at least, is worth 
 more) is to be set down as worth nothing : and ac- 
 cordingly, that the quantity of the matter of re- 
 ward, which each ollicial person is to have in the 
 less noble, but more substantial and tangible shape, 
 is to be exactly the same as if there were no other 
 reward, either in their hand, or within their view. 
 
 To my plan however, with its weak means of 
 support, so necessary is the concession thus plain- 
 ly, though but for the moment, made by the Right 
 Honourable Gentleman, that with my good will, 
 he shall never have it back again. Power then has 
 its value: reputation has its value : and this, for 
 the moment at least, has been admitted by Mr. Rose. 
 By Mr. Rose's evidence — by the weight of Mr. 
 Rose's authority — 1 have proved it. And now is my 
 time for triumphing. For though neither he, nor 
 any other Right Honourable Gentleman, ever took 
 his seat in any moderately full House of Commons, 
 nor ever attended a Quarter Sessioiis, without 
 seeing before him gentlemen in numbers, whose 
 conduct afforded a still more conclusive evidence 
 of the same fact, than any verbal testimony they 
 could have given, even though it were in black 
 and white,— f magistrates, by the labour they be- 
 stow without emolument in the execution of their 
 office, — members, by the expense which, lawfully 
 or unlawfully they have been at in obtaining their 
 unemolumented seats) — yet such is the weight of 
 his authority, and to my humble plan, so strong 
 the support it gives, that, having seized the fortu- 
 nate moment, and got possession of the evidence, I 
 can do no less than make the most of it. 
 
 Now then (say i) whatever it be that these valu- 
 able things are worth, so much, in the account as 
 between reward and service, let them be set down 
 
§ IX. Need of Money for the Support, S$c. 127 
 
 for: nor shall even the ingenuity of the Right 
 Honourable Gentleman enable him to object any 
 want of "fairness" to my estimate, leaving, as my 
 plan does, to his protege (the proposed official per- 
 son himself) to make out his own estimate :- -to 
 fix his own value upon the non-emolumentary part 
 of his reward. The more he chooses to have in 
 the more " noble" shape, the less may he be con- 
 tent to receive in the less noble shape : how much 
 he will have of each rests altogether with himself: 
 and, so long as, — with its bitters in one hand, 
 and its sweets in the other, — the office cannot upon 
 my plan be put into his hands without his own 
 consent, what ground for complaint anybody can 
 make for him, is more than 1 can see. 
 
 " Certain appearance ?" For what purpose is it 
 that this certain ap/)carancc, whatever it be, is so 
 " essential to be preserved ?" — Is it for command- 
 ing respect? 
 
 In common arithmetic — in the sort of arithmetic 
 that would be employed in a plain man's reasoning, 
 be the article what it may — respect or anything 
 else — if there be divers sources or efficient causes 
 of it, — money, for instance, and power and reputa- 
 tion, — to command the necessary or desirable 
 quantity, whatever be that quantity, the more you 
 have from any one source, the less you need to 
 have from the others, or from any other. 
 
 " In the present state of society" (for it is to 
 that that the Right Honourable Gentleman calls 
 for our attention) unfortunately for us vulgar, this 
 arithmetic, — this vulgar arithmetic, — is not the 
 arithmetic of" high situation :" it is not the arith- 
 metic of St. James's: it is not the arithmetic of 
 the House of Lords : it is not the arithmetic of 
 the House of Commons; it is not the arithmetic 
 of the Treasury: it is not the arithmetic of Office, 
 
128 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 - — of any office, by which a more convenient species 
 of arithmetic can be employed instead of it. In 
 particular, it is not (so we learn, not only from this 
 paragraph, but from the whole tenor of the work 
 of which it makes a part) the arithmetic of the 
 Navy Treasurer's Office. According to this higher 
 species of arithmetic, the more you have been able 
 to draw from any one of these same sources, the 
 more you stand in need of drawing from every 
 other. Power, not indigence, is the measure of 
 demand. 
 
 Have you so many hundred thousands of pounds 
 in money? having this money you have power. 
 Having this money with this power, it is " essen- 
 tial" you should have dignity. Having this 
 dignity, you have that which requires money — 
 more money — for the " support" of it. Money, 
 Power, Dignity; Money, Power, Dignity, — such, 
 in this high species of arithmetic, is the everlasting 
 circulate. 
 
 Are you in a " certain station ?" — Whatsoever 
 you have power to spend, and at the same time 
 inclination to spend, this is what the Right Honour- 
 able Treasurer is ready to assure you, it is " indis- 
 pensably necessary" you should spend. This is 
 what, if your patience will carry you to the next 
 section of this humble comment, or to the next 
 page of the Right Honourable text, you will see 
 stated by the Right Honourable " discharger of 
 trusts and public duties," — and in terms, of which, 
 on any such score as that of want of distinctness 
 or positiveness, no just complaint can be made. 
 
129 
 
 SECTION X. 
 
 PLEA 8. — CONCERNING THE LATE MR. PITT's 
 EXPENDITURE THE IMPROPRIETY OF ECO- 
 NOMY HOW FAR PROVED BY IT. 
 
 Immediately upon the hack, and as it should 
 seem for the more effectual ascertainment, of this so 
 unfortunately uncertain, though double certainty, 
 comes the grand example already above referred 
 to : that one example, — in which we are to look 
 for whatsoever explanation is to be found, for 
 whatever is not inexplicable, in the Right Honour- 
 able Author's theory. And this example proves 
 to be the rate, and quantum, and mode of expen- 
 diture (private expenditure) observed and here 
 stated by the Right Honourable Gentleman in the 
 instance of the late Mr. Pitt. 
 
 " That great statesman" (says he*) " who was 
 4 poor amidst a nation's wealth,' whose ambition 
 was patriotism, whose expense and whose econo- 
 my were only for the public, died in honourable 
 poverty. That circumstance" (continues he) 
 u certainly conveys no reproach upon his memory; 
 but when he had leisure to attend to his private 
 concerns, it distressed him seriously to reflect that 
 he had debts, without the means of paying them, 
 which he could not have avoided incurring, except 
 from a parsimony which would have been called 
 meanness, or by accepting a renumeration from the 
 public, which his enemies would have called rapa- 
 city ; for he had no expense of any sort that was 
 not indispensably necessary, except in improvements 
 in his country residence, where his house was 
 
 * p. tit. 
 
130 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 hardly equal to the accommodation of the most 
 private gentleman." 
 
 That the logic of our Right Honourable Au- 
 thor is not altogether so consummate as his arith- 
 metic, is a suspicion that has been already hazard- 
 ed : and here perhaps may be seen a confirmation 
 of it. 
 
 The proposition undertaken by him to be proved 
 was a pretty comprehensive one ; its extent not 
 being less than the entire field of office, considered 
 in respect of the several masses of official emolu- 
 ment comprised in it. This it was that he took 
 for his subject : adding for his predicate, that these 
 incomes were and are not one of them sufficient, 
 — not one of them, all things considered, sufficient 
 to all purposes.* 
 
 For proof of this his universal proposition, in so 
 far as it is in the nature of example to afford proof, 
 he gives us one example: one example and but 
 one. The one office, in the instance of which, if 
 insufficiency of emolument be proved, such insuf- 
 ficiency is to be accepted as proof, and that con- 
 clusive, of equal or proportionable insufficiency in 
 the case of all the rest, is the office of Prime 
 Minister: an office, the emolument of which is 
 composed of the emolument attached to two offices, 
 which, when the parliamentary seat of the official 
 person is in the House of Commons, have com- 
 monly been, and in the instance of the said Mr. 
 Pjtt were, holden in one hand. 
 
 * " If we look to official incomes, it will be found they are, 
 in most cases, barely equal to the moderate, and even the ne- 
 cessary expenses of the parties : in many instances they are 
 actually insufficient for these. May we not then venture to ask, 
 whether it is reasonable, or whether it would be politic, that 
 such persons should, after spending a great part of their lives 
 with industry, zeal, and fidelity, in the discharge of trusts and 
 public duties, be left afterwards without reward of any sort, 
 and their families entirely without provision?" — p. 64. 
 
§ X. Concerning JSIr. Pittas Expenditure. 131 
 
 To complete the Right Honourable Author's 
 argument, there remains for proof but one other 
 proposition, and that is — the insufficiency of this 
 compound mass of emolument in the instance of 
 the said Mr. Pitt: and the medium of proof is 
 composed of this fact; viz. that, being so in pos- 
 session of this mass of annual emolument, he the 
 said Mr. Pitt spent all this money of his own, 
 together with no inconsiderable mass, — amount 
 not mentioned, — of other people's money besides. 
 
 Assuming, what nobody will dispute, that JNlr. 
 Pitt died in "poverty,'''' that which by his Right 
 Honourable Friend is observed and predicated of 
 this poverty, is, that it was " honourable" to him : 
 which being admitted or not admitted, the Right 
 Honourable Gentleman's further observation, that 
 it " certainly conveys no reproach to his memory," 
 shall, if it be of any use to him, be admitted or 
 not admitted likewise. 
 
 Had this been all, there would certainly at least 
 have been no dishonour in the case: a man who 
 has no family, nor any other person or persons, 
 having on the score of any special relation, any 
 claim upon his bounty, whether it be his choice to 
 expend the whole of his income, or whether it be 
 his choice to lay up this or that part of it, nobody 
 surely can present any just ground for complaint. 
 
 But, in addition to that which was his own to 
 spend or save, Mr. Pitt having spent money of 
 other people's in round numbers to the amount of 
 40,000/. more: and this mode of expenditure 
 having in so unhappy a way been rendered noto- 
 rious, rich and poor together having been forced 
 to contribute to make up to this division of the 
 rich the loss they had been content to run the risk 
 of, something was deemed adviseable to be said of 
 it. 
 
 k 2 
 
132 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 In strictness of argument, some readers there 
 may be perhaps, in whose view of the matter it 
 might be sufficient here to observe — that, admit- 
 ting the fact, unhappily but too notorious, of Mr. 
 Pitt's spending other people's money — admitting 
 this fact in the character of a proof, and that a con- 
 clusive one, that the mass of emolument attached 
 to the two offices he filled was not sufficient for 
 the one official person by whom those two offices 
 were filled, the proof would not extend beyond 
 that one pair of offices ; and, the number of offices 
 being unhappily to be counted by thousands, 
 perhaps even by tens of thousands, and this high- 
 est of offices, in point of power , differing more 
 widely from the general run of offices than perhaps 
 any other that could have been found, the propo- 
 sition has much the air of remaining in rather 
 worse plight, than if nothing in the character of 
 proof had been subjoined to it. 
 
 On this footing might the matter perhaps be 
 found to stand, if viewed in a point of view purely 
 and drily logical. But, forasmuch as, notwitstand- 
 ing, or rather by reason of, its profuseness, the ex- 
 penditure of this one official person is by his Right 
 Honourable Friend held out as an example ; not 
 merely as an example for illustration, but as a pat- 
 tern for imitation : — for imitation by official 
 persons in general, — for imitation in respect of the 
 quantum of emolument necessary to be allotted 
 out of the taxes, and attached to their respective 
 offices, — an observation or two shall here be hazard- 
 ed, respecting the conclusiveness of the Right 
 Honourable Author's argument with reference to 
 this collateral and practical part of it. 
 
 The wry neck of the hero having in this way 
 rendered itself too conspicuous to be concealed by 
 any artifice, what was left to the panegyrist was to 
 
§ X. Concerning Mr. Pitt's Expenditure. 13.3 
 
 make a beauty of it. The expense of this repair 
 has surely not been inconsiderable : for here it is 
 not logic only, but morality and policy that have 
 been made to share in it. Our assent being secur- 
 ed for so unexceptionable a proposition, as that, in 
 the circumstance in question, poverty is honour- 
 able, the next contrivance is to slip in and get the 
 benefit of our assent extended to one other propo- 
 sition, viz. (as if there were no difference) that 
 spending oilier people's money was honourable ; 
 and thus it is that, our approbation is to be engaged 
 for the practice and policy of giving encourage- 
 ment to such honourable conduct, by tokens of 
 parliamentary approbation bestowed at the public 
 expense. 
 
 " Necessary ," with its conjugate " necessity" and 
 its near of kin " essential" are words of no 
 small convenience to the Right Honourable Gen- 
 tleman : of such convenience, that that thing (it 
 should seem) could not be very easy to be found, 
 which the same, being convenient to official per- 
 sons in official situations, is not, by and in virtue 
 of such convenience, under and by virtue of the 
 Right Honourable Author's system of ontology, 
 rendered " necessary " 
 
 Even to a man, who had not quite so much as 
 8,000/. a year of his own to spend,* a mode of ex- 
 penditure, which, in whatsoever degree convenient, 
 would (one should have thought) have presented 
 the least satisfactory claim to the appellation of 
 
 * As first Commissioner of the Treasury, 
 
 including additional salary - - ,£'.5,032 11 
 As Chancellor of the Exchequer - - 1,897 15 1 
 
 Net receipt together .£6,930 6 1 
 
 15th Report from the Select Committee ou Finance, 179' 
 Appendix C. page ^O. Add house rent, coals, and candles. 
 
134 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 necessary, is that which consists in spending 
 money of other people's. 
 
 Two rocks the reputation of the hero found his 
 course threatened by : two rocks, meanness and 
 rapacity, one on each side: and the expenditure 
 of other people's money — this was the harbour 
 in which, to avoid this Scylla and this Charybdis, 
 he took refuge. 
 
 Had the expenditure of the hero been confined 
 to the sum which by the competent authorities 
 had been deemed sufficient, such limitation would, 
 from the justice of the Right Honourable Panegy- 
 rist himself, notwithstanding his "just partiality " 
 have received a gentle reprimand couched under 
 the term " parsimony " and his imagination has 
 found somebody else to call it meanness; had he 
 for those extraordinary services which we hear so 
 much of, " accepted" as " a remuneration from the 
 public," any of those sinecures, which, in such 
 unhappy abundance, he saw lavished on men who 
 could not produce so much as the pretence of even 
 the most ordinary service ; the same industrious 
 and fruitful imagination has found him friends, in 
 the character of " enemies," to " call it rapacity .•" 
 — to avoid this charge of meanness it is, that he 
 places himself in a state of dependence under tra- 
 ders of various descriptions, — the butcher, the 
 baker, the fishmonger, not to speak of the political 
 intriguer ; — to avoid the charge of rapacity it is, that 
 what he obtains from those people, he obtains from 
 them on the pretence of meaning to pay them, 
 knowing that he has not wherewithal, and nobly, 
 constantly, and heroically determined never to 
 " accept" it. 
 
 As to distress — while the distress confined itself 
 to those plebeian breasts, this Right Honourable 
 breast knew no such inmate: but when "some 
 
§ X. Concerning Mr. Pill's Expenditure. 13 5 
 
 debts pressed so severely upon him as to render it 
 necessary for some of his most private and intimate 
 friends to step in and save him from immediate 
 inconvenience," when, in plain English, he had or 
 was afraid of having executions in his house, then 
 it was that the distress became contagious — then 
 it was that " it distressed him seriously to reflect 
 that he had debts." 
 
 When, of a necessity, or of anything else, the 
 existence is asserted by a Gentleman, and as of his 
 own knowledge, and that so Right Honourable a 
 Gentleman, — an obscure person — who, having no 
 such honour, nor any chance of producing persua- 
 sion, by any other means than such as his own 
 weak reason may be able to supply — has after, and 
 notwithstanding all this form of assertion, the mis- 
 fortune to feel himself still unsatisfied, it is natural 
 to him to look around him for whatever support may 
 anywhere be to be found: — Parliament — the opi- 
 nion of parliament — should it be found on his 
 side, will that stand him in any stead ? 
 
 Such as we have seen is the opinion of Mr. Rose. 
 But parliament — on this same point, what is it 
 that has been the opinion of parliament ? Why the 
 opinion of parliament is — that, what Mr. Pitt had 
 was sufficient : that more than he had was not 
 necessary : — was not of that " indispensable neces- 
 sity" which has been brought on the carpet, by 
 the zeal, assisted by the imagination, of Mr. Rose. 
 
 Unfortunately for the Right Honourable Pane- 
 gyrist — unfortunately for his opinions — unfortu- 
 nately for his assertions — this point, this very 
 point — did, and on the very occasion he speaks of 
 — come under the cognizance and consideration of 
 parliament. The emolument which is found an- 
 nexed to these two offices, both of which had been 
 held at the same time by Mr. Pitt, — this emolument, 
 
136 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 had it been deemed insufficient for the "official 
 man" in question — viz. for the species of official 
 man, — would thereupon of course have received an 
 augmentation : in the instance of this official per- 
 son, the subject would have received those marks 
 of attention, which have so frequently been asked 
 for, and so constantly been given for asking, for in 
 the case of the judges. 
 
 Was it that by the case of this distinguished in- 
 dividual, any demand was presented, for any 
 greater mass of emolument than there was likely 
 to be an equally cogent demand for, in the case of 
 any successor of his in the same situation ? It seems 
 not easy to conceive a case, in which, all things con- 
 sidered, that demand can ever be so small. True i t 
 is, his private fortune was, his station in life consi- 
 dered, barely sufficient for independence. But, he 
 had no wife — no child: — he was in deed, as well 
 as in law, completely single : and, in the Right 
 Honourable Gentleman's own arithmetic, — which, 
 on this head, differs not much, it must be con- 
 fessed, from the vulgar arithmetic, — the demand 
 for money, on the part of the father of a family, is 
 as the number of persons it is composed of. 
 
 Over and above his 8000/. a year, augmented 
 during half his political life, by his sinecure, to 
 12,000/. what is it that he could want money for ? — 
 more money (for that is here the question)than would 
 be wanted by or for any of his successors in power 
 and office? Was it to buy respect and reputation 
 with ? — Deserved and undeserved together, no man 
 in his place, unless it was his father, ever possessed 
 a larger share of those valuable commodities, than 
 this second William Pitt. Had he been in the case 
 of the good-humoured old driveller, who gave so 
 much trouble to Pitt the first, and whom his Ma- 
 jesty's grandfather was so loth to part with or 
 
§ X. Concerning Mr. Pitt's Expenditure. 137- 
 
 suflfer to be elbowed, — in that case there would 
 have been on his part a great deficiency in those 
 essential articles ; and if, like seats, they had been 
 an object of purchase, and public money the proper 
 sort of money to be employed in the purchase, no 
 small quantity of such money would, in that case, 
 have been necessary. 
 
 In the way of experiment — in the endeavour to 
 make this purchase, money, though the man's 
 own, and not public money, was, in the Duke's 
 case, actually employed, and in memorable and still- 
 remembered abundance: but how completely the 
 experiment failed, is at least as well remembered. 
 
 To return to the deficiency of the sort in ques- 
 tion, supposed to have been, on the more recent 
 occasion, displayed in the same place : this defi- 
 ciency then, — such as it was and still is — Parlia- 
 ment, in the case of Mr. Pitt, did not, so long as 
 he lived, think fit to supply: at any rate left un- 
 supplied. What was done was — the giving a mass 
 of public money — to the amount of 40,000/. or 
 thereabouts — among a set of people, names undis- 
 closed, but said to be the deceased minister's cre- 
 ditors. Friends remembered their friendships : 
 enemies, now that the enemy was no longer in 
 their way, forgot their enmity: friends and enemies 
 vied in sentimentality — vied in generosity — always 
 at the public expense: and a justification, yea and 
 more than a justification, was thus made, for the 
 cases of the still future-contingent widow of Lord 
 Grenville, and the then paulo-post future widow 
 of Mr. Fox. 
 
 Should it here be asked why those trustees of 
 the people chose to saddle their principals with the 
 payment of debts, for which they were not en- 
 gaged, and the necessity of which they themselves 
 could not take upon themselves to pronounce, — 
 
138 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 my answer is — that if anything in the shape of an 
 efficient, final, or historical cause will satisfy them, 
 plenty may be seen already: — but if by the word 
 why anything like a justificative cause — a rational 
 cause — a good and sufficient reason — be meant to 
 be asked for, I for my part know of none. At the 
 same time, for the support of the proposition that 
 stands on my side of the argument — it being the 
 negative — viz. that for no such purpose as that of 
 encouraging and inducing Ministers to apply to 
 their own use the money of individuals, can it ever 
 be necessary, that money raised by taxes should 
 be employed — for the support of any proposition 
 to this effect — so plain does the proposition seem 
 to me, that neither can I see any demand for a sup- 
 port to it in the shape of a reason, nor in truth 
 should I know very well how to go about to find 
 one. Not thus clear of all demand for support is 
 the side taken by the Right Honourable Gentle- 
 man. By his vote and influence whatsoever on 
 that occasion was done, having been supported 
 and encouraged, on him, in point of consistency, 
 the obligation is incumbent: — He stands concluded, 
 as the lawyers say, in both ways : on the one hand, 
 not having ventured to propose any correspondent 
 addition, or any addition at all, to be made to the 
 mass of emolument openly and constantly attached 
 to the office, he is estopped from saying that any 
 such extra expenditure was necessary : — on the 
 other hand, having, in the case of the individual by 
 whom that expenditure was made, concurred in 
 the vote and act* passed for filling up at the public 
 charge, the gaps made by that same expenditure 
 in the property of other individuals, he stands con- 
 
 * 46 Geo. III. c. 149. sect. 15. 
 
§ X. Concerning Mr. PitVs Expenditure. 139 
 
 victed by his own confession of concurring in 
 charging the public with a burthen, the necessity 
 of which could not be so much as pretended. 
 
 On this occasion " may we not venture to ask," 
 whether this may not be in the number of those 
 cases, in which Gentlemen, Honourable Gentle- 
 men, under the guidance of Right Honourable, 
 have, in the words of our Right Honourable 
 Author, been " misled by mistaken ideas of vir- 
 tue !" (p. 77.) 
 
 Be this as it may, by this one operation which is 
 so much to the taste of the Right Honourable 
 Gentleman — (not to speak of so many other Right 
 Honourable, Honourable, and even pious Gentle- 
 men) — two distinguishable lessons may they not 
 be seen given — two distinguishable lessons given 
 to so many different classes of persons, standing in 
 so many different situations ? One of these lessons, 
 to wit, to Ministers; the other to any such person 
 or persons whose situation might enable them to 
 form plans for fulfilling their duty to themselves, 
 by lending money to Ministers. 
 
 To Ministers an invitation was thus held out, to 
 expend upon themselves, in addition to whatever 
 money is really necessary, as much more as it may 
 happen to them to be disposed so to employ, of 
 that which is not necessary. 
 
 Thus far as to the quantum : — and as to the mode, 
 by borrowing money, or taking up goods of indivi- 
 duals, knowing themselves not to have any ade- 
 quate means of repayment, and determining not to 
 put themselves into the possession of any such 
 means. 
 
 To persons at large, an invitation was at the same 
 time held out to become intriguers; and, by seizing 
 or making opportunities of throwing themselves in 
 
1 40 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 the way of a Minister, to supply him with money, 
 more than he would be able to repay on demand, 
 and having thus got him in a state of dependence, 
 to obtain from his distress — always at the expense 
 of the public — good gifts in every imaginable 
 shape : Peerages — baronetcies — ribbons — lucrative 
 offices — contracts — assistance in pari i amen tary jobs, 
 — good things, in a word, of all sorts, for which, 
 no money being paid or parted with, neither the 
 giver nor the receiver would run any the slightest 
 risk of being either punished, or in any other way 
 made responsible. 
 
 By a loan, though, for example, it were but of 
 5000/. if properly timed — and that on both occa- 
 sions — first as to the time of the administering the 
 supply, and then as to the time of pressing for re- 
 payment, that, may it not every now and then be 
 done, which could not have been done by a gift of 
 10,000/. ? How often have not seats, for example, 
 been in this way obtained — and this even without 
 any such imputation as that of the sin, the venial 
 sin, of Parliamentary simony? 
 
 In virtue of the invitation thus given by the 
 magnanimity and generosity of Parliament, — an 
 invitation open at all times to the acceptance of 
 persons to whom it may happen to find themselves 
 in the corresponding situations — who is there that 
 does not see, how snugly the benefit of bribery 
 may be reaped on both sides, and to any amount, 
 without any of the risk ? 
 
 A banker is made a Lord — why is a banker to 
 be made a Lord ? What is it that the banker 
 ever did, that he is to be made a Lord ? A mer- 
 chant is made a Lord. Why is a merchant to be 
 made a Lord ? What is it that the merchant ever 
 did, that he is to be made a Lord ? — These are 
 
Concerning Mr. P i It* s Expenditure. 141 
 
 among the questions which are in themselves as 
 natural, as the answers, true or untrue, might be 
 unpleasant to some and dangerous to others. 
 
 We have heard, many of us, of the once cele- 
 brated Nabob of Arcot and his creditors: and the 
 mode in which their respective debts were, to an 
 as yet unfathomed extent, contracted: those debts, 
 which, in so large a proportion, and to so large an 
 amount, just and unjust together, in name the ex- 
 piring Company, and in effect the whole body of 
 the people, have paid, or, spite of the best possible 
 discrimination, will have to pay. 
 
 By the example set, and lesson held out, by the 
 virtue of the Right Honourable Gentleman, and his 
 Right Honourable and Honourable coadjutors, the 
 policy of Arcot was it not thus sanctioned and im- 
 ported into Great Britain? 31inistcrs, plunge your 
 fiands as deep as you can into other people's pockets : 
 intriguers, supply profuse and needy Ministers with 
 whatever they want, and make the most of them: we 
 will be your sureties ; our care it shall be, that you 
 shall not be losers. 
 
 Against the opinions of so many great characters 
 — such has been my temerity — over and over again 
 have 1 laboured to prove, 1 know not with what 
 success, that money is not the only coin in which 
 it may happen to a public man to be willing to 
 take payment of the public for his labour : and 
 that power and reputation, — though they will not 
 like shillings and half-pence, go to market for 
 butter and eggs, — yet, like Exchequer Bills, within 
 a certain circle, they are not altogether unsuscep- 
 tible of a certain degree of currency. Of the truth 
 of this proposition, the Mr. Pitt in question affords 
 at least one instance. 
 
 It proves indeed something more : for, in so far 
 as purposely forbearing to receive what it is in 
 
142 Defence uf Economy against Rose. 
 
 a man's option to receive, is tantamount to paying, 
 — it proves that, in the instance in question, the 
 value of these commodities was equal to that of a 
 very considerable sum of money: in round num- 
 bers, worth 40,000/. — at any rate worth more than 
 39,000/. 
 
 Not that in the eyes of the hero, money had no 
 value : for it had much too great a value: it pos- 
 sessed a value greater than the estimated value of 
 common honesty and independence. 
 
 He loved money, and by much too well : he 
 loved it with the love of covetousness. Not that 
 he hoarded it, or put it out to usury. But there 
 are two sorts of covetous men : those who covet it 
 to keep it, and those who covet it to spend it : the 
 class he belonged to was this coveting-and-spend- 
 ing class. 
 
 Yes: — that he did: — Pitt the second did love 
 money: and not his own money merely, but other 
 people's likewise : loving it, he coveted it ; and 
 coveting it, he obtained it. 
 
 The debt which he contracted, was so much 
 money coveted, obtained, and expended, for and in 
 the purchase of such miscellaneous pleasures as 
 happened to be suited to his taste. The sinecure 
 money which he might have had and would not 
 have, was so much money expended in the shape 
 of insurance money on account of power : in the 
 purchase of that respect and reputation, which his 
 prudence represented as necessary to the preser- 
 vation of so valuable an article against storms and 
 tempests from above. Sinecure money to any 
 given amount the hero could have got for himself 
 with at least as much facility as for his Right 
 Honourable Panegyrist; but the respect and the 
 reputation were defences, which in that situation 
 could not be put to hazard. Of the battles he had 
 
§ XI. Concerning Influence. 143 
 
 to fight with the sort of dragons commonly called 
 secret advisers, this bare hint is all that can be 
 given by one who knows nothing of any body or 
 any thing: his Right Honourable Achates, by 
 whom he must (alas! how oft!) have been seen 
 in a tottering and almost sinking attitude, — more 
 particulars could doubtless be given, by a great 
 many, than by a gentleman of his discretion it 
 would. . .(unless it were in a posthumous diart/, 
 for which posterity would be much obliged to him) 
 be "useful on his sole authority". .. to enter into 
 ant/ detail of." It was to enable virtue to rise 
 triumphant out of all these trials, that the amount 
 of all this sinecure money was thus expended, and 
 without bavins been received. 
 
 SECTION XI. 
 
 CONCERNING INFLUENCE. 
 
 On the subject of Influence (p. 74) what the 
 Right Honourable Gentleman admits, is — that 
 owing to the greatly increased revenue, and all the 
 other augmented and "accumulated business of the 
 state," some increase has, though " unavoidably, 
 been occasioned in it," viz. by " increase of patro- 
 nage." At the same time, notwithstanding this 
 increase, yet, in point of practice, the state of things 
 if we may trust to his conception, is as exactly as 
 if there were no such thing at all as influence. 
 How so? — why, for this plain reason, viz. that 
 " the influence created by such means is infinitely 
 short of what," — viz. " by the measures of eco- 
 nomy and regulation to which recourse has been 
 had" — " has been given up." 
 
 Thus far the Right Honourable Author. But 
 in the humble conception of his obscure commen- 
 
144 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 tator, the question between the two quantities, 
 one of which is, in the hands of the Right Honour- 
 able Accountant, multiplied by one of those figures 
 of rhetoric, which, in aid of the figures of arithme- 
 tic, are so much at his command — multiplied in a 
 word to " infinity" — this question is not, on the 
 present occasion, the proper one. In regard to 
 influence, the question which with leave of the 
 public, the obscure commentator would venture 
 to propose — as and for a more proper one, is — 
 whether, for any existing particle of this influence 
 any preponderant use can, in compensation for the 
 acknowledged evil consequences of it, be found ? 
 and if not, whether there be any and what 
 quantity of it left remaining, that could be got rid 
 of? Understand, on each occasion, as being a con- 
 dition universally and necessarily implied — with- 
 out prejudice in other respects, — and that prepon- 
 derant prejudice — to the public service. 
 
 As to these points, what appears to me, — with 
 submission, is — that, without travelling out of this 
 the Right Honourable Gentleman's own work, 
 an instance might be found of a little sprig of in- 
 fluence, which, without any such preponderant 
 prejudice to Mr. Reeve's tree might be pruned off*. 
 
 This work of his {{ mean Mr. Rose's) has for 
 its title " Observations respecting the Public Ex- 
 penditure, and the Influence of the Crown" 
 
 But unfortunately, — as, indue place and time, 
 the candour of the Right Honourable Gentleman 
 himself, in effect, acknowledges, these observations 
 of his — and from so experienced an observer — are 
 all on one side. 
 
 On the subject of expenditure, out of 79pages, 
 61 have been expended in showing us what re- 
 trenchments have been made, and how great they 
 are.. Are they indeed so great ? So much the 
 
§ XI Concerning Influence. 14-5 
 
 better: but even yet, considering that if we may- 
 believe the Right Honourable Gentleman himself, 
 (p. 69) the whole revenue of Great Britain is 
 " more than 60,000,000/. a year" let the re- 
 trenchments have been ever so great, the demand 
 for further retrenchment, wheresoever it can be 
 made, without preponderant prejudice to the pub- 
 lic service, seems by no means to be superseded. 
 
 Subject to that necessary condition, is there any 
 such further retrenchment practicable? This is 
 exactly what the Right Honourable Gentleman 
 has not merely avoided, but positively refused to 
 tell us. 
 
 From first to last, this work of his has, accord- 
 ing to the author's own account of it, but one aim ; 
 and that is, by showing how great the retrench- 
 ments are, that have been made already, to stop 
 our mouths, and prevent our calling for anymore. 
 Is it then true, that in this way all has been done 
 that ought to be done ? Even this not even in 
 terms ever so general, will he vouchsafe to tell us. 
 " To what extent or in what manner it may be 
 proper to press further retrenchments, the author" 
 (says he, p. 62) "has not the remotest intention 
 of offering an opinion : his view has been clearly 
 explained. " 
 
 Looking for the explanation the clearness of 
 which is thus insisted on, 1 find it, if I do not 
 mistake, in his last preceding page but one, viz. 
 in p. 60, in which, speaking of this his work by 
 the name of" the present publication," — " In en- 
 deavouring to set right the public opinion on this 
 subject, the performance of an act of justice to any 
 administration, is " (he says) " but a small part of 
 its use; a much more important consideration is, 
 its effect in producing that salutary and reason- 
 
 L 
 
1 46 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 able confidence, which gives the power of exertion 
 to the government, and that concurrence which 
 seconds its exertions among the people/' 
 
 Thus far the Right Honourable Author. For 
 my own part, if my conception concerning a go- 
 vernment's title to confidence be not altogether 
 an erroneous one, this title depends in no inconsi- 
 derable degree on its disposition " to press further 
 retrenchments :" (p. 62) 1 mean of course, in so 
 far as, in the judgment of that government, they 
 are not otherwise than "proper " ones. Yet this 
 the Right Honourable Gentleman — a member of 
 this same government, and that in the very next 
 rank to the highest, and receiving (besides sine- 
 cure money) no less than 4,000/. a year for being 
 so, peremptorily — and as we have seen of his own 
 accord, — refuses to do. 
 
 He will not do any such thing : and why not ? 
 On this point we might be apt to be at a stand at 
 least, if not at a loss, were it not for the lights 
 with which, in another page (p. 74) the Right 
 Honourable Author himself has favoured us. His 
 " opinions " on the subject, he there acknowledges, 
 are " strong ones;" but strong as they are, or 
 rather because they are so strong, he will not let 
 us know what they are ; because " on his sole 
 authority " that is, unless other opinions that in 
 the scale of office stand yet higher than his, con- 
 curred with his, "it would not be useful:" — there 
 would be no use in it. No use in it ? what ! not 
 on a subject of such vital importance — when for 
 the declared purpose of "setting right the public 
 opinion on this subject," a Right Honourable 
 Author, who knows all about it, takes up the pen, 
 can it be that there would be no use in speaking 
 what he thinks is right ? and as much of it as he 
 
§ XI. Concerning Influence. 147 
 
 has to speak ? No use in his speaking impartially ? 
 — in speaking on both sides, and on all sides, what 
 he thinks ? 
 
 But not to go on any further in thus beating the 
 bush, may we not in plain English venture to ask — 
 at the bottom of all his delicacy, can any other 
 interpretation be found than this, viz. that by those, 
 for whose defence and for whose purposes, and to 
 come to the point at once — under whose influence 
 this work of his was written, his speaking as he 
 thinks, and what he thinks right — his speaking 
 out on both sides, would it in his own persuasion 
 have been found not endurable ? 
 
 M so, here then we have a practical illustration 
 and development of a number of preceding hints. 
 Here we see the character — here we see one 
 effect and use— of that " aristocracy of talent and 
 virtue" with which, in the account of remunera- 
 tion, nothing but money will pass current, — 
 nothing but money is of any value, — and which 
 constitutes so necessary an addition to the " aris- 
 tocracy of rank and properly." 
 
 Here we see what is, and what we are the bet- 
 ter for, the fruit of " that principle of activity," 
 (p. 66.) which animates men in the attainment, 
 so much more than in the mere possession, of 
 power and station, " and of that amusement, 
 which, for the acquisition and improvement of 
 talents necessary for the higher offices, gentlemen 
 have given themselves, in passing occasionally 
 through the inferior situations." 
 
 " Of the unpopularity and ridicule that has so 
 often been attempted to be fixed on the word con- 
 fidence" the Right Honourable Gentleman has, 
 as he is pleased to inform us, according to his own 
 statement (p. 6\) had " some experience." One 
 little item, to whatsoever may have been the stock 
 
 l 2 
 
148 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 laid up by him of that instructive article, he may 
 find occasion to make. To that sort of confidence 
 which is " unthinking and blind" this " unpopu- 
 larity and ridicule," he appears to look upon as 
 not altogether "inapplicable " nor consequently 
 the sort of " attempt" he speaks of, viz. that of 
 fixing it on the word confidence, as altogether in- 
 capable of being attended with success. 
 
 But can any thing be more "unthinking and 
 blind" than that confidence, which should bestow 
 itself on an official man, howsoever Right Honour- 
 able, who, intreatingofa subject confessedly of high 
 national importance, and after furnishing, in favour 
 of one side, whatsoever information his matchless 
 experience, his unquestioned ingenuity, his indefa- 
 tigable industry, can rake together, — and feeling, 
 on the other side of his mind " opinions" — and 
 those " strong ones," nor doubtless unaccompanied 
 with an adequate knowledge of facts — of those facts 
 from which they receive their existence and their 
 strength, — should refuse — deliberately, and per- 
 emptorily, as well as spontaneously, refuse — to 
 furnish any the least tittle of information from 
 that other side. 
 
 Eloquent and zealous in support of profusion, 
 mute when the time should come for pleading in 
 favour of retrenchment, not without compunction 
 let him behold at least one consequence. Desti- 
 tute of all competent, of all sufficiently qualified, 
 of all officially qualified, advocates — deserted even 
 by him who should have been its Solicitor-Gene- 
 ral, thus it is that the cause of Economy is left to 
 take its chance for finding here and there an advo- 
 cate among low people, who have never been re- 
 gularly called to this high bar: interlopers, who, 
 destitute of all prospect of that " remuneration" 
 which is the sole "principle of activity that ani- 
 
§ XII. Concerning Pecuniary Competition. 1 4.9 
 
 mates men in the attainment of power and station" 
 (p. 66) destitute of the advantage of " passing oc- 
 casionally through even the inferior situations •" 
 (p. 66) are destitute of all " talent" destitute of all 
 " virtue" — and whose productions, if, for the pur- 
 pose of the argument they could for a moment be 
 supposed capable of contributing, on the ground 
 here in question, anything that could be condu- 
 cive to the public service, would, one and all, be 
 so many effects without a cause. 
 
 SECTION XII. 
 
 CONCERNING PECUNIARY COMPETITION — AND 
 THE USE MADE OF THE PRINCIPLE. 
 
 Before the subject of influence is dismissed, a 
 word or two may, perhaps, have its use, for the 
 purpose of endeavouring to submit to the conside- 
 ration of the Right Honourable Panegyrist an ar- 
 ticle of revenue , viz. crown lands, which neither on 
 his part, nor on the part of his hero, seems to have 
 received quite so much attention as could have 
 been wished. 
 
 To the purpose of the present publication, a 
 circumstance that renders this article the more 
 material, is — that it may contribute to render more 
 and more familiar to the eye of the reader a prin- 
 ciple, on a due estimation of which the plan here- 
 after to be proposed depends for every thing in it, 
 that either promises to be in its effect eventually 
 useful, or is in its application new. 
 
 Economy and purity — reduction of expense, and 
 reduction of undue influence — in these may be 
 seen the two distinguishable and distinguished, 
 
loO Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 though intimately connected, objects, to which, 
 speaking of the principle of competition, our Right 
 Honourable Author speaks of it as having meant 
 to be made subservient, and as having accordingly 
 been made subservient, in the hands of Mr. Pitt 
 (p. 26.) 
 
 " Mr. Pitt" (he informs us, p. 2o) " looking 
 anxiously to reforms, effected many even consi- 
 derable savings — and at the same time sacrificed 
 an influence as minister, much more dangerous 
 than any possessed by the crown, because more se- 
 cret and unobserved ; the extent of it indeed could 
 be known only to himself and to those in his im- 
 mediate confidence. We shall state" (continues 
 he) " the measures — in their order, beginning 
 with loans and lotteries, — proceeding with private 
 contracts, and closing this part of the account with 
 the profit derived from the mode irrevocably estab- 
 lished respecting the renewals of crown leases. In 
 each of which cases the influence diminished was 
 not only extensive, but was obviously in its nature 
 more objectionable than any that could be acquired 
 by the disposal of offices; as the effect of the former 
 was secret and unobserved, whereas the latter is 
 apparent and generally known." 
 
 Thus far the Right Honourable Author: a word 
 or two now from his obscure commentator. 
 
 Coming to crown lands (p. 34) " The last 
 head of saving by management" (says he) " is 
 under that of the estates of the Crown. The Act 
 of the 1st of Queen Anne,* continued at the be- 
 ginning of each succeeding reign, for limiting grants 
 of crown lands to 31 years, put a stop to the actual 
 alienation of the property of the crown ; but, in its 
 operation, had the effect of greatly adding to the 
 
 * 1 Anne, bt. 1. c. 7- 
 
§ XII. Concerning Pecuniary Competition. \5\ 
 
 influence of it, and certainly afforded no protec- 
 tion whatever to its revenues, as will be seen in 
 the note below.* In reigns antecedent to that of 
 Queen Anne, when grants were perpetual, the 
 persons to whom they were made became imme- 
 diately independent of the crown, and not unfre- 
 quently gave very early proofs of that indepen- 
 dence: whereas, by the measure adopted on the 
 accession of the Queen, every grantee, or the per- 
 son representing him, became dependent on the 
 Minister for a renewal of his lease, for which ap- 
 plications were generally made at such times, and 
 on such occasions, as were thought to afford the 
 best hope of their being attended to, on terms 
 favourable to his interest. 
 
 " Under this system Mr. Pitt, on coming into 
 office, found the whole landed property of the 
 Crown, and the income arising from it, in every 
 way, very little exceeding 4,000/. a year. 
 
 " He therefore after long- inquiries, and most at- 
 tcntive consideration, applied a remedy in 1794, 
 when an Act was passed,*]* by which it is provided 
 that no lease shall be renewed till within a short 
 period of its expiration, nor till an actual survey 
 shall have been made by two professional men of 
 experience and character, who are required to cer- 
 tify the true value of the premises to the Trea- 
 sury, attested on their oaths. No abuse can there- 
 fore take place, nor any undue favour be shown, 
 under the provisions of this law, unless survei/ors 
 of eminence in their line shall deliberately perjure 
 
 * In 15 years, to 171 5, the whole income from Crown lands, 
 including rents, fines, and grants of all sorts, was 32,0242. 
 equal to 1,500/. a year. Journals of H. C. vol. xx. p. 520 j 
 and in 7 years, to 1746 was 15,600Z., equal to 2,828/. a year. 
 — Journals, vol. 25, p. 206. 
 
 I 6A (ico. III. c. 7.">. 
 
1.52 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 themselves, or a Treasury shall be found bold enough 
 to grant leases, or renew them, at a less value than 
 shall be certified to them, which could not escape 
 immediate detection, as there is a clause in the act 
 requiring an account to be laid before Parliament 
 annually of what leases or grants shall have been 
 made in the year preceding ; for what terms or 
 estates ; the annual value, as returned on oath by 
 the surveyors ; the annual value of the last pre- 
 ceding survey; what rents shall have been re- 
 served, or what fines paid ; and upon what other 
 considerations such leases shall have been respec- 
 tively made. 
 
 " More strict provisions to guard against any 
 evasion of the law could hardly have been de- 
 vised." 
 
 Thus far our Right Honourable Author. 
 
 Where, having determined with himself to ob- 
 tain for public property the best price that is to be 
 had, Mr. Pitt pursues that principle, my humble 
 applause follows him: but when, without suffi- 
 cient reason he turns aside from that or any other 
 principle, then my applause stops : applause, what- 
 ever in that case perseveres in following him, will 
 be of that sort which comes from copartners and 
 panegyrists. 
 
 When government annuities were the commo- 
 dity to be disposed of, then it was that it was the 
 choice of Mr. Pitt to have the best price: then it 
 ■was that, choosing to have the best price, he 
 adopted the mode and the only mode by which 
 that effect can be produced. 
 
 When leasehold interests in Crown lands were 
 the commodity to be disposed of, then it was that 
 it was not the choice of Mr. Pitt to have the best 
 price. Then it was accordingly that, for fear of 
 having the best price, care was taken not to em- 
 
§ XII. Concerning Pecuniary Competition. 153 
 
 ploy the mode, the only mode by which any such 
 effect can be produced. 
 
 To avoid giving birth to the undesirable effect in 
 question, the expedient employed was (we see) an 
 " actual survey, made by two professional men 
 of experience and character, who are required to 
 certify the true value of the premises to the Trea- 
 sury, attested on their oaths." 
 
 " Under the provision of this law," one thing 
 the Right Honourable Gentleman endeavours to 
 persuade us of (p. 35) — is, that " no abuse can 
 take place, nor undue favour be shown/' Why not? 
 Because (says he) no such effect can take place 
 " unless surveyors of eminence in their line shall 
 deliberately perjure themselves or" — something 
 else which he mentions shall take place, and which, 
 admitting the improbability of it, I shall not re- 
 peat here. 
 
 As to perjury, the word is a strong word, and to 
 the purpose of causing the reader to suppose that 
 the security provided by it is a strong security, 
 more conducive than any real lover of sincerity 
 can be well pleased to find it. But, from the pen 
 of a veteran in office, and in offices, and in such 
 offices, to whom it cannot be altogether unknown, 
 to how prodigious an extent the people of this 
 country are made deliberately and habitually to 
 perjure themselves; and how fond, under the 
 guidance of priests and lawyers, the legislation 
 and jurisprudence of this same country have been, 
 of causing men, always without any the smallest 
 use, deliberately to perjure themselves* — it is not 
 without pain that a man who has any real dislike 
 
 * See " Swear not at all," &e. by the Author : printed 
 1813: now (1817) just published. 
 
1,54 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 to perjury can behold this security held up to view 
 in the character of a real one. 
 
 Cases there are (it is confessed with pleasure) 
 in which this alleged security is an efficient one: 
 as for instance, where testimony to a matter of 
 fact is to be given, viva voce, in an open judica- 
 tory, and under the check of cross-examination: 
 not that even in that case it is to the ceremony 
 that the efficiency would be found ascribable, but 
 to the cross-examination, and the publicity, with 
 or without the eventual punishment. But in the 
 case here in question, not one of all those elements 
 of efficiency is to be found. The sort of perjury 
 which the Right Honourable Gentleman endea- 
 vours to make us take for a punishable offence, 
 suppose it, for argument's sake, committed — was 
 ever one instance known of a man being prosecu- 
 ted for it as for perjury? Great would be my 
 surprise to hear of any such case. Would so 
 much as an indictment lie ? I have not searched, 
 nor to the present purpose does it seem worth 
 while. Gross indeed must be the case, strong and 
 clear ; stronger and clearer than it seems in the 
 nature of the case to afford — the proof by which, 
 upon any such indictment, conviction must be 
 produced. 
 
 Few, it is evident, are the sorts of articles — 
 lands, houses, or any other such articles, coming 
 under the head of crown lands, being unquestiona- 
 bly not of the number — few, about the value of 
 which it may not happen to " surveyors of emi- 
 nence, experience, and character" to entertain real 
 differences of opinion ; and moreover, and without 
 the smallest imputation on that " character?' much 
 more without the possibility of suffering as for 
 perjury, to agree in assigning such a value, as to a 
 
§ XII. Concerning Pecuniary Competition. \5o 
 
 very considerable amount — according to circum- 
 stances, say 5, 10, 12, 15, 20, 50 per cent, (in 
 short one knows not where to stop) greater or less 
 than what in their opinions respectively is the 
 true one. 
 
 The real value of the premises is the joint result 
 of some half dozen (suppose) of circumstances on 
 each side : whereupon on one side (suppose again) 
 this or that little circumstance, somehow or other, 
 fails of being taken into the account. Unless the 
 human understanding were that perfect kind of 
 machine which every body acknowledges it not 
 to be, who could think of speaking of it as import- 
 ing so much as a speck upon a man's character, 
 that any such little oversight has taken place? 
 Meantime the profit by the oversight may amount 
 to thousands of pounds in any number. 
 
 Unfortunately for Economy, still more unfortu- 
 nately for Uncorruption, the sort of contract here 
 in question is one of those in which, with a 
 pre-eminent degree of force, interest and opportu- 
 nity join, in securing to the subject of valuation, 
 a false or under-value. What the one party, viz. 
 the proposed lessee wants, is money : what the 
 other party — the " discharger of duties and public 
 trusts" wants, is influence. If the valuation be 
 deficient, then, in proportion to the deficiency, 
 both parties have what they want. Under a state 
 of things so favourable to mutual accommodation, 
 let any one, who feels bold enough, undertake to 
 set a limit to the loss liable to be produced to the 
 public by the substitution of this mode of sale, 
 to the only one which is capable of finding out 
 the real value. In a fancy article, such as a villa, 
 or a site for a villa, cent, per cent, may be below 
 the difference. Ten per cent. — to put, for argu- 
 
156 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 merit's sake, a certain amount for an uncertain 
 one — will surely be regarded as a very small 
 allowance. 
 
 In this ten per cent, then may be seen the 
 amount of the saving, or the acquisition, call it 
 which you please, which on the occasion in ques- 
 tion might have been made to the public, and was 
 not made. 
 
 Thus much as to revenue. Then as to influence, 
 " some judgment," as Mr. Rose observes (p. 37) 
 " may be formed by observing, that of the persons 
 holding crown leases when the act was passed, up- 
 wards of eighty were Members of one or the other 
 House of Parliament; and it is hardly necessary 
 to add" (continues he) " that in the cases of other 
 lessees, the parties, who might have the means of 
 doing so, would naturally resort to solicitations of 
 friends for obtaining the Minister's favour." 
 
 Now, in the picture thus drawn of the state of 
 the case, as it stood at that time — drawn by so ex- 
 perienced and expert a hand — so far as concerns 
 influence, I, for my own part, till some distinct 
 ground of difference is brought to view, cannot but 
 see a picture equally correct of the state of the 
 case as it stands at this moment: at this moment, 
 viz. after and notwithstanding — not to say by rea- 
 son of — the reform thus lauded. So far indeed as 
 concerns revenue, I cannot doubt but that a very 
 considerable change — and so far as it goes, a change 
 for the better, has been made : a change, for the 
 amount of which I take of course the account 
 given of it by Mr. Rose. But, so far as concerns 
 influence, what I should not expect to find is that 
 any change, worth taking into account, had taken 
 place. " Eighty," according to the Right Ho- 
 nourable Gentleman, is the number of Members 
 so circumstanced at that time ; eighty, — or rather 
 
§ XII. Concerning Pecuniary Competition. 157 
 
 from that increasing division, which landed pro- 
 perty, where it will serve for building, or even for 
 sites of villas, naturally admits of, more than 
 eighty — is the number which I should expect to 
 find at present; not to speak of expectants, for 
 whom, where the purpose of the argument requires 
 it, the Right Honourable Arguer knows so well 
 how to take credit. For convincing an Honour- 
 able or Right Honourable Gentleman of the supe- 
 riority of one ministry over another, ten per cent, 
 upon any given sum will not, it is true, serve so 
 effectually in the character of a persuasion, as thirty 
 per cent.: but wherever the ten per cent, suffices, 
 the abolished twenty per cent, would have been 
 but surplusage, since thirty percent, could do no 
 more. The case of the villa contiguous to Chelsea 
 Hospital — a case which, though it happened so 
 long ago as the last session, is not yet, it is hoped, 
 altogether out of recollection — may serve, and as 
 well as half a hundred, for clearing and fixing our 
 ideas on this subject. From that case may be 
 formed some judgment, whether the impossibility 
 of " abuse and undue favour" is quite so near to 
 complete, as it would be for the convenience of 
 the Right Honourable Gentleman's acknowledged 
 purposes that we should believe it to be. 
 
 All this while a circumstance which has contri- 
 buted in no small degree to that composure and 
 tranquil confidence, of which my readers, if I hap- 
 pen to have any, may on this occasion have ob- 
 served the symptoms, is — a surmise in which I 
 have all along been indulging myself, — viz. that 
 between the opinions of the Right Honourable 
 Author and those of his obscure commentator 
 there does not, on this occasion, exist at bottom 
 any very considerable difference. 
 
 " More strict provision to guard against any 
 
\5S Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 invasion of the law could hardly" (says the Right 
 Honourable Author) " have been devised." But 
 it will be for the reader to judge, whether the law 
 in question be quite so well guarded against eva- 
 sion, as, by this saving word hardly, the argument 
 of the Right Honourable Gentleman is guarded 
 against any such impertinent charge as that of 
 having said the thing that is not. Neither on this 
 nor on any other occasion, could it easily have 
 escaped a sagacity such as his, that a mode of sale, 
 the sure effect of which is to perpetuate a con- 
 stantly inferior price, is not quite so favourable 
 either to increase of revenue or to diminution of 
 influence, as a mode of sale, the sure effect of 
 which is — to obtain, on each occasion the very best 
 price. 
 
 Pecuniary competition — Auction — having, and 
 in other instances to so great an extent — by this 
 same hero, and with the special applause of this 
 same panegyrist been employed, as and for the 
 best contrived mode or instrument for obtaining, 
 for such articles as government has to dispose of, 
 the very best price — having been applied, and 
 with so much success, in the case of government 
 annuities — having been applied, and with so 
 much success, in the case of contracts for stores 
 — (for when there is no fraud, it is in form only 
 and not in effect that, in this case, there is any 
 difference between competition and auction in 
 the common acceptation of the word) — and more- 
 over in the case of the very sort of article here in 
 question — in the case of lands — sale of leasehold 
 interests presenting themselves to view in every 
 newspaper, and even letting by auction in the first 
 instance, having nothing new in it, it would be a 
 most instructive explanation, to us whose station 
 is without doors, if in his next edition the Right 
 
§ XII. Concerning Pecuniary Competition. 159 
 
 Honourable Author would have the goodness to 
 inform us, how it happened, that when in the 
 course of her voyage, Economy had reached the 
 latitude of the crown lands, she all of a sudden 
 stopped short, and, instead of the best instrument 
 for fishing out the best price, took up with so weak 
 and ill-contrived an one. Is it that in the case of 
 lands, auction is less well adapted than in the case 
 of goods to an obtainment of the best price ? — less 
 well adapted to the obtaining that best price for 
 leasehold interests in lands, to be paid for in money, 
 than for money to be paid for in goods/ On the 
 contrary, in the case of goods, to be supplied to 
 government by contract, as in the case in question, 
 with the benefit of competition, the Right Honour- 
 able Gentleman, if not already informed, might 
 with little difficulty be informed of cases upon 
 cases, in which the rigour of the principle of com- 
 petition receives a very convenient softening, from 
 expedients which have no application in the case 
 of lands. 
 
 In default of such full and authentic lights, as 
 nothing short of the experience^ joined to the 
 condescension, of the Right Honourable Gentle- 
 man, would afford us, it may be matter of amuse- 
 ment at any rate, if of nothing better, — to us 
 whose station is on the outside of the curtain, — to 
 figure to ourselves, in the way of guess and pas- 
 time, what, on the occasion in question, may have 
 been passing be/ii?id it. 
 
 Before so desirable a head of reform as that in 
 question could be brought even into the imperfect 
 state dressed up as above by the ingenuity of our 
 Right Honourable Author, " long inquiries, and 
 most attentive consideration" (we are informed by 
 him, p. 35) took place. Of these "long inquiries" 
 no inconsiderable portion, if one who knows 
 
160 Defence of Economy against Rose. 
 
 nothing may be allowed to guess, were naturally 
 directed to so desirable an object, as that of know- 
 ing what, in case of a change of the sort proposed, 
 the eighty members, of whom we have seen him 
 speaking, would be disposed to think of it: and 
 of the " attentive consideration " no inconsiderable 
 portion (it is equally natural to suppose) was be- 
 stowed upon the objections, which an innovation 
 of this sort could not but have given birth to 
 in so many Honourable and Right Honourable 
 minds. 
 
 With a set of hobgoblins, known among school 
 boys by the collective appellation of the secret 
 advisers of the crown — and of whom certain sceptics 
 (such has been the growth of infidelity !) have of 
 late (it seems) been found Arians or Socinians 
 enough to question the existence, — our author's 
 hero, there cannot be any doubt, supposing them 
 always to have had existence, must have had 
 to fight, on this, as on many other occasions, many 
 a hard battle. Of such warfare, the result, on the 
 occasion here in question, seems to have been a 
 sort of compromise. To restraint upon the dila- 
 pidation of the revenue, Fee, Faw, Fum could be, 
 and accordingly were brought to submit; — and 
 thus it was, that sale, grounded on collusive valu- 
 ation, was substituted to absolute gift. To the 
 diminution of influence, Fee, Faw, Fum could 
 not and would not be brought to submit : they 
 would have gone off to Hanover or to Hampshire 
 first: — and thus it was that sale, grounded on col- 
 lusive valuation, was preferred to sale/or the best 
 price. 
 
OBSERVATIONS 
 
 ON 
 
 MR. SECRETARY PEEL'S 
 
 HOUSE OF COMMONS SPEECH, 
 
 21st MARCH, 1825, 
 
 INTRODUCING HIS 
 
 POLICE MAGISTRATES' SALARY 
 RAISING BILL. 
 
 Date of Order for Printing, 24</i March, 1825. 
 
 ALSO ON THE 
 
 ANNOUNCED JUDGES' SALARY RAISING BILL, AND 
 THE PENDING COUNTY COURTS BILL. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY C. H. REYNELL, BROAD STREET, GOLDEN SQUARE. 
 
OBSERVATIONS, 
 
 1. Clauses, six : of minor importance, the four 
 last: of major, the two first : whereof the second 
 for establishing the measure: the first (the pre- 
 amble) for justification of it. 
 
 Measure, 200/. a year added to the salaries of 
 the existing thirty Police Magistrates. Original 
 salary, 400/. — see below. Last year but two, 
 (3 G. IV. c. 55.) so says clause 1 , — 200/. added to 
 it. Already comes the demand for as much more. 
 
 A reason is wanted — and such an one as shall 
 amount to a justification. Ready at hand is a 
 complete one, and not less concise than com- 
 plete ; one single word — expediency. " And 
 whereas it is expedient to encrease the said 
 salary." The House has standing orders — Parlia- 
 ment has standing reasons: at any rate it has this 
 one, and this one is the standing representative of 
 all others. To the wise, and from the wise, this 
 one word is sufficient. 
 
 For this second 200/. it is all-sufficient ; whether 
 a 2 
 
4 Police Magistrates 3 Salary raising. 
 
 it might have served equally for the first. Time 
 for search is wanting. But I would venture a 
 small wager, that on that occasion it did so serve: 
 it will serve equally well for any number of others. 
 It is made of stretching leather. It works tvell, 
 and wears well : it will be as good a thousand 
 years hence as it is at present. That which is 
 expedient is expedient. What can be more expedient 
 than expediency?....! could not refrain looking. I 
 should have won my wager. The expediency 
 reason is not indeed applied exclusively to the 
 salary-raising clause (No. 6.), but it shines in the 
 preamble; and in that clause the lustre and virtue 
 of it extends to all the others. 
 
 According to usage, the sum is left in blank in 
 the Bill : according to usage, the blank is filled up 
 by the eloquence of the Minister. 
 
 After having thus done the one thing needful, 
 and stamped the? measure with intelligibility, he 
 might not perhaps have done amiss, had he left 
 the justification of it to the wisdom of Parliament, 
 as above. 
 
 That injustice may be completely avoided, mis- 
 representation as far as possible, the Times and the 
 Morning Chronicle — two of the most accredited 
 sources of information — have, upon this occasion 
 been drawn upon, and the matter divided into 
 numbered paragraphs ; and, for the grounds of the 
 respective observations here hazarded, reference 
 has, by means of the numbers, been made to those 
 several paragraphs. 
 
 Original salary, 400/. a year (see below.) Last 
 year's addition, 200/. a year. Existing, what ? 
 600/. Magistrates, thirty. Aggregate of the addi- 
 tion, 6000/. a year : aggregate of the now proposed 
 addition, another 6000/. a year; together, 12,000/. 
 Nature of the demand clear enough : not to speak 
 
Police Magistrates' 1 Salary raising. 5 
 
 of reason, which seems altogether out of the 
 question: not so the alleged grounds of it. To 
 tread them up has been tread-wheel work. — 
 Result, what follows. 
 
 Evils proposed to be remedied, deficiencies: 
 
 1. deficiency in appropriate intellectual aptitude: 
 
 2. deficiency in time employed in attendance. 
 As to aptitude, during the 400/. a year (so says 
 No. 2.) incompetence total. Thus far aptitude : 
 the same certificate may, without much stretch of 
 inference, be made to apply to quantity of attend- 
 ance. These are the evils for which the second 
 200/. a year, multiplied by 30, is to suffice as a 
 remedy. The first dose was administered two or 
 three years ago: already it has been found insuffi- 
 cient, else why apply for another ? But that which 
 a single dose cannot effect another dose may ; and 
 if this does not, others and others after them are 
 at hand from the same shop. t 
 
 For the remedying of these evils, the reality of 
 them being supposed, begin as above and end as 
 above, the means provided by the wisdom of Par- 
 liament. 
 
 That wisdom having thus exhausted itself, — for 
 ulterior remedies, how little so ever needed, comes, 
 as will be seen, an additional supply, provided 
 by administration : provided, by the genius of Lord 
 Sidmouth, who invented them; by the magnan- 
 imity of Mr. Peel, who disdained not to adopt them. 
 They are — future exclusion of all non-barristers : 
 ditto of all Barristers of less than three years' stand- 
 ing. I speak here, and of necessity, of the two 
 Secretaries, late and present. For it is by Mr. Peel 
 and his successors in that office, if by anybody, that 
 these remedies are to be applied. Parliament is 
 to know nothing of them : Parliament is not to be 
 trusted with the application of them. 
 
6 Police Magistrates' Salary raising. 
 
 Viewing all this wisdom and virtue through the 
 medium of the greatest happiness principle, (a 
 principle which has been accused of giving to finan- 
 cial objects rather a yellow tinge) I have the mis- 
 fortune of seeing the whole speech in a considerably 
 different point of view — 1. The alleged evils — the 
 inaptitude, and the non-attendance — neither of 
 them proved by it. 2. Supposing the disorder 
 proved; the supposed remedy, Parliamentary and 
 ministerial, as above, inefficient to any good pur- 
 pose ; efficient to a very bad purpose ; but both these 
 evils, though not proved by the Right Hon. Secre- 
 tary, I admit, and, as it seems to me, probabilize, the 
 existence. 3. At the same time, of both. 4. So 
 doing, I venture to propose a remedy, which, for 
 reasons assigned, seems to me a promising one — 
 and the only one which the nature of the case 
 admits of, without some change in the whole 
 judiciary system, such as in part has been, and with 
 large amendments, will again be, submitted to the 
 public, but which it would be altogether useless, 
 as well as impracticable, to insert here. 
 
 Alleged evil 1. — Deficiency in appropriate ap- 
 titude. Here I take upon me to say not proved. 
 Here I am all confidence. Subpcena in hand, I 
 call on the Right Hon. Secretary. In No. 11. 
 stands his evidence — " Present Police Magistrates" 
 (per Times) " of the highest personal respectabi- 
 lity ." Per Morning Chronicle — " their know- 
 ledge, experience, and respectability " — (all 30 of 
 them) — " and their services had already proved 
 the importance of the duties they had to fulfil." 
 Per Times, again — " they performed their duties" 
 (and that not only to the satisfaction of the Right 
 Hon. Secretary, but) " to the great satisfaction of 
 the country." 
 This being unquestionable, what is become of 
 
Police Magistrates' Salary raising. 7 
 
 the evil, and what need can there be of a re- 
 medy ? 
 
 What a scene is here ! The Right Hon. Gen- 
 tleman at daggers drawn with himself! How to 
 account for it } One way alone I can think of, 
 and it is this : the force of his eloquence over- 
 powered his memory. While, with so much pathos, 
 he was lamenting, on the part of a certain set of per- 
 sons, the deplorable want of aptitude, — he forgot 
 that, before he sat down, he had to deliver, in behalf 
 of the selfsame persons, acertificate of accomplished 
 aptitude. When at last the time had come for the 
 delivery of this certificate, he had already forgot 
 how large a portion of his speech had been em- 
 ployed in giving contradiction to it. To answer 
 the purpose for which they are made, what must 
 be the complexion of the assertions of inaptitude 
 uttered with such entire confidence ? They must 
 be at once true and false : true, for the purpose of 
 proving the necessity of the additional bonus ; false, 
 for the purpose of entitling these thus meritorious 
 and actually existing persons (for this slides in sub 
 silentioj to receive, before any of their future con- 
 tingent colleagues have been in existence to receive 
 it, a full share of the benefit of it. Admit him to 
 be in possession of the power of giving truth to a 
 self-contradictory proposition, the Right Hon. 
 Secretary proves this his proband iim, and thus far 
 justifies his measure : refuse him this accommo- 
 dation, he stands self-confuted, and his argument is 
 somewhat worse than none. 
 
 Were ministerial responsibility anything better 
 than a word, the task the Right Hon. Gentleman 
 had charged himself with, was (it must be con- 
 fessed) rather a delicate one. English punch, 
 according to the Frenchman in the Jest Book, is a 
 liquor of contradiction : a compound of a similar 
 complexion was that, which, on occasions such as 
 
8 Police Magistrates? Salary raising. 
 
 the present, a situation such as the Right Hon. 
 Secretary occupies, gives him in charge to mix 
 up, for the entertainment of Honourable House. 
 Except in the case of an underling whose character 
 is too offensively rotten not to make it matter of 
 necessity to suffer him to be thrown overboard, 
 for all official men in general — high and low — 
 there is but one character : a general character for 
 excellence, tinged here and there with a little dif- 
 ference of colour, corresponding to the nature of 
 the department. The idea looks as if it were 
 taken from the old chronicles : where, with 
 decent intervals, one portrait serves for half a 
 dozen worthies : one town for the same number 
 of towns, and so as to battles and executions. 
 Time and labour are thus saved. This uni- 
 versal character puts one in mind of an inge- 
 nious document I have seen, sold under the title 
 of the Universal Almanac. A copy of it has 
 been supposed to be bound up with every Cabinet 
 Minister's copy of the Red Book. Like a formula 
 for convictions, it might be inserted into each par- 
 ticular, or into one general Act of Parliament. 
 Subscription to it, and oath of belief in it, in relation 
 to all official persons whose salaries had risen or 
 should hereafter rise to a certain amount, might 
 be added to the Test and Corporation Acts : and, 
 without need of troubling the legislature, Lord 
 Chief Justice Abbot, or Lord Chief Justice Any- 
 body, would hold himself in readiness to fine and 
 imprison every man who should dare to insinuate 
 that any such person that lives, or that ever has 
 lived, or that ever shall live, is, has been, or ever 
 can be, deficient in any one point belonging to it. 
 
 Without violation of this standing character 
 rule, he saw how impossible it was, that any the 
 slightest shade of inaptitude, actual or possible, in 
 any one of its modes, could be laid upon the cha- 
 
Police Magistrates' Salary raising. 9 
 
 racter of any one of the existing incumbents. 
 " With the character of all of them, all who heard 
 him," (see No. 11.) " were acquainted." Remain, 
 according to Parliamentary usage, the only persons 
 with whom any such liberty could be taken — 
 their future-contingent, and thence as yet un- 
 known successors. 
 
 Here however comes something of a difficulty. 
 Evil as above — disorder as above — inaptitude in 
 some shape or other : remedy as above, of the 
 preventive stamp, the 200/. a year. Good: sup- 
 posing disorder or danger of it. But where is 
 the room for it, where there is neither the one nor 
 the other ? Sole reason, the word invidious. In- 
 vidious it would be, and that being the case, " poor 
 economy'' — " so poor," (says No. 8.) " that 
 there could not be a worse" — to refuse to those 
 gentlemen whom every body knows, that which 
 will be given, to those of whom, without dispa- 
 ragement it must be said, that they are gentlemen 
 whom as yet nobody knows. 
 
 So much as to aptitude : and the alleged, and 
 by the same person at the same time denied, de- 
 ficiency in it. Remains as another, and the only 
 remaining subject-matter of deficiency, the article 
 of time — time employed in official attendance. 
 This, too, is another delicate topic. Standing so 
 near to aptitude, and, in particular, to the moral 
 branch of it, nothing determinate in relation to it 
 could be hazarded : allusion, insinuation, yes : but 
 nothing that applied to any body. " Great increase 
 of population." (No. 1. Morning Chronicle) "The 
 duties of the office would require constant attend- 
 ance V (No. 5. Mom. Chron.) — " almost constant 
 attendance. — (No. 4. Times.) — Hereupon comes 
 the same troublesome question as before. This 
 constancy of attendance, is it not then paid by the 
 present gentlemen ? Answer, as before, yes and no : 
 
10 Police Magistrates' Salary raising. 
 
 and, to secure it at the hands of their future col- 
 leagues and successors, comes the necessity of the 
 same sweet security — the 200/. a year: this 200/. 
 a year to be given, and without condition, not only 
 to those unknown persons, but moreover, and in the 
 first place, on pain of hearing the word " invidious," 
 and bearing the stigma of " poverty," given also to 
 the existing Gentlemen, in whose instance there 
 is so much, and so little, need of it. 
 
 So much for the Right Hon. Secretary's two 
 evils, and his proof of their existence. Now 
 for his two ministerial remedies in aid of the 200/. 
 a year parliamentary one: — 1. exclusion of all but 
 Barristers ; 2. exclusion of all Barristers but three- 
 year old ones. Problem, which his rhetoric or 
 his logic, or what is sometimes more powerful 
 than both, his silence, has undertaken for the 
 solution of — how to prove, that, by these two 
 exclusions, added to the 200/. a year, — appro- 
 priate aptitude, moral, intellectual, and active, 
 adequate to the situation, together with adequate 
 plenitude of attendance, will be produced. 
 
 By this policy, he secures, to this class of his 
 proteges the aptitude, proved by the right to the 
 name of Barrister. Now then what are the qua- 
 lifications, the sole qualifications, of the possession 
 of which any proof whatever is given by the 
 right to bear this name ? Answer : Being of full 
 age ; payment of a certain sum in fees and 
 taxes, and, on a certain number of days sprinkled 
 over a surface of five years, eating and drinking in 
 a certain place, or therein making believe to eat 
 and drink. Sum: between one and two hundred 
 pounds ; place, the hall of an Inn of Court ; 
 number of days, twenty in every year ; total 
 number of days, a hundred. As to the making 
 believe, this option must not be omitted : nor yet 
 the hour~four, or half-past four ; for neither the 
 
Police Magistrates* Salary raising. \ \ 
 
 hour nor the fare accord well with the taste of the 
 class of persons for whom, it will be seen, the 
 800/. is destined. 
 
 As if this security were not strong enough, now 
 mounts another upon the shoulders of it. After 
 five years employed in the above exercises, then 
 comes a repose of three years more ; for not less in- 
 deed than these three years more, must this class of 
 the Right Hon. Secretary's proteges have borne the 
 name of Barrister : but, as to the exercises of eat- 
 ing and drinking, if it be agreeable to the gentle- 
 man to perform them, he is no longer burthened 
 with any limitation in regard to place. The 
 Right Hon. Minister in the pathetic part of his 
 speech (No. 4.) asks a question : May logic, 
 in the person of an obscure individual, be permit- 
 ted to do the like ? Comparatively speaking (for 
 I mean nothing more) — service for five years, (the 
 usual time), as clerk to an attorney, would it not 
 be a security, though not so dignified, somewhat 
 more efficient? The clerk could not be altogether 
 ignorant of law without his master's suffering for 
 it. The master, therefore, has some interest in 
 causing him to learn it ; the clerk, in learning it. 
 But more of this further on. 
 
 The security is of Lord Sidmouth's invention : 
 so his Right Hon. Successor assures us : and much 
 inferior authority might have sufficed to command 
 belief. It is just the sort of security, that the 
 genius of his Noble and Learned Oracle, or of Mr. 
 Justice Bailey, or of Mr. Justice Park, might have 
 devised : of all these luminaries the collective 
 wisdom was perhaps expended upon it. For all 
 these luminaries, the name of barrister, with three 
 years' wear of it, was security sufficient : and, if 
 he is sincere, Lord Sidmouth's Successor looks no 
 deeper than to names. 
 
12 , Police Magistrates' Salary raising. 
 
 So much better in their eyes is a nominal secu- 
 rity than a real one, that when a real one offers, it 
 is deliberately put aside. (No. 6.) 
 
 The design of the Right Hon. Secretary found 
 the class of country gentlemen standing in its 
 way : a class, before which Ministers, not to say 
 Kings themselves bow, was not to be lightly dealt 
 with. Something in the way of compliment to 
 them was indispensable; the compliment, however, 
 was unavoidably of a somewhat ambiguous cha- 
 racter, as, not being eminent lawyers, they could 
 not serve the purpose. Inaptitude on their parts, 
 relative inaptitude at least, it was necessary should 
 somehow or other be insinuated. 
 
 As to this matter, if absolute inaptitude would 
 content the Right Hon. Gentleman, my feeble 
 suffrage would see no very cogent reason against 
 joining itself to his : but, as to comparative inapti- 
 tude, in the case in question, — comparative in 
 relation to his three years old, and theretofore 
 perhaps, eating and drinking Barristers, so far I 
 cannot go with him. For, not only country gen- 
 tlemen at large, but country Magistrates — nay, 
 and such country Magistrates as have been in use 
 to perform — and that for whatsoever length of time 
 : — the duties of this very office — such are those he 
 puts from him. This being decided, for extinguish- 
 ing all pretensions to appropriate aptitude on their 
 part, the purpose of his argument required a 
 dyslogistic epithet. Routine is accordingly the 
 epithet, by which the whole of the business they 
 have been accustomed to is characterised. Yet, 
 make the least of it, it at any rate composes 
 the greatest part of the business of the very office 
 from which he is excluding them : one more look, 
 and, as you will see that the business they have been 
 accustomed to, has, in the instance of many of 
 
 
Police Magistrates' Salary raising. \3 
 
 them, and may, if he will vouchsafe to adopt them, 
 be, in the instance of all these children of his 
 adoption, made to comprise the whole of it. 
 Such being the candidates whom he puts aside as 
 unfit for the business, what are the objects of his 
 embrace ? Three years old Barristers, altogether 
 unused to business of any kind ; unless eating and 
 drinking, or making believe to eat and drink, is 
 business. To a person who has never dined, or 
 made believe to dine, at an Inn of Court hall, all 
 this may seem exaggeration, to say no worse, 
 /speak not only from observation, but from expe- 
 rience. Such is my good fortune, never as yet 
 have I been convicted of perjury : nobody has 
 ever given me anything for saying this: my evi- 
 dence is therefore good evidence ; and it applies 
 not less to the makingbelieve to eat and drink, than 
 to the actual exhibition of those so perfectly con- 
 clusive, and exclusively receivable tests of apti- 
 tude for the office of Magistrate. Thus the 
 matter stood sixty years ago, and thus I am assured, 
 by equally competent witnesses, it stands still. 
 Let it not be said, the place being a law place, the 
 conversation turns of course upon law. There 
 being no conversation upon anything, there is no 
 conversation upon law ; for, unless you happen to 
 be already acquainted with him, you have no more 
 conversation with your messmate, than if he were 
 at the antipodes. 
 
 To complete his demonstration of the superiority 
 of his three years old Barristers without any ex- 
 perience, to a quondam country Gentleman with 
 thirty years of appropriate experience, the Right 
 Hon. Secretary brings exemplification from the 
 Building Act, and tells Honourable House of a 
 case under it which (says No. 7.) had occupied " a 
 couple of days, during which surveyors had been 
 
14 Police Magistrates' Salary raising. 
 
 examined on both sides." Now, in a case of this 
 sort, what is there that should render even an expe- 
 rienced Magistrate less competent than an equally 
 experienced Barrister? Whathasitto do either with 
 equity or with common law ? Country Magistrates, 
 who, not a few of them, are themselves builders — 
 who, all of them, are accustomed to order buildings 
 to be built — built with perhaps a little of their own 
 money, and sometimes with rather too much of other 
 people's — what should hinder them from being at 
 least as well conversant with the subject, as the most 
 learned inhabitant of Lincoln's Inn Old-buildings ? 
 Here, for law is an Act of Parliament, nothing more : 
 for fact, evidence about something that should or 
 should not have been done under that same Act. 
 The days thus employed, what would they have 
 been to the purpose, if, instead of two, there had 
 been twenty of them ? 
 
 At the winding up of his speech, (No. 10.) to 
 place above all contradiction the indispensableness 
 of the 200/. a year, comes a trope — the word refuse 
 — which seems to bid defiance to all endeavours 
 to descry anything in it beyond the intensity of the 
 desire to give birth to the indispensable effect. 
 
 Barristers — all Barristers in the lump — are, by 
 this figure of speech, divided into two classes : 
 those who will serve for 600/. a year, and those 
 who will not serve for the 600/. but will for the 
 800/. As to the meaning, it is indeed intelligible 
 enough : not so, by any means, the grounds of it. 
 That it were so is, however, rather to be wished : 
 for, those — all those, who would be content that the 
 600/. a year, public money, which the Right Hon. 
 Secretary is thus buying creatures with, should be 
 saved — all those, Barristers as they are, are branded 
 with the common name of refuse. Such is the con- 
 tempt, the undisguised, the thus loudly proclaimed 
 
Police Magistrates^ Salary raising. 15 
 
 contempt, in which sincerity, I mean always com- 
 parative sincerity, is held by this one of our head 
 guardians of public morals. Insincerity is among 
 the qualities professed to be possessed by Barris- 
 ters : the only one which is sure to be possessed 
 by any of them. Now then, true it is, that no 
 reason can be alleged for supposing, that, so far as 
 disposition goes, those who get least business are 
 behind-hand in this endowment, with those who 
 get most : but disposition is one thing, practice is 
 another : and the less a man has manifested of it, 
 the more deep-drawn is the contempt which he 
 receives on his head at the hands of the Right 
 Hon. Secretary, from the bucket lettered with the 
 word refuse. 
 
 Meantime, here stands a strange mystery. Re- 
 fuse — were there ever such a plenty of it, would 
 the hand of Mr. Peel pick it off the dunghill, and 
 place it on high — this refuse? Forbid it, consis- 
 tency, at least. For who is it that prophecies it 
 of him? Is it not Mr. Peel himself? But shall 
 he be suffered thus to deal by himself? Shall 
 Amyntas murder Amyntas ? 
 
 One possible solution remains, and but one. 
 On the part of a Barrister, willingness to serve in 
 the office of Police Magistrate for so little as the 
 600/. a year, is not merely evidence of his inapti- 
 tude for that office, but conclusive evidence. 
 This meaning, however strange, being intelligible 
 enough, — we have thus far something tangible to 
 examine. For, supposing none but refuse willing 
 to serve, refuse he must take up with, or have 
 none : and thus, it being Hobson's choice, there 
 is no inconsistency either in his making it, or in 
 his avowing the making it. But suppose enough 
 willing who are not refuse, what matter is it how 
 many there are who are refuse ? Will he, then, 
 
16 Police Magistrates' Salary raising. 
 
 having good and bad before him, both in plenty, 
 take in hand the bad, putting aside the good ? 
 
 The stock of difficulties is not yet exhausted. 
 Comes now a point for him to settle with certain 
 gentlemen. Of the thirty gentlemen at present 
 serving in this situation, four I see, who, by his 
 own account (No. 11.) are serving, and for these 
 three years, or thereabouts, have been serving, at 
 the low price. None of them, I hope, were born 
 in Ireland, or in the United States: if yes, there 
 may be danger in the case. " Sir (they may say 
 to him, one after another) do you mean to call 
 me refuse ?" One consolation is, that refuse, as 
 according to him they are (as per No. 1.) they are 
 not the less included in his certificate (No. 6.) of 
 universal aptitude. This, with the assurance of 
 the additional 200/. may, it is hoped, soften them. 
 Was it for this that the 200/. was extended to 
 those, in whose instance experience, if he is to be 
 believed, has demonstrated that for any other pur- 
 pose it was not needed? 
 
 One lumping assumption there is, upon which 
 the whole strength of his argument rests. Faint- 
 ness of prospect, such as to induce a man in the 
 profession to take up with 600/. a year certain, 
 charged with moderate labour, is conclusive 
 evidence of his not being fit, either for the 
 profession of Barrister, or for the office of Police 
 Magistrate. How brisk are the Right Hon. 
 Secretary's conclusions 1 Involved in the as- 
 sumption is this — that all who have not ac- 
 tually a certain quantity of the business in ques- 
 tion, or at least a strong assurance of it, are unfit 
 for it. Now then how stands the matter in point of 
 fact > In a prodigious degree more than any other, 
 this profession is always overstocked. In this 
 same profession, the quantity of business that shall 
 
Police Magistrates' Salary raising. 17 
 
 be deemed sufficient to produce a refusal of the 
 office, with the 600/. a year — let the fixation of it 
 be left even to him — for one who is in possession of 
 it there may be two, or more likely a much greater 
 multiple of one, that are not in possession of it. 
 Here then, according to his own reckoning, for one 
 who is not refuse, there will be the two, the three, 
 the half dozen (where shall we end }) who are 
 refuse : and yet, as above, of this refuse, for aught 
 he can know, numbers there are in any proportion, 
 whose aptitude is at the highest pitch, and who yet, 
 if they have either common prudence, ordisposition 
 to follow so many examples as are before them, 
 will not disdain to pick up the supposed disgrace- 
 ful pittance. Let me not be accused of taking an 
 undue advantage of an unguarded word. Substi- 
 tute the tamest word the language furnishes, the 
 arguments remain the same. 
 
 Mean time, who does not know that there are 
 certain points of aptitude, in respect of which a 
 man may be very indifferently qualified lor making 
 his way at the bar; and yet, perhaps, be but so much 
 the better qualified for the exercise of the functions 
 of the office in question, being, as they are, with Mr. 
 Justice Bailey's leave be it spoken, the functions 
 of the judge. Rhetoric is the leading talent of 
 the Barrister; logic, of the judge: and between 
 the two, the strife is not much less fierce than, 
 according to the poet, between liberty and love. 
 
 Be this as it may, almost every body knows — 
 and a man must be a Secretary of State, or at least 
 a Cabinet Minister, not. to know — that in this 
 profession, above all others, success depends upon 
 accident, at least as much as upon aptitude : — 
 that it has for its proximate cause a certain 
 opinion in the heads of attornies : and that, if 
 external circumstances, altogether independent of 
 
 R 
 
1 8 Police Magistrates' Salary raising. 
 
 inward endowments, do not concur in the gene- 
 ration of this opinion, a man may unite the rhe- 
 toric of a Murray with the logic of a Dunning, 
 and, at the end of a long life, die, like Serjeant 
 Kemble the Reporter, without ever having clasped, 
 to his panting breast, the blessing of a brief. 
 
 Nor yet are we out of our wood. For, still re- 
 mains one topic, to thicken the perplexity. It is 
 that of the length of standing — the yet remaining 
 one of the three branches of the Right Hon. Secre- 
 tary's security for aptitude. To render a barrister 
 an object of his choice, three years (says No. 3.) 
 must be his length of standing. Now then of the 
 number three thus applied, what was the design ? 
 to extend the number of admissible candidates, or 
 to narrow it ? The too young or the too old — 
 for the exclusion of which of these unapt classes 
 was it intended ? The too young — says the word- 
 ing, abstractedly considered : the too old — says the 
 word refuse, and the sort of argument conveyed by 
 it. For, these are they, who, by their willingness 
 to accept of so low a price as the 600/. have given 
 the requisite proof of inaptitude: — of their despair 
 of Barrister business ; — and consequently of their 
 inaptitude for the office of Police Magistrate. 
 Thus incompetent (says the argument) are the 
 old Barristers run to seed. — Turn now to the three 
 year olds. In the breasts of all this blooming youth, 
 no such self-condemning and inaptitude-proving 
 despair, can have had time to form itself. At this 
 short standing, — unless here and there a special 
 pleader, who has shown himself by practice under 
 the bar, be an exception, — no practice, no expecta- 
 tion — consequently no disapointment. Expecta- 
 tion ! How should there have been any ? After 
 these three years, how long (shall we say) conti- 
 nues the time for junior openings, which require 
 
Police Magistrates' Salary raising'. 19 
 
 nothing but a few words got by heart, and half- 
 guinea motions of course, which require not even 
 that ? — sources not furnishing, upon an average, the 
 tenth part of the supposed disdained 600i. Now 
 then comes the comparison. To these men, in 
 whose instance, by the admission, or rather by the 
 assertion, of the Right Hon. Secretary, the probabi- 
 lity is, that they have had no appropriate experience 
 worth mentioning, — to these men is to belong the 
 exclusive chance of being chosen for the office : 
 while those, who may have appropriate experience, 
 in any quantity not incompatible with the choice of 
 600/. a year for life, charged with the already very 
 moderate, and naturally still decreasing labour, 
 which will be seen presently, — are for that reason 
 to be regarded as being proved in hopeless degree 
 unapt, and on that ground are to be excluded from 
 all chance. 
 
 " But you have forgot" (says somebody) " the 
 wonder-working 200/. a year." — Not 1 indeed. 
 But, forasmuch as, in the case of the three year 
 olds, it is to create aptitude out of nothing, — I see 
 not why it should find less difficulty in creating it, 
 in the instance of the twenty or twenty-three year 
 olds, to whose stock of the requisite materials no 
 limitation can be assigned, short of that which is 
 applied by an assurance of more than the 600/. a 
 year by professional practice. 
 
 To prepare Honourable House for the reception 
 of the above logic and the above rhetoric, Right 
 Hon. Secretary sets out, I see, with history. Ori- 
 ginal salaries, 400/.; result per Titnes (No. 2.) 
 "incompetence:" per Morning Chronicle, "total 
 incompetence." Cause and proof of the incom- 
 petence, manifest: out of twelve (the original num- 
 ber) barristers, no more than three. Being Barris- 
 ters, these three should naturally have produced a 
 
 b 2 
 
20 Police Magistrates' Salary raising, 
 
 five-and-twenty percent, discount from the totality 
 of the incompetence; but perhaps they were of the 
 refuse sort : and grant him but this, the exception, 
 being thus only apparent, gives strength rather than 
 weakness to his sweeping rule. Here too sin- 
 cerity compels me to be totally recalcitrant : major, 
 minor, conclusion — to nothing can I accede. In- 
 competence, neither proved nor probabilized : 
 power of the first 200/. a year to increase compe- 
 tence (supposing a deficiency of it) denied by me: 
 supposing it admitted, need of the proposed second 
 200/. a year for producing competence, denied 
 again : the actual production of it having been so 
 triumphantly proved by me, as above: proved by 
 the most irrefragable of all testimony — his own 
 evidence. 
 
 Proof of the incompetence of the original nine, 
 ■ — non- Barrister ship. With so concise, and at the 
 same time so satisfactory a proof, especially to the 
 Barrister part of the audience, — at this stage, of his 
 history in union with his logic, the Right Hon. 
 Secretary might perhaps have done as well, had he 
 not only begun, but ended : not much strength, it 
 is believed, will either of these his supports, re- 
 ceive from the particulars. The year of the estab- 
 lishment being 1792, — the nine are all of them, by 
 this time, gathered to theirfathers; indeed, theRight 
 Hon. Gentleman's urbanity considered, the sen- 
 tence thus passed on them proves as much. From 
 such a quarter, a more drastic condensation, unless 
 it were by the word refuse, can scarcely be imagined. 
 But they had not risen (poor gentlemen !) to the 
 rank of those, the feelings of whose surviving rela- 
 tives can make claim to the protection of Lord Chief 
 Justice Abbott ; and, if they had, it is not against a 
 Secretary of State, nor even against a member of 
 Hon. House — speaking in his place — that it could 
 
Police Magistrate* Salary raiting. 21 
 
 be afforded. Instead of the sweet satisfaction of 
 seeing fine and imprisonment inflicted on the 
 gainsayer, — they must therefore, under their afflic- 
 tion, put up with such poor support, as an obscure 
 and unpaid ex-Barrister of the refuse class has it 
 in his power to give. 
 
 With an exception (of which presently) of no 
 one of the devoted nine do I remember anything. 
 The sort of character evidence which 1 have to 
 adduce for them, is therefore none of it of that 
 sort which is called direct: none of it more than 
 circumstantial. Nor is it the worse for being so ; 
 for, as applied to character, the value of direct 
 evidence, unless it be from some such person as a 
 Secretary of State, may be judged from what is 
 above, although it is from a Secretary of State. 
 
 To return to the history. — In regard to appro- 
 priate aptitude (competence I cannot keep to, 
 since it includes, not to say exclusively de- 
 notes, acceptance at the hands of those to 
 whom inaptitude is a recommendation) — in 
 regard to appropriate aptitude, the question is 
 between the nine defunct and reprobated original 
 Magistrates, and the Right Hon. Secretary's Ma- 
 gistrates in petto or in embryo — his three year old 
 Barristers. Of these, as yet unborn babes of 
 grace — offspring of the imagination of the Right 
 Hon. Secretary, the title to the quality of aptitude 
 has been already disposed of: circumstantial 
 evidence and proof presumptive of inaptitude, — 
 want of experience in business, or more shortly — 
 their not being men of business. Now then for 
 my nine clients. The Right Hon. Secretary's 
 list of them (No. 2.) has been seen : Major, one ; 
 Clergymen, three ; — (oh fie ! what after the Major ?) 
 Starch Dealers, two ; Glasgow Trader, one. Now, 
 with the exception of the three Clergymen (whom 
 I shall leave to those so much more efficient 
 
22 Police Magistrates' Salary raising. 
 
 advocates, of whom no gentlemen of their cloth can 
 ever be in want — Magistrates for whom I cannot 
 find any tolerable presumptive evidence of their 
 having been men of business in any way) — of all 
 the others I am bold to affirm that they had been 
 men of business. 
 
 I will go further, and add, — nor is there any 
 one of those occupations, experience in the 
 business of which does not afford stronger pre- 
 sumption of aptitude — even in relation to the 
 business of the office in question, than can be 
 afforded by an utter want of all experience in any 
 kind of business. The Major, being a Major, must 
 have passed through the several grades — Ensign 
 (or the equivalent) Lieutenant, Captain : and, in 
 all of them, if commanding men by scores and 
 hundreds is business — he must have been a man 
 of business. The Starch Dealers, they too must 
 have been men of business ; for, buying and selling 
 starch is doing business: and in that business, 
 with whatever degree of success, they could not 
 but have been exerting themselves, forasmuch as 
 their subsistence depended upon it. All this too, 
 in addition to their having been bond Jide eating 
 as well as drinking ; to wit, from the hour they 
 gave up the nipple, down to the time of their 
 appointment ; which is rather more than can be 
 alleged in favour of the aptitude of the Right 
 Hon. Secretary's proteges, unless it be the dif- 
 ference between the performing of those exercises 
 at a man's own home, and the performing them in 
 the hall of an inn of court: which difference, I 
 cannot bring myself to regard as constituting, to 
 the purpose in question, a very material one. 
 
 I come lastly to the Glasgow Trader. Being a 
 trader, he too must have been a man of business. 
 As such I might leave him ; but, it having fallen 
 in my way, to know in what ways, and in how 
 
Police Magistrates' Salary raising. 23 
 
 conspicuous a degree, with reference to the 
 business of this very office, he proved himself 
 a man of business, I shall venture a few par- 
 ticulars. This man was Patrick Colquhoun : and, 
 unless destroyed by the comparative smallness of 
 his remuneration, his relative aptitude has stronger, 
 as well as more incontrovertible proofs than can, I 
 trust, be produced, not only by the Right Hon. Se- 
 cretary's unknown proteges in embryo, whom even 
 I look down upon as so many chits, — but even by 
 the whole of the actually existing Barrister-Magis- 
 trates, produced by the additional 200/. a-year, 
 to whom I make my bow, whoever they may be. 
 Treatise (I mean) on the Police of the Metropolis, 
 Treatise on Indigence, Treatise on the Office of 
 Constable — and for ought I know, others (fori have 
 not time to hunt for them) bearing most directly 
 upon the business of this very office. As to the first 
 mentioned — of the number of its editions I am 
 afraid to speak, not having the last before me : the 
 fifth, which I have in hand, is as early as 1797> 
 and there must have been several others after it. 
 Into the merits of them I cannot afford to enter, 
 this paper not being either a Quarterly, an Edin- 
 burgh, or a Westminster Review : nor, if I could, 
 could I venture to put my judgment in compe- 
 tition with the single word incompetence, from the 
 lips of the Right Hon. Secretary. I must leave 
 them therefore to that evidence : and, if that 
 evidence be not more probative, than any which 
 the Right Hon. Secretary has adduced in favour 
 of his future proteges, or even in favour of their 
 existing predecessors and intended colleagues, 
 I must give up my cause. 
 
 Evidence of this sort in abundance must be 
 omitted. One lot is too pointed to be thus dealt 
 with. To this Glasgow Trader, whatever may be the 
 
24 Police Magistrates' Salary raising. 
 
 value of it, was the public indebted for the first 
 addition made to the number of those offices, and 
 the Right Hon. Secretary for a proportionable 
 part of the patronage, to the value of which he is 
 thus labouring to give increase. It was the 
 adddition made by the Thames 1'olice Act 39 
 and 40 Geo. III. anno 1800 ch. 87. Of this 
 business, it fell in my way not to be altogether 
 ignorant. A bill was necessary. Colquhoun had 
 found the facts. I ventured to supply the law. 
 1 drew the bill, leaving out as much of the cus- 
 tomary surplusage as I durst. In the procedure 
 clauses, for giving execution and effect to 
 the law, I ventured as far as I durst, and further 
 than any one had ventured before. Incompetent 
 as the performance could not but be, coming out' 
 of such hands, change of hands rendered its com- 
 petence unquestionable. At my humble request, 
 a Learned Gentleman of the first distinction (I 
 know my distance better than to mention him) 
 received it into his, and without the change of a 
 word, it became law. The plan had been formed 
 by Colquhoun, in conjunction with I forget what 
 body of mercantile men, who wanted a sort of 
 Board of which he was to be at the head. The 
 Board they did not get: but a present of 500/. 
 testified their sense of his competence with 
 relation to police business. Such was the name- 
 less Glasgow Trader : his name would not have 
 been quite so suitable to the Right Hon. Secre- 
 tary's purpose, as it is to mine. ■ 
 
 As to the three Clergymen, leaving the question, 
 as to their incompetence, to be settled by the Hon. 
 Secretary with the Archbishops of Canterbury, de- 
 funct and living, the Lord Chancellors, and the 
 several Lord Lieutenants, I proceed to the remain- 
 ing one of the two evils, for which the second 200/. 
 
Police Magistrates' Salary raising. 2.5 
 
 a-year, as provided by him, is to operate as a re- 
 medy. This is — the deficiency in the article of time: 
 the deficiency, if any, present or future, in regard 
 to the quantity of time employed, or eventually 
 about to be employed, by the Magistrates in ques- 
 tion, in the fulfilment of their duties. 
 
 On this evil the Right Honourable Secretary 
 touches, it should seem, with rather a tender hand: 
 allusion and insinuation, rather than assertion, are 
 the forms of speech I see employed. (Per No. 1.) 
 In the business "great increase :" cause, ditto, 
 partly in acts of parliament, partly in population. 
 Triumphant tenders of papers in proof of all these 
 facts, — to which might have been added the ex- 
 istence of the sun at noon day. 
 
 Of the existence of the thus delicately-assumed 
 evil, — at the hands of the Right Hon. Secretary I 
 look in vain for other proof. From that most au- 
 thentic source, somewhat less explicit is the evi- 
 dence I see to the contrary. It is that which has 
 been already seen : it is made of stretching leather: 
 it is wide enough to be applied to whatever can be 
 desired. By the thirty gentlemen, (who, it has 
 been seen, are at once so competent, and, for want 
 of the 200/. a-year, so incompetent) — these duties, 
 as per No. 11, are performed to the great satisfaction 
 of the country; and this, notwithstanding that, as 
 per No. 4, to prove the necessity of the Barrister part, 
 almost constant attendance, he says, is required. 
 Required ? Good. But by whom was it, or any- 
 thing like it, ever required ?— a question somewhat 
 more easy to put than to answer. By any such 
 attendance, or anything like an approach to it, the 
 place would be spoilt, and no gentleman would 
 accept it: acceptance would of itself be proof of 
 incompetence. 
 
 Now then, forasmuch as, in this office, according 
 
26 Police Magistrates' Salary raising. 
 
 to the Right Honourable Secretary's opinion, an 
 " almost constant attendance n is required, and ac- 
 cordingly forms part and parcel of its duties ; — and 
 forasmuch as, without exception, these same duties 
 are, according to this his evidence, actually per- 
 formed — performed not merely to his satisfaction, 
 but to the satisfaction of the country: — forasmuch 
 as, I say, evidence of the existence of this one of 
 his two evils, is, notwithstanding the prodigious 
 pile of papers, with the mention of which he at once 
 alarmed and satisfied the House, still to seek ; — for 
 this deficiency, though it is not in my power to pro- 
 vide a supply, it is not, I flatter myself, altogether 
 out of my power, humbly to point out a course by 
 which he may obtain it. True or false, newspaper 
 statement is unofficial statement : unofficial state- 
 ment is not admitted in evidence, even when no 
 man in Honourable House doubts, or will venture 
 to express a doubt, of the correctness of it. 
 Honourable House knows better than to admit, 
 through such a channel, anything, however well 
 attested, in the character of evidence. Yet are 
 such statements, — unofficial and incompetent as 
 they are, — made use of, every day, in the cha- 
 racter of indicative evidence, for the elicitation 
 of acknowledged evidence. This premised, I 
 shall venture to copy from a newspaper a por- 
 tion of a paragraph: humbly observing, that in 
 every one of the offices in question there exist 
 various persons, from any of whom, if it be 
 agreeable to know it, Honourable House, and 
 in it Right Honourable Secretary may learn at 
 any time, whether, in this same newspaper state- 
 ment, there be any and what portion and degree 
 of truth, and how far the actual agrees with their 
 " required constancy of attendance." 
 
 " We believe," says the Globe and Traveller, as 
 
Police Magistrates' Salary raising. 27 
 
 quoted in the Examiner of March 27, 1825, — " we 
 believe a Magistrate attends at each of the offices 
 from 12 to 3, and looks in again in the evening. 
 There are three Magistrates in an office, so that 
 this duty is imposed upon each of them twice 
 a week. We know that there is some business for 
 which the presence of two Magistrates is necessary ; 
 but it is to be recollected that at almost all the 
 offices, volunteer Magistrates are frequently in 
 attendance. We are convinced that a very large 
 statement of the time each Magistrate needs be in 
 attendance, is — every other day, three hours in the 
 morning, and twice a-week, two hours in the 
 evening." 
 
 In regard to this evil, if anything that comes 
 from so incompetent a quarter could be heard, I 
 could, I think, do something towards tranquilliz- 
 ing the Right Honourable Secretary. Aptitude is 
 not quite so easily secured as asserted. But 
 attendance — the maximum of possible attendance 
 — every master-man; how humble soever in condi- 
 tion — every master-man that really desires it, has it. 
 To the extent of his desires, the Right Honourable 
 Secretary has it in his own individual office. With 
 the assistance of Honourable and Right Ho- 
 nourable House, to the same extent, he may have 
 it in the instance of every other public office with- 
 out exception. If, then, in any instance, and in 
 any degree, he fails to have it, it is because he does 
 not desire, not because he is not able, to obtain it. 
 
 You may maximize attendance, and you may 
 minimize it. The maximization problem has been 
 solved, and with illustrious success, in the 
 case of the children of the indigent, when 
 worked upon a steam scale. As some are 
 killed off, others succeed : and capital — the one 
 and the only thing needful — accumulates. Exa- 
 
28 Police Magistrates' Salary raising. 
 
 mined in his place, or elsewhere, one Honourable 
 Member of Honourable House could give, on this 
 point, if I have not been misinformed, instructive 
 information. His name, if I mistake not, begins 
 with a P. 
 
 Those whose will it is to minimize attendance 
 might, if in the above newspaper report there be 
 any approach to truth, receive instruction, if 
 it be worth while, by applying to another P, no 
 less a P. than Mr. Secretary Peel. But it is not 
 worth while : those who understand nothing else, 
 understand this. Everybody, man and boy, knows 
 how to be idle, every man knows what it is to 
 stand looking on, and helping, while others are 
 idle. Every man knows what it is to pay, as well 
 as to be paid, for doing work, and all the while 
 seeing and leaving it undone. Other arts travel 
 at their different paces. Under matchless consti- 
 tution, the art of sinecurism is at its acme. 
 
 In my small way, I have a manufactory of my 
 own, in which, with the same sort of instrument 
 (imagination), with which the Right Hon. Se- 
 cretary has manufactured aptitude in the in- 
 stance of his three-year-old Barrister-Magistrates, 
 and for my own amusement (as the half-retired 
 chimney-sweeper swept chimneys) I make judges. 
 My judges are judges of all work, and of all 
 hours. They do not, it is true, sit each of them, 
 every day in every year, and on every day, 
 every hour of the four-and-twenty ; but, in each 
 judicatory they, following one another, do all this. 
 When sleeps injustice, so may justice too, said 
 a voice to me in one of my dreams. My muse 
 is but a hobbling one: — she has not been to 
 school to the Laureat's : the too is somewhat 
 of a botch : but I remember her so much the 
 better. In one thing I endeavour to copy the 
 
Police Magistrates' Salary raising. 29 
 
 Right Honourable Secretary's noble and learned 
 friend — it is the quality so judiciously selected 
 for his eulogium — consistency. The ends to 
 which my Judicial Establishment, and my 
 Procedure Code, in conformity to the Constitu- 
 tional Code to which they belong, are from begin- 
 ning to end directed, are the ends of justice: 
 under matchless Constitution, the ends to which 
 the Judicial Establishment is, and the Procedure 
 Code, if there were any, would be, directed, — are 
 the ends of Judicature. What these are, it is not 
 for me to presume to inform the Hon. Secretary : 
 over and over again he must have heard them, 
 amidst peals of laughter, or floods of tears, from 
 his Learned and matchlessly-consistent. Friend, 
 before or after the second bottle. 
 
 Such being the bill — such the ostensible and 
 declared objects of it — such the evils asserted or 
 insinuated — such the remedies provided — such the 
 arguments employed in proof of the evils, and in 
 recommendation of the remedies — what, after all, 
 is the real object ? The topic must not be omitted : 
 though to few of the readers, if any, whose patience 
 has brought them thus far, can anything on this 
 head be regarded as much more needed, than were 
 the Hon. Secretary's proofs of encrease of popula- 
 tion and acts of Parliament. 
 
 Loss, by waste of public money, is in every 
 instance an evil: in the present instance, loss in 
 the article of aptitude is, in my view of the matter, 
 a still greater evil. To the augmentation of apti- 
 tude, perfectly inoperative will be the 200/. a year: 
 not so to the diminution of it. 1,000/. a year 
 is a salary for a nobly related puisne, at one of 
 the highest boards. I am fearful of mistakes, and 
 have no time for searches. When Red Books 
 had the salaries to them, 1,000/. if recollection 
 
30 Police Magistrates' Salary raising. 
 
 does not mislead me, was the number attached to 
 the office of Puisne Admiralty Lord. 
 
 In the heaven of office, there are many man- 
 sions. Of a Police Magistrate, the station cannotbe 
 altogether upon a level with that of an Admiralty 
 Lord : but the 200/. a year will raise the lower office 
 to a level next below that of the higher one. To 
 a reverend youth — even to one born honourable, 
 a spiritual benefice yielding 800/. a year is not 
 altogether an object of disdain : eased, as above, 
 of labour, though not so perfectly as in the 
 other case, why should even this temporal one ? 
 Without some improvement, attendance is a 
 burthen the lay incumbent can not be altogether 
 eased of: thought he may be eased of without 
 difficulty. When two Magistrates are necessary, 
 there must be a non-honourable to yield thought, 
 but the honourable will serve as well as the non- 
 honourable to yield auspices : when one Magis- 
 trate suffices, the dignity of the honourable man 
 will need no disturbance. But, the only case, in 
 whichburthenssodegradingtohonourablemen will 
 require to be imposed, is an extreme case. Natu- 
 rally speaking, there will in general be unpaid Ma- 
 gistrates enough, to whom, for the time and trouble 
 of attendance, the power and the amusement will 
 afford sufficient compensation. One of these sup- 
 pleans, the non-honourable, takes care to provide, 
 each time, for his honourable friend and colleague. 
 Thus is the labour of the honourable minimized : 
 and, sadly have his non-honourable colleagues been 
 deficient in what everybody owes to his rank, if the 
 quantity of time actually employed in official du- 
 ties is anything more than an impalpable one. 
 
 Here then, in short, comes the effect and use of 
 this second 200/. The first did not bring the 
 place within the sphere of the highly-connected 
 
Police Magistrates' Salary raising. 31 
 
 class: the hope is — that the second will: it will, 
 at any rate, form a basis for a third. 
 
 " What makes all doctrines plain and clear? 
 " About two hundred pounds a year." 
 
 So stood the matter in Sir Hudibras's time. 
 But now the 200/. must have an ever increasing 
 number of others to mount upon. 
 
 Seldom, if ever, do I endeavour to overthrow, 
 without endeavouring at the same time to build 
 up. For maximizing the chance in favour of every 
 thing needful, I have a recipe of my own, and 
 that exemplified upon the largest scale ; the prin- 
 ciple of it will be found in another part of this 
 volume, or in one that will soon follow it. Alas ! 
 what hopes can there be for mine ? It is the very 
 reverse of the Right Hon. Secretary's. It may 
 serve him at any rate to laugh at. His plan ex- 
 cludes experienced Magistrates, admitting nobody 
 but nominal Barristers. Now then comes the 
 laugh : — the most efficient and approved of House 
 of Commons arguments. Mine admits nobody 
 but experienced Magistrates; excluding Barristers, 
 nominal and real all together. 
 
 My plan serves at once for aptitude and attend- 
 ance. As to aptitude, — for that 1 require, as a qua- 
 lification, previous admission into the Magistracy, 
 and thereafter, unpaid, but constant and adequately 
 proved attendance, at some one of the existing 
 offices; attendance for a certain length of time, 
 say five years : to wit, when from the commence- 
 ment of the plan that length of time has elapsed, 
 and till then for as great a length of time as can 
 be had. 
 
 Now for a contrast, between my experienced 
 Magistrates, and the Right Hon. Secretary's un- 
 fledged Barristers, adding, if so it please him, any 
 number of grey-headed ones. 
 
32 Police Magistrates' Salary raising, 
 
 1. As to moral aptitude, my Magistrates will 
 have been engaged in the exclusive support of 
 right, — or at least of what the legislature has pro- 
 nounced right, — and the exclusive repression of 
 wrong, — or at least of what the legislature has 
 pronounced wrong. His Barristers will have 
 been occupied either in nothing at all, or in 
 what is so much worse than nothing, promiscuous 
 defence of right and wrong, with the universal 
 predilection for wrong, as being the best customer. 
 
 2. As to intellectual aptitude, composed as it 
 is of appropriate knowledge and judgment, my 
 magistrates will, for the whole of their unremu- 
 nerated length of time, have been employed, on 
 the very spot, in study, and occasionally in prac- 
 tice, in the very field for which it is proposed to 
 engage their remunerated services ; in the whole 
 of that field, and in no other than that field, to their 
 consideration will have been subjected, in all 
 their varieties, all sorts of cases which can have 
 grown up in that same field. The Right Hon. 
 Secretary's Barristers, with their 800/. instead of 
 600/. a-year — how will they have been occupied ? 
 My answer has been seen already. The Right 
 Honourable Secretary's answer the country will 
 be grateful for, if he can find any. But they may 
 have been not only Barristers, but Barristers in 
 full practice, and all the while not knowing any- 
 thing more of the business of a Police Magistrate, 
 than if they had been all the while fighting as 
 army officers. Of practising Barristers there are 
 about as many equity as common lawyers. Now 
 in a Police Magistrate's practice, what is there 
 that has any thing in common with equity prac- 
 tice r Let him bestow a glance on the Table to 
 Maddocks's Equity, and then on the Table to the 
 last edition of Burn's Justice, or whatever work 
 
Police Magistrates' Salary raisi7ig. 33 
 
 has now supplanted it, and see whether this is 
 not strictly true. To those abstracts 1 venture 
 in kindness to refer him, long as the road through 
 may seem to be, as being shorter than through 
 the mazes of his walking dictionary. Those he 
 might get by heart, sooner than an intelligible 
 answer from his oracle ; a negative the oracle 
 would not venture to give, and an affirmative he 
 would not choose to give. 
 
 3. Lastly, as to appropriate active aptitude. 
 On the part of my Magistrates it would be a max- 
 imum. By every motive they would be impelled 
 to render it so. At the hands of the Barrister, 
 what his Right Hon. Patron does not require, is 
 activity in any shape ; all he does require, is ex- 
 istence. 
 
 As to attendance, and the means of securing it, 
 to a great degree it is already comprised in the 
 active aptitude just spoken of. But, in whatever 
 possible degree he chooses to have it, he may have 
 it if he pleases : nobody who does choose to have 
 it, ever fails of having it. I will not attempt to 
 trouble him with particular proofs, and they are 
 already in one of my waking dreams.* In manu- 
 script they are already in another or two, and will 
 ere long be in print, if I live.-j" 
 
 This plan would suit both classes. The ex- 
 pectant stipendiaries would not be disinclined to 
 attend, since it would increase their chance of the 
 preferment ; the existing stipendiaries would not 
 be disinclined to be attended for, since it would 
 increase their ease. How much soever superior 
 
 * Draft of a Judicial Establishment for the use of the 
 French National Assembly, 1790 or 1791 : printed and 
 distributed, but not sold. 
 
 t 1- Constitutional Code, Judiciary part. 2. Procedure Code 
 preceded by the Judiciary part of the Constitutional Code. 
 
 c 
 
34- Police Magistrates' Salary raising. 
 
 the 600/. a-year ones may be, to their exploded 
 predecessors the 400/. a-year ones, — were they to 
 leave the burthen of the day altogether to the still 
 superior expectants, if such they should prove, 
 the public would not, any more than these same 
 parties, have, in this quiet arrangement, any reason 
 to repine. Ahab had served Baal a little. Jehu 
 hath served him much. What prospect have I 
 not opened ! What an Epicurean heaven ! Thirty 
 600/. a-year places, and all sinecures ! So many 
 temporal Prebends and Canonries ! With such a 
 pot-pourri of sweet arguments, what is there that 
 could not be proved ? Laughable and delectable 
 all this — true : but would it be the less beneficial ? 
 Not it, indeed. — See Horace's Reports. Ridentem 
 dicer e, &c. 
 
 Suppose not that it is upon this 6,000/. a-year 
 alone that all this examination has been expended. 
 The expense is but as a drop in the bucket. The 
 reasoning on which it is supported is no such trifle : 
 if good for 6,000/., not less would it be for 60,000/., 
 for 600,000/. or 6,000,000/. More than even this 
 might, if duly looked into, be seen perhaps to stand 
 upon no better grounds. Be this as it may; by any 
 one in whom curiosity is strong enough, it may be 
 seen how admirable a match it makes with that, on 
 the ground of which Burke for the Whigs, followed 
 by Rose for the Tories, proved, as another part of 
 this volume will show, the necessity of draining, 
 out of the pockets of the productive classes, the 
 last drop of the matter of wealth that could be 
 squeezed out of them, consistently with the con- 
 tinuation of their existence. Practice, it is true, 
 cannot be always rendered altogether co-extensive 
 with theory ; but, whether the theory actually pur- 
 sued as a law by Government, under the really 
 
Judges' Salary raising. 35 
 
 existing form of Government, and under the ficti- 
 tious entity, called the Constitution, is not the 
 thing actually avowed by both parties, may be seen 
 without other trouble than the turning over a few 
 leaves. 
 
 Mr. Martin, if eyes or Morning Chronicle, 
 April 2, 1825, do not deceive me, — Mr. Martin, of 
 Gal Way, treading in the Right Hon. Secretary's 
 steps, and, with a copy of the above speech, I 
 presume, in his memory, — stands engaged, on the 
 L2th of May, to extend his protection to Judges, 
 and I know not what besides. While his protection 
 was confined to the helpless and persecuted part 
 of the creation, Hollowed the Honourable Gentle- 
 man at an humble distance. But, if nothing will 
 serve him but the extending it to those bipeds with 
 gowns and wigs, instead of feathers, whom I had 
 
 almost called v n, which would have been as 
 
 bad as refuse, — to those whose every-day occupation 
 is depredation, and every-day employed instrument 
 a lie, — here I feel it impossible to go on with him. 
 Were it my good fortune to be honoured with his 
 confidence, I would beg him to stop where he is, 
 and not suffer a hand admired (and vainly endea- 
 voured to be made ridiculous) for its beneficence, 
 to be converted into a cat's-paw : let those (I would 
 say to him) let those who are to eat the chesnut 
 put paws upon pates, and beg for it. 
 
 Let me not be mistaken. When I had like to 
 
 have said v n, what I had in view were fee-fed 
 
 Judges : the only sort, alas 1 which matchless Con- 
 stitution has yet bred: men, to whom, and so 
 much more than to the man of finance, we are 
 indebted for the so little less than universal denial 
 of justice. If, instead of adding, he would substi- 
 tute salaries to fees, I would consent to shut my 
 eyes against the amount, howsoever extravagant it 
 might prove. 
 
36 Judges 1 Salary raising. 
 
 The fees to be compounded for would have 
 been — not only the fee avowedly extorted, but 
 the unhappily so much more abundant stock sur- 
 reptitiously received: received by these so erro- 
 neously supposed uncorrupt hands. They would 
 be — not only the fees exacted by superintendants 
 in their own name, but all those exacted under 
 their authority, by respective subordinate holders 
 of offices, of which they have the patronage. 
 For, who is there that does not know that an office 
 in a man's gift has a no less decided marketable 
 value than an office of the same emolument in his 
 possession ? True it is that, compared with the 
 value of the possession, the value of the patronage 
 may be to any amount less: not less true is it, 
 that it may also be, and that it not unfrequently is, 
 fully equal. Let Lord Eldon say, how much less 
 worth to him the many thousands a year he has 
 put into his son's pocket are, than if it had been his 
 own ? Let Mr. Peel, if he feels bold enough, look 
 into the documents, and tell us, in his place, how 
 many those thousands are. 
 
 To the number of the offices, the emolument of 
 which a man can pocket with his own hand, there 
 are limits : to the number of the offices, the emo- 
 luments of which he can thus pocket through 
 other hands, there are no limits ; and, in any number 
 of instances, the protege's life may be worth more 
 than the patron's. 
 
 Who is there that does not know, that the value 
 of an office to the incumbent is directly as the emo- 
 lument, and inversely as the labour ? Who is there 
 that does not know, that to the patron the value of 
 it is directly as the inaptitude of the protege he 
 has it in his power to put in and keep in it, since 
 the more consummate this inaptitude, the less his 
 choice is narrowed ? Who is there, for example, 
 that does not know, that it is to the union of these 
 
Judges' Salary raising. 3J 
 
 two characters that spiritual offices in particular are 
 indebted for their transcendent value ? Who is 
 there that can deny, that while this mode of pay- 
 ment lasts, interest is, in all Judges, at daggersdrawn 
 with duty ? — that it is from this cause that suits take 
 up as many years as they need do hours, and as 
 many pounds as they need do pence ? 
 
 Who is there that can deny, that it is from this 
 cause that our system of judicial procedure is what 
 itis ? and that, through the whole textureof it, Judges 
 having been the manufacturers, — delay, expense, 
 and vexation, have been maximized, for the sake of 
 the profit extractible out of the expense ? 
 
 Yes : by such hands made, to no other end 
 could it have been directed. 
 
 The Chief Justice of the King's Bench, has he 
 not the nomination to the keepership of the prison 
 named after his judicatory ? If so, then to the 
 profits of the bench are added the profits of the 
 tap: and the money which Justice would have 
 returned to the hands of the creditor, is extracted, 
 through this channel also, into the pockets of the 
 Judge. 
 
 Same question as to other chiefships, — whether, 
 as between one and another, consistency in this 
 respect, or inconsistency, is the rule: also of that 
 which is about to be squeezed by jailor out of 
 debtors and creditors, how much is, in advance, 
 squeezed out of him by Judge : questions these, 
 none of them surely unfit to be put by Mr. Peel be- 
 fore he gives his support to the Advocate of innoxi- 
 ous beasts and pre-eminently noxious Judges. 
 
 Originally, though pregnant with depredation 
 and oppression as it could not but be, payment by 
 fees was matter of necessity: for judicature was 
 necessary before kings had money to pay salaries. 
 
 For these three-aud-thirty years past, it has been 
 
38 Judges' Salary raising. 
 
 without excuse. The corruption continued has 
 been continued with open eyes. 
 
 When the trade of trading Justices was put an 
 end to — (this was the name then given to Mid- 
 dlesex Magistrates) — it was undoubtedly for this 
 same cause ; it was because, in their small way, 
 they made and protracted suits, for the purpose of 
 multiplying fees. 
 
 When this small branch of the trade was put an 
 end to, it was by the self-same remedy, I am now 
 venturing, with how little hope soever, to propose. 
 So far as concerned corruption, success could not 
 be more complete. Salaries were substitutes to 
 fees, and in that form the plague ended. 
 
 When fees had thus given place to salaries, what 
 disorder there was took an opposite turn. While 
 the fees flowed into the judicial pocket, there was 
 too much activity : now that, if any come in, they 
 take a different direction, if report is to be believed 
 (see above p.) there is not enough of it. Lethargic 
 not excitative is now the character of the disease. 
 Beyond comparison more mischievous than the 
 lethargic is the excitative, though when the spe- 
 cific is applied, so much easier to cure. 
 
 If in the case of the trading Judges called 
 Magistrates the remedy was needful, how much 
 more bitterly needful is it not in the case of the 
 trading Judges called Judges! Look to mischief, 
 profit, temptation, check : look to the two fields 
 of mischief ; take measure of their extent. 
 
 Under the trading Justices, the delay manufac- 
 tured may be reckoned by days: under the trading 
 Judges, by years. 
 
 Under the trading Justices, expense imposed on 
 suitors maybe reckoned by shillings: under the 
 trading Judges, by hundreds and by thousands of 
 pounds. 
 
Judges' Salary raising. 39 
 
 Of the jurisdiction of the trading Justices, local 
 field, Middlesex, with or without the now added 
 three other home counties ; of the trading Judges, 
 England: local field, in both cases, far too irregular 
 for measurement. Chaos bids defiance to the theo- 
 dolite : what is sufficient is — that in the case of 
 the trading Justices, the sum of the scraps is a 
 trifle, compared with what it is in the case of the 
 trading Judges. 
 
 Under the tradingJustices,thepro/stoof the trade 
 may be reckoned by hundreds a year : under the 
 trading Judges, by more than as many thousands. 
 
 Honourable Gentlemen, will they always be so 
 weak as to believe, or so transparently insincere as 
 to pretend to believe, that while the temptation 
 afforded by the hundreds was irresistable, the temp- 
 tation afforded by the thousands, was, is, or can ever 
 be, without effect ? Mr. Peel, — does he believe this? 
 His noble, learned, and consistent Friend, who, if 
 you will believe him, is purity itself, — does he be- 
 lieve this ? 
 
 Honourable Gentlemen, — will they always be- 
 lieve, or affect to believe, that it is in the power 
 of a masquerade dress - to change man's nature, 
 and that a contagion which a coat could not resist, 
 has been, and is resisted by a gown with a strip of 
 fur sewed to it ? Mr. Peel, — does he believe this ? 
 The noble, learned, and consistent Friend, who is 
 faith as well as purity personified, — does he believe 
 this > 
 
 So much for mischief — profit — temptation. Now 
 as to check, in one sense of the word, responsibility. 
 
 The trading Justices had Judges over them : 
 Judges, by whom, — if. haply, in an extreme case, 
 money could be raised sufficienttobuya hearing for 
 a cry for punishment, — they might be punished: — 
 Judges, who, though not foil c^.. of punishing any 
 
40 Judges' Salary raising. 
 
 man with a King's commission in his pocket, — 
 might thereupon, byfear of shame, be peradventure 
 driven so to do, if the case were flagrant. 
 
 The trading Justices had Judges over them. 
 To any practical purposes the trading Judges have 
 none : head of them all is the Lord Chancellor : 
 head over himself is Lord Eldon : over Lord 
 Eldon in Chancery, Lord Eldon in the House 
 of Lords. Charge him with creation or preserva- 
 tion of abuse — of delay, expense, vexation, uncer- 
 tainty, — motive, either none at all, or the profit 
 upon the expense ; — he names the inquisitors by 
 whom the inquisition is to be made. The re- 
 hearsal of this farce has been performed. When 
 the curtain comes to be drawn up — if there be 
 hardihood enough to draw it up — will the plaudits 
 of a plundered people welcome it? 
 
 Remains still untouched the effective responsi- 
 bility. Impunity wanted much of being complete 
 in the case of the trading Justices : it wanted 
 nothing in the case of the trading Judges. Here 
 the word responsibility is mockery. Action, none : 
 indictment, none : pretence of impeachment, a 
 cloak : consistently with legislation, impeachment 
 is physically impossible. Time would suffice for 
 rendering it so, even if accusers were to be found, 
 and where is the inducement for accomplices to 
 become, some of them informers, others of them 
 Judges ? 
 
 Thus much for impeachment. Address of both 
 Houses is impeachment under another name. 
 
 Trading Justices never made law. The trading 
 Judges have always made it, continue to make 
 it, and, so long as the pretended law-makers suffer 
 them — which they find no small convenience in 
 doing — will never cease making it. 
 
 Yes : made it they always have, and above all 
 
Judges' Salary raising. 41 
 
 things for the sake of the trade. Accuse them — 
 you do so in the teeth of a law made by 
 themselves to punish you for it*. The coun- 
 terfeit and Judge-made law is even more effec- 
 tual than a real one would be : for, on each occa- 
 sion, it is moulded at pleasure: moulded by 
 those who, having made it for the purpose, ex- 
 ecute it. 
 
 Were I to see a Judge taking a bribe — should 
 I tell of it ? Not I, if I had common prudence. 
 The person punished would be — not the Judge 
 for taking the bribe, but 1 for telling of it. 
 
 Thus, and hence it is — that, on the part — not 
 only of all Judges, but of all whom they delight 
 to favour — including all whom " the King de- 
 lighteth to honour" — virtue is consummate, cha- 
 racter immaculate. 
 
 But why talk of imaginary things, such as 
 bribes, when by the real things, called fees — fees 
 made lawful by those who pocket them — the 
 work of corruption — of sure and self corruption 
 — is carried on ; carried on in open day — carried 
 on without fear or shame — in the face of the so 
 long plundered, and though so often warned, yet 
 still deluded people ? 
 
 No : never surely was grosser delusion than 
 that by which English Judges are exhibited as 
 models of uncorruption. In whatsoever shapes 
 they could practise it without danger, they have 
 always practised it : and of this practice, their 
 system of procedure, composed of depredation and 
 denial of justice, has been the fruit. Never (it is 
 said and truly) never was English Judge known 
 to take a bribe. No, verily, for how should he ? 
 Bribery requires two: a receiver and a giver. 
 Receiver a man cannot be without putting himself 
 
42 Judges' Salary raising. 
 
 into the power of the giver. Since Bacon, no 
 English Judge has been weak enough to do so ; 
 and so there can be no receiver. This is seen by 
 every body : and so there can be no giver. What, 
 in England, should induce a Judge thus to expose 
 himself, when, without exposing himself, he gets 
 more in abundance than, in any other country, 
 Judge ever did by anything he could do to ex- 
 pose himself? What should induce him to take, 
 of this or that man, with fear and trembling, 
 money in the shape of a bribe, — when, by money 
 exacted by taxes, levied on all men without dis- 
 tinction, by force of a law made by his predeces- 
 sors, or perhaps by himself, — he is permitted, under 
 the name of fees, to pocket more money than 
 Judge ever received elsewhere in the shape of 
 bribes ? Give a man whatsoever he would steal 
 from you, you may prevent his stealing it : what- 
 soever a man desires to exact, give him power to 
 exact it by law, you may prevent his exacting it 
 against law. Of this sort is the antiseptic, 
 the infallibility of which has received such ample 
 proof in the case of English Judges. 
 
 As to bribery so called, what is the real pre- 
 servative against it? Publicity: — that most effi- 
 cient and sole safeguard, which these incorrup- 
 tibles ever have been, and even now, with the 
 eye of the public full upon them, never cease 
 labouring to destroy. A judicatory on which life 
 and death depend, is not (if you will believe 
 Judge Bailey) is not a Court of Justice. Why? 
 because if you will admit this, a certain quantity 
 of nonsense, with the word prejudging in it, may 
 suffice for keeping the doors of it closed. Admit 
 this, and you may see the doors of the Westmin- 
 ster Hall judicatories equally qlpsed. Give them 
 
Judges' Salary raising. 4.3 
 
 this, you may do anything with them : with as 
 little ceremony they will be ready to give up 
 their own title to the appellation of Courts of Jus- 
 tice. Were they so to do, no contradiction would 
 the position receive from me : all I should object 
 to, is the practical conclusion drawn from it. 
 
 With Lord Eldon you will have little difficulty. 
 He has long been working at the change. So fre- 
 quently open are the doors of his closet, — to shut 
 the door of his hitherto mostly open Court, will 
 be, one of these days, a motion of course. They 
 may however be thrown open now and then, for 
 occasions of parade : whereupon Bar will be seen 
 arguing while Court writes dockets, reads letters, 
 or takes a nap. 
 
 A kindred and eminently convenient policy is — 
 the giving to chambers of judicature such a size 
 and form, that no lay-gents can find entrance. 
 True it is that by this device, ingenious as it is, 
 the guardian influence of the Public-Opinion- 
 tribunal cannot be entirely destroyed ; for lawyers 
 cannot be altogether prevented from becoming 
 writers, and betraying the secrets of the Court. 
 It may however, by this means, be in no incon- 
 siderable degree weakened. How much more 
 effectual instruments of this policy brick and 
 mortar are, than rules of Court can be, is no secret. 
 All that rules could do, is the rendering admission 
 difficult: properly placed, brick and mortar render 
 it impossible. 
 
 English Judges incorrupt indeed ! Those who 
 talk in this strain, what is it they can mean by it ? 
 Did they ever see or hear of a Judge who was not 
 completely at the command of the Corruptor- 
 General ? Places for sons, daughters' husbands, 
 nephews, nieces' husbands, friends, and friends' 
 friends — and, to crown all, coronet for self — None 
 
44- Judges 1 Salary raising. 
 
 of these things are bribes : true : but are they 
 the less irresistible ? Are they the less cor- 
 ruptive ? But why speak of command? Far 
 short of the real strength of the corruption — 
 of the corruptive longings, and consequent court- 
 ings, and consequent compliances with presumed 
 desires, — comes the view which that word gives 
 of it. From any such superior, to any such 
 subordinate authority, no such explicit expressions 
 of will ought to be, none accordingly ever are, 
 issued. Issued? To what end need they be? 
 In a situation of that sort, is there a Judge, is there 
 a man, that needs to be told, what will displease, 
 and what will please ? To stand assured with 
 sufficient certainty, not a step need any man stir 
 from his own home. 
 
 Take, for example, the case of John Hunt. 
 Among the titles of Majesty in this country, is that 
 of most excellent. John Hunt, in his Examiner, 
 says things which go to impugn that title. Lord 
 Chief Justice Abbot punishes him for this, with 
 loss of 100/. under the name of fine, and 90/. 
 under the name of costs : costs, of which the 
 Honourable House could know at any time, if it 
 chose to know, whether anything, and if anything, 
 how much, directly or indirectly, goes into the 
 pocket of the Chief Justice. 
 
 Now, then, of the thus punished words, wherein 
 consisted the mischief? Oh ! says his Lordship, 
 or somebody for him, the feelings of the King 
 were hurt by them. Hurt by them ? How so ? 
 This same hurt — how came his Lordship to be 
 so sure of it ? This said Majesty that now is — 
 did he ever tell him of it ? Did he bespeak any 
 such punishment ? No : the questions answer 
 themselves. To be thus assured, his Lordship 
 had no further to look than into his own learned 
 
Judges? Salary raising. 45 
 
 breast, and there he saw them ; for, in that repo- 
 sitory of fine feeling, what he could not fail to see 
 clearly enough is, that had it happened to himself 
 to hear a man speak in any such strain of his 
 Lordship's father, he would have been indignant, 
 and not sorry to see the blasphemer punished. 
 
 By the King that now is, or by anybody for 
 him, does Lord Chief Justice Abbot, or Lord 
 Chief Justice Any-body, need to be told, that ob- 
 sequiousness to crowns is the road to coronets ? 
 
 So much for power and glory. Now as to 
 money. If ever there was a judge, on whose in- 
 corruptibility the sound of the trumpet was loud, 
 it was the late Lord Camden. His Lordship was 
 Lord High Chancellor. His son, on pretence of 
 telling out public money, got out of it an income, 
 which, when he gave it up (a bow upon paper is 
 due to him for it) was worth 27,000/. a year to 
 him. So much for corruptive intercourse, in a case 
 in which it is not bribery. Now for a case in which 
 it would be bribery. Seven-and-twenty guineas 
 in hand, suppose George the Third saying to the 
 Lord Chancellor — "In this suit (naming it) which 
 I have against such an one (naming him) give 
 judgment so and so, and I will give you these 
 seven-and-twenty guineas," — would his Lordship 
 have taken it ? — Oh, fie ! fie ! what a thought ! — 
 This would have been no better than bribery. 
 Multiply the twenty-seven by a thousand — mul- 
 tiply the product by so many years as the income 
 lasted, — and, though assuredly nobody said what 
 nobody had any need to hear, all is consummate 
 purity. 
 
 So much for motives, and the influence of them 
 on conduct: to know which, for the purpose of 
 legislation, which is the purpose here in question, 
 never do 1 look to anything but situation: of indi- 
 
46 Judges' Salary raising. 
 
 viduals I know just nothing, which is just what 
 I want to know. Now as to mischievousness. 
 Of the law thus made, the effect is, and, if it had 
 any, the object was, to establish punishment for 
 everything that can tend to place in an un- 
 favourable light the character of any King that 
 ever lived ; while the whole treasury of reward 
 is applied to the purpose of placing those jewels 
 in the most favourable light possible. Probative 
 force of the evidence being in both cases the 
 same, suppression of evidence in favour of one 
 side, is in effect exactly the same thing as forgery 
 of it in favour of the opposite side. Mischievous- 
 ness of the practice the same in both cases ; wick- 
 edness of it the same, though the people as yet 
 have not sufficiently learnt to see it. 
 
 Keep in force this law, and with a steady hand 
 give execution and effect to it, — the will of Holy 
 Alliance is done, and history, from being the food, 
 is converted into the poison of the mind. Yes, 
 all history. First, as to the supposed injured 
 dead. The protection granted to the manes of 
 the third George, shall it be refused to those of the 
 second, or those of the first ? If yes, at what 
 point, if at any, in the line of ancestry, shall it 
 end? Then as to the supposed injured living: 
 if thus wounded by the aspersions cast upon his 
 Royal Father, can the King that now is be indiffe- 
 rent to any such, or any other aspersion cast 
 upon his Princely Grandfather, his Royal Great 
 Grandfather, or his first Ducal, then Royal Great- 
 great-grandfather, &c. &c. ? If not, then up go 
 we to Egbert and to Fergus, and so on, through 
 Woden, to Japhet and to Adam. At which of all 
 these points does Royal tranquillity commence ? 
 — that degree of tranquillity which will suffice to 
 render truth and history unpunishable? 
 
Judges 9 Salary raising. 4,7 
 
 In this case, by the bye, may be seen, as well as 
 in so many hundred other instances, how much 
 more useful Judge-made law is to Parliament 
 itself, — constituted as it is, and looking to the ends 
 which, so constituted, it cannot but look to, — 
 than even its own Parliament-law could be made. 
 Parliament itself, would it thus dare to destroy 
 the truth of history, and cut up political science 
 by the roots? But innumerable are the things 
 of this sort which it does every day by the hands 
 of Judges ; and which fear or shame would keep 
 it from doing by its own. 
 
 These things (unless the last-mentioned one be 
 an exception) being so manifest, and so almost 
 universally acknowledged to be true, that, on 
 account of their notoriety, the very mention of 
 them is fastidious, — what less can follow, than that 
 to all purposes to which corruptness is to the 
 greatest extent mischievous, a state of constant 
 corruptedness is the state in which every Judge 
 has been that ever sat upon the English bench ? 
 
 In cases between King and subject, in which 
 the mischief of it consists in giving countenance 
 and increase to depredation and oppression, for the 
 benefit of his Monarch, his associates, and depen- 
 dents, — the disease is incurable : its root is in the 
 form of government. But in suits between subject 
 and subject, in which the mischief consists in 
 giving countenance and increase to depredation 
 and oppression by Judges (the present Judges at 
 all times excepted, whatever they have been, are, 
 or will be) for the benefit of Judges, their asso- 
 ciates, and dependents, the disorder is not in- 
 curable. 
 
 A few words more as to the remedy, but for 
 which the disease would not have here been 
 mentioned. The principle has been seen. The 
 
48 Judges' Salary raising. 
 
 public are indebted for it to Lord Colchester. 
 His was the original Middlesex Police Magistrate 
 Act, 32 Geo. III. c. 53, anno 1792. Time enough 
 for amendment, the Bill found its way, somehow 
 or other, into my hands. Time for scrutiny I 
 could not afford. My approval was pure and sim- 
 ple. Sheridan opposed it in Honourable House. 
 Objection, encrease of patronage — a Whig com- 
 plaint, never grudged when non-redress is sure : a 
 few words might have dissipated it, but they were 
 words that could not be heard there. Subject of 
 the objection — either the source of the delegated 
 power, or the quantum of it. Applied to the 
 source, the objection (an unanswerable one) went 
 to the form of government ; it applied to every part, 
 present and future, of the official establishment : 
 applied to the quantum, it supposed a certain 
 quantity of corruption needful : and, as such, 
 requiring to be protected from censure by the 
 word influence: all above needless; and, that it 
 might be game for the Whig hunt, licensed to be 
 hallooed at by its proper name. Applied to every 
 future addition to the establishment, the objection 
 sought the exclusion of every good, to the intro- 
 duction of which, — and the perpetual continuance 
 and increase of every evil, to the diminution of 
 which, — any such addition should be necessary. 
 
 No such desire as that of applying a bar to the 
 increase — to the addition of corruption to influence 
 — was really entertained. In Honourable House 
 the disposition to keep influence within its 
 bounds, whatever they were, had place or it had 
 not. If no, objection to increase was useless: if 
 yes, cancelling an equal quantity of sinecure would 
 afford the same general security, without depriv- 
 ing the public of the benefit of the particular 
 measure. 
 
Judges* Salary raising. 49 
 
 To return to the true remedy : it was a specific. 
 In the Finance Committee of 1797 and 1798 — 
 the groundwork of such economy as the form of 
 government admits of — Lord Colchester applied 
 it, and with success, to some of the Administra- 
 tion Offices. It stopped there. Judicial corrup- 
 tion was in an ark too sacred to be touched. 
 In both Houses, whatsoever was Learned would 
 have been in a state of insurrection. Learned 
 Lords were above shame. Ministers were not 
 above fear: so there the reform rested. 
 
 Since then the public mind has made some 
 advance: whether sufficient for the substituting 
 of justice to depredation and corruption, time 
 will show. 
 
 To return to Mr. Martin and his new protege's. 
 By his humanity he got nothing but ridicule : 
 from his liberality he may hope better fortune. 
 No Honourable Gentleman, who, for self, son, 
 brother, cousin, or friend, has ever refreshed his 
 eyes with a glimpse of the remuneration fund, can 
 consistently harbour a doubt of the insufficiency of 
 it. Whigs form no exception : for, though pos- 
 session is not theirs at any time, expectancy is at 
 all times. In the maximization of expense, it 
 unites them in interest with Judges. With what 
 aspect they behold the County Courts Bill may be 
 seen without looking at their eyes. Saving to 
 suitors would be robbery to these their protectors, 
 while in the patronage they have no share. Every- 
 thing they say against it, — everything they can seek 
 to clog it with, — is a certificate in favour of it. A 
 measure with this object cannot have a stronger 
 one. 
 
 By this his liberating scheme, who knows how 
 many supporters he may not have brought over 
 for his humanity scheme ? How profound soever 
 
 D 
 
30 Judges' Salary raising. 
 
 their contempt for their betters (for, when edu- 
 cated, as they sometimes are, and always may be, 
 quadrupeds have the virtues without the vices of 
 featherless bipeds) how profound soever their con- 
 tempt — how complete soever their indifference, — 
 men's hatred for these animals, can it, to any 
 considerable extent, be greater than their love for 
 themselves? 
 
 As tohisinstrumentof purchase — his announced 
 vermin-gorging Bill — he could not have chosen a 
 more promising one. This measure is of the number 
 of those, which even an Opposition Member may 
 be admitted to carry, and in which success can 
 scarce be dubious. Reasons are ready stationed 
 in each Honourable breast. They stand upon a 
 rock ; and Calculation is the name of it. What 
 will my share of the annual charge amount to ? 
 A few half-pence a-year — what 1 toss now and 
 then to a beggar to get rid of him when he is 
 troublesome. Thus much on the debtor side : now, 
 per contra creditor. So many more thousands a year 
 for my son, my nephew, my cousin, or though it 
 were but my cousin's cousin, when his time 
 comes, which it can scarce fail to do, for taking his 
 seat in a certain place. For, calculation being set- 
 tled in the head, then, from hand or lungs, comes 
 the substance of the universally-received econo- 
 mico-mathematical truism — official aptitude is in 
 the direct ratio of ditto remuneration : — a proposi- 
 tion, which, to render it really true, requires nothing 
 but the substituting to the word direct, the word 
 inverse. Thereupon comes a flower or two, such as 
 the Right Hon. Secretary's rhetoric has just been 
 seen scattering over the subject : — virtue, displayed 
 and appealed to, generosity: dignified virtue dis- 
 played, in the penetration manifested, by seeing 
 through the cloud which the word economy (pro- 
 
Judges' Salary raising. 51 
 
 nounced with a shake of the head — "poor econo- 
 my'") had, in the head of vulgar ignorance, 
 thrown over the question. Natural and customary 
 result, — " hear him ! hear him !" from all quarters. 
 Is anything ever said on the other side ? If yes, it 
 is for form sake, with a sort of faint, and as if self- 
 condemning tone, nor even this but under the most, 
 satisfactory assurance, that the measure will not be 
 hurt by it. 
 
 While upon this ground, I cannot pass over 
 altogether an error, for such I am persuaded it is, 
 on the part of Mr. Peel, as to a matter of fact, and 
 which remained unnoticed before because foreign 
 to the purpose. In England, according to him 
 (No. 8.) Judges are worse paid than " in almost 
 any other country in the world." Not that, even 
 if admitted, the fact would serve his purpose. Jt 
 would run counter to his purpose. For, if not 
 the only incorruptible, English Judges (so almost 
 everybody has hitherto been in the habit of 
 saying) are of all in the world the most incor- 
 ruptible. Well then — this incorruptibility — for- 
 asmuch as by what you are paying for it you 
 have got it already, — why pay anything more for 
 it ? This question would be unanswerable, were 
 it not for the argument ad verecundiam : men, 
 who perform so charmingly, can you be so unge- 
 nerous as to let them serve at an under price, when 
 it would be so easy for you to give them a fair 
 price ? The argument is worthy of the nursery, 
 and perhaps has been inherited from it. The 
 child is gorged with meat, but spies out cake, and 
 cries for it. " Dear sweet poppet (says grand- 
 mother to mother) can you be so hard-hearted as 
 to let it cry on, only to save a little bit of cake?" 
 
 So much for argument : now for fact. Talking 
 with a Frenchman t'other day on this subject, 
 
61 Judges' Salary raising, 
 
 SOl. a year, he assured me — 50l. and no more, is 
 the salary of that class of Judges, by which by far 
 the greatest part of the business is done. " Well, 
 but don't they take bribes?" — "No such thing. 
 On the contrary, the country is universally satis- 
 fled with them:" just what we have seen the 
 Right Hon. Secretary assuring us of, in the case 
 of the 600/. a year Magistrates. The Right Hon. 
 Secretary, having it in charge to find his 600/. a 
 year insufficient, its sufficiency notwithstanding, 
 had somewhat of a bias upon his mind. Accord- 
 ing to the Right Hon. Secretary, with these his 
 600/. a year Magistrates, the country is universally 
 satisfied. But then, as has been seen, though 
 satisfied, he is at the same time dissatisfied with 
 them : and besides, their aptitude being to be 
 proved as well as disproved, he had something 
 of a bias, though a shifting one, upon his mind. 
 The Frenchman had no such bias. He is himself 
 neither Judge", Magistrate, nor Lawyer; nor patron, 
 with reference to any who are. He is a man of 
 estate, birth, and connection ; and, though all that, 
 a man of information and discernment. It did 
 not occur to me to cross-examine him as to fees : 
 but, as what we were talking about turned upon 
 what was the whole of the emoluments, I cannot 
 but think .that if there are fees, they are fees 
 of which neither, the magnitude can be encreased, 
 nor yet the number extended, otherwise than by 
 the satisfaction afforded by good judicature; and 
 that, if any at all, the 50/. does not receive from them 
 any such encrease as would affect the argument. 
 I for my part would not give for them another 50l. 
 This, though, if it were anything to the purpose, 
 it might surely serve for enquiry, — is not official. 
 What follows is. Printed " Register of Officers and 
 -Agents, &c. prepared at the Department of State/* 
 *-.'■« 
 
Judges' Salary raising. 53 
 
 Date of Congress Resolution, 27th April, IS 16. 
 Printed anno 1818, at Washington, page -18. 
 Judiciary of the United States Supreme Court. 
 Chief Justice, dollars 4000 ; not so much as 
 pounds 1000. No Equity, put above Law, to stop 
 and overrule it. Compare this with Lord Eldon's 
 23>000/. a year (those who make least of it make 
 this) with so many other thousands for his son ; 
 not to speak of the thousands a year salaries of 
 the minor an*d common law Chiefships, and 
 Puisneships, and Masterships, besides the ever 
 corruptive fees. Before the vvords " evert/ other 
 country" stands indeed, in one of the Reports of 
 the Right Hon. Secretary's Speech, (No. 8.) the 
 limitative word " almost:" let any one judge 
 whether it was not a prudential one. 
 
 A thing more to be wished than hoped for, is — 
 that, in the Right Hon. Secretary's situation and 
 those associated with it, Right Honourable Gentle- 
 men and Noble Lords were a little more careful than 
 they sometimes are, when speaking to facts, especi- 
 ally distant and complex ones, such as those in ques- 
 tions like this more especially. By Lord Liverpool, 
 not many years ago, if recollection does not greatly 
 deceive me — by Lord Liverpool it was declared 
 and insisted upon, that in this country (popula- 
 tion for population he could not but mean) the 
 expense of theOfficial Establishment was less than 
 in the United States. Proceeding in this strain, 
 had he entered upon particulars, the King (he 
 would have had to say) costs this country less than 
 the President does the United States. So much 
 for first Treasury Lord. Right Hon. Secretary- 
 would he, after speaking upon the particular branch 
 of the expenditure now in hand, as he has done— 
 would he, after Parliamentary enquiry into the 
 facts, consent to pay the Judicial Establishment 
 
Si Judges' Salary raising. 
 
 upon the same scale as it is paid, in that country, 
 in which, to use his own phrase, it is so much 
 less parsimoniously paid than in this ? Not he, in- 
 deed ! What is it (he would then turn upon us and 
 ask.) what is it to the purpose, what people do in 
 other countries ? — in countries in which the state 
 of things is so different from what it is in our 
 own ? Js it for us to receive laws from other 
 countries ? 
 
 In a Committee of his own nomination, will he 
 be pleased to elicit the evidence by which the 
 correctness of this assertion of his will be proved ? 
 He knows better things. What use (he would ask) 
 is getting up evidence from which nothing is to 
 follow? Lord Liverpool — will he consent to 
 assign, to the whole Official Establishment, the 
 same rate of remuneration as that which his place 
 in the United States ? — General Government and 
 particular States always included. To no such 
 insidious proposal would his Lordship give accep- 
 tance. His love for the people and for economy 
 is too sincere, to suffer him to pledge himself to 
 an innovation, from which the dear people would 
 have nothing to gain and so much to lose. 
 
 On pain of ignominy, a helpless radical must 
 maintain, whether he will or no, some caution in 
 regard to his facts : were he to make a slip, he 
 would never hear the last of it. High situation 
 places a man at his ease in regard to facts. As 
 often as occasion requires, he may let fly insinu- 
 ations or assertions, such as the above, and thence- 
 forward hear no more of them than he pleases. 
 Should any unpleasant use of them be endeavoured 
 to be made, up comes the rule: " No allusion to 
 anything said in a former debate." Good, if 
 responsibility be good for nothing : not so clearly 
 so, if responsibility be good for anything. So 
 
Judges' Salary raising. 55 
 
 far as regards facts, it is a counterpart to that 
 mendacity licence, which, in Scotch Reform and 
 elsewhere, has been held up to view as one of 
 the pillars and main instruments of English Judi- 
 cature. 
 
 Throughout this examination, I have never 
 been altogether free from feelings of compunction, 
 at the thoughts of the sort of liberty all along 
 taken with the Author of the SpecialJury Bill. On 
 the present occasion, I found him doing as, in his 
 place, every body else has done. On that other 
 occasion, 1 see him taking a course peculiar to 
 himself. Time does not at this moment permit 
 me so much as to read the Bill. I cannot there- 
 fore, on the ground of any opinion of my own, 
 venture to say a syllable of it. But, if it does but 
 completely substitute, as I am assured it does, lot 
 to packing, and is in other respects what it has been 
 certified to be, by those whose discernment and 
 love of justice I stand assured of, it will, by this 
 one measure, ensure to him a stock of popularity 
 and public confidence, such as I tremble but to 
 think of. 
 
 Should this measure be carried through, he must 
 however content himself, as well as he can, with the 
 reputation of probity : for as for that of consistency, 
 it will quit him, and seek refuge in its chosen 
 scat, the bosom of his Noble and Learned Friend. 
 Consistency being where it is, — how anything of 
 this sort should have found its way into the 
 Secretary of State's Office, is the mystery of 
 mysteries ! 
 
 One word more as to patronage. On the pre- 
 sent occasion, it is to the lessening the value of it 
 to the Honourable Secretary that my endeavouis^ 
 such as they are, have been applying themselves 
 Yet, so far am 1 from grudging him any good. 
 
56 Judges' Salary raising 
 
 thing obtainable without preponderant evil to the 
 community — in the case of the County Courts 
 Bill, no desire a man in his place can have, for 
 feeling the patronage of it is in his own hands, 
 can be more sincere than mine for seeing it there. 
 Supposing the situation equally acceptable to the 
 only class of expectants worth providing for, here 
 is a stock of patronage worth at least three times 
 as much as that other. 
 
 County Court Judges, thirty : salary of each, 
 800/.: this gives 24,000/. a year — thrice as much as 
 the 6,000/. 
 
 No hands can I find anywhere, which, in point 
 of aptitude (matchless Constitution standing as 
 it stands) would bear a thought in comparison 
 of his. Lord Lieutenants ? — they are so many 
 invisible objects. In the High Court of Public 
 Opinion, nobody will see them, nobody will 
 know who they are. The Judge chosen by each 
 will be chosen of the family most connected 
 in the county, which is as much as to say, the 
 most unapt that could be chosen. Armed as 
 he is like any Achilles, still the place of a Secre- 
 tary of State is at the bar of public opinion, and 
 he stands an object to all eyes. Here are mine, for 
 example, weak as they are, yet better perhaps than 
 none, thus watching him : could they keep run- 
 ning after thirty, or 1 don't know how many more, 
 Lord Lieutenants ? 
 
 Chancellors! — " aye — there's the rub." Sooner 
 than see the patronage in the hands of the Model 
 of Consistency, or even of any other English fee- 
 fed Judge, — sooner, much sooner, would I see it 
 added to the porte-feuille of the Chancellor of 
 France. 
 
SPEECH of Mr. SECRETARY PEEL, on intro- 
 ducing the Police Magistrates' Salary Increase Bill, 
 2\ st March, 1825. Extract reported in the Times and 
 the Morning Chronicle, of the 22d : — 
 
 TIMES. 
 
 1. 
 
 He held in his hand pa- 
 pers, from which, if he chose 
 to enter into any detail, he 
 coidd prove to the satisfaction 
 of the Committee, that since 
 the Institution of Police Magis- 
 trates, the business which de- 
 volved on those individuals 
 had, owing to various Acts of 
 Parliament which had been 
 passed, independently of the 
 increase of population, greatly 
 augmented. Although that 
 circumstance would of itself be 
 a sufficient reason for increasing 
 the salary of the magistrates, 
 he rested his proposition upon 
 grounds which he hoped the 
 Committee would consider 
 even more satisfactory. 
 
 MORNING CHRONICLE. 
 
 1. 
 
 He held papers in his hand, 
 showing in the clearest man- 
 ner the great increase that had 
 taken place in the business of 
 the Police Offices since their 
 first institution, arising from 
 the great increase of the po- 
 pulation of the metropolis 
 amongst other causes. It ap- 
 peared from those papers, that 
 since their first establishment, 
 considerable additions had been 
 made to the business of the 
 Offices, by various Acts of 
 Parliament, passed at different 
 times, but he would lay his 
 proposition upon stronger 
 grounds. 
 
5$ 
 
 When the Police Magistrates 
 were first appointed, it was 
 the practice to select indivi- 
 duals to fill the office who, he 
 must say, were incompetent to 
 discharge the duties which de- 
 volved upon them. He found 
 from the papers which had 
 been laid upon the table, that 
 out of twelve Police Magis- 
 trates appointed at a former 
 period, there were only three 
 Barristers, the rest were com- 
 posed of a Major in the Army, 
 a Starch Maker, three Cler- 
 gymen, a Glasgow Trader, and 
 other persons who, from their 
 occupations, could not but be 
 considered as utterly unquali- 
 fied to perform the duties of 
 Magistrates. 
 
 3. 
 The law had fixed no limita- 
 tion with respect to the pre- 
 vious education of persons 
 appointed to the office of 
 Magistrate, but he thought the 
 Committee would be pleased 
 to hear, that a limitation on 
 that point had been prescribed 
 by the Secretary of State. 
 Neither his predecessor in 
 office (Lord Sidmouth) nor 
 himself had ever appointed a 
 person to fill the office of 
 Magistrate who had not been 
 a Barrister of three years 
 standing. That was a rule to 
 which, in his opinion, it was 
 most desirable to adhere. 
 
 4. 
 But in order to enable the 
 Secretary of State to abide by 
 
 In the first instance, the sa- 
 laries of the Magistrates 
 amounted only to 400/. per 
 annum, it was afterwards 
 raised to 6001., but, it was 
 well known, that under the 
 former regulation the persons 
 appointed were totally incom- 
 petent to the duties. He 
 found that of the twelve Ma- 
 gistrates first appointed, three 
 were Barristers. One was a 
 Major, three Clergymen, two 
 Starch Dealers, and one Glas- 
 gow Trader. 
 
 He thought the Committee 
 would be pleased to hear, that 
 though there was no limitation 
 fixed by law to determine the 
 eligibility of the persons to fill 
 such offices, Lord Sidmouth 
 and himself had confined them- 
 selves strictly to the appoint- 
 ment of Barristers alone, and 
 had not nominated any to the 
 office of Magistrate who were 
 of less than three years stand- 
 ing He would ask the Com- 
 mittee, under those circum- 
 stances, 
 
 4. 
 whether 600/. a year could be 
 sufficient to tempt a profes- 
 
59 
 
 that rule, and to carry it Into 
 practice, it was necessary to 
 augment the present salary of 
 Police Magistrates. He im- 
 plored the House to consider, 
 whether 600/. a year (the 
 present salary) was sufficient 
 to induce a Barrister to give 
 up the emoluments of private 
 practice, and the hope of pre- 
 ferment in his profession, to 
 undertake the duties of a Ma- 
 gistrate, 
 
 5. 
 which required their almost 
 constant attendance ? It could 
 not, he thought, be considered 
 An unreasonable proposition, 
 that in future the Secretary of 
 State should he empowered to 
 give to each Police Magistrate 
 the sum of 800/. per annum. 
 
 6. 
 He hoped that he should not 
 be told, that individuals might 
 be found who would be willing 
 to undertake the magisterial 
 duties for a less sum. It was 
 very true that such ivas the case. 
 He was constantly receiving 
 applications from persons who 
 were anxious to be appointed 
 Police Magistrates. Those 
 applications proceeded princi- 
 pally from Country Magistrates, 
 who had discharged the duties 
 of their office ably and satisfac- 
 torily ; but whom nevertheless 
 he did not think right to ap- 
 point to be Police Magistrates 
 in the metropolis. He held 
 the unpaid magistracy in as 
 high respect as any man, but 
 lie could easily conceive that a 
 
 sional man of adequate abilities 
 to relinquish their hopes of 
 rising at the Bar ? 
 
 5. 
 
 The duties at the office would 
 require his constant attend- 
 ance, and the Committee, he 
 thought, would not consider 
 it unreasonable to empower 
 the Secretary of State to grant 
 them each a salary, not ex- 
 ceeding 800/. a year. 
 
 6. 
 It was true, he might be told, 
 that there were many indivi- 
 duals now ready to accept those 
 offices ; but though that was 
 certainly the case, they were 
 most of them country gentle- 
 men, who had discharged the 
 duty of Magistrates in their 
 respective counties, but that 
 was no reason why they should 
 be selected to fill the situation 
 of Police Magistrates in the 
 metropolis. He respected, as 
 much as any man could, the 
 unpaid magistracy of the 
 country; but it did not follow, 
 that because they were ena- 
 bled by the weight of their 
 character and influence to 
 perform the ordinary routine 
 duties of County Magistrates, 
 
62 
 
 effectual administration of 
 the office of Justice of the 
 Peace, shall receive a salary 
 not exceeding 800/." 
 
 appointed, or to be appointed, 
 to the Police Offices of the 
 Metropolis, shall be allowed a 
 salary not exceeding 800Z. a 
 year, to be paid by one of his 
 Majesty's Principal Secretaries 
 of State." 
 
 THE END. 
 
INDICATIONS 
 
 RESPECTING 
 
 LORD ELDON, 
 
 INCLUDING 
 
 HISTORY OF THE PENDING JUDGES'-SALARY 
 RAISING MEASURE. 
 
 BY 
 
 JEREMY BENTHAM, Esq. 
 
 BENCHER OF LINCOLN'S INN. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PUBLISHED BY ROBERT HEWARD, 
 
 WELLINGTON STIIEET, STRAND. 
 
 1825. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BV C. AND W. REYNELL, BROAD STREET, 
 GOLDEN SQUARE. 
 
INDICATIONS, 
 
 § I. Facts suspected.* Subjects of Enquiry for the 
 House of Commons. 
 
 Respecting Lord Eldon, certain suspicions 
 have arisen. The object of these pages is — to cause 
 enquiry to be made, if possible, by the competent 
 authority, whether there be any ground, and if yes, 
 what, for these suspicions. 
 
 In general terms they may be thus expressed : — 
 1. That, finding the practice of the Court of 
 Chancery replete with fraud and extortion, Lord 
 Eldon, on or soon after his coming into office as 
 Chancellor, formed and began to execute a plan for 
 the screwing it up, for his own benefit, to the highest 
 possible pitch ; to wit, by assuming and exercising 
 a power of taxation, and for that purpose setting 
 his own authority above that of Parliament; which 
 plan he has all along steadily pursued ; and, if not, 
 the present Judges' Salary-raising Measure, Gf), 
 anno 1822, a late Act, to wit the 3rd Geo. IV. cap. 6, 
 is the consummation of it. 
 
 * Objection. Among these so styled facts are matters of law. 
 Answer. The existence or supposed existence of a matter of 
 law, is matter also of fact. 
 
 a2 
 
4 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 2. That, itbeing necessary, that, for this purpose, 
 the other Westminster Hall Chiefs should be let 
 into a participation of such sinister profit — to wit, 
 as well for the better assurance of their support, as 
 because the power of appointing to those offices 
 being virtually in his hands, whatever is profit to 
 them is so to him — the means employed by him 
 tended to that effect also, and have been followed 
 by it. 
 
 In relation to the whole scheme, conception may 
 perhaps receive help, from a glance, in this place, at 
 the titles of the ensuing sections. Here they are : 
 
 § 2. Under Lord Eldon, Equity an instrument 
 of fraud and extortion — samples of it. 
 
 § 3. Anno 1807. Order by Chancellor and 
 Master of the Rolls, augmenting the fees of offices 
 in the gift of one of them. 
 
 § 4. Profit to subordinates was profit to prin- 
 cipals : so, in course, to successors. 
 
 § 5. Contrary to law was this order. 
 
 § 6. By it, increase and sanction were given to 
 extortion. 
 
 § 7. So, to corruption. 
 
 § 8. How Lord Eldon pronounced the exaction 
 contrary to law, all the while continuing it. 
 
 § 9. How the Chancellor had laid the ground 
 for the more effectual corruption of himself and the 
 other chiefs (anno 1801). 
 
 § 10. How the project was stopped by a Soli- 
 citor, till set a-going again, as per § 3. 
 
 § 11. How the other Chiefs were corrupted 
 accordingly. 
 
 § 12. How the illegality got wind, and how 
 Felix trembled. 
 
 § 13. How the Chancellor went to Parliament, 
 and got the corruption established. 
 
§ 1. Facts suspected — Subjects for Enquiry. 5 
 
 § 14. How the Head of the Law, seeing swind- 
 ling at work, stept in and took his profit out of it. 
 
 § 15. How King George's Judges improved 
 upon the precedent set by King Charles's, in the 
 case of 'ship-money. 
 
 § 16. How to be consistent, and complete the 
 application of the self-paying principle. 
 
 § 17. How Lord Eldon planned and established, 
 by Act of Parliament, a Joint Stock Company, 
 composed of Westminster Hall Chiefs, and other 
 dishonest men of all classes. 
 
 § 18. How the Kings Chancellor exercised a 
 dispensing power. 
 
 § 19. Character evidence. 
 
 § II. Under Lord Eldon, Equity an instrument 
 of Fraud and Extortion. Samples: — 
 
 A single sample will serve to show in what state 
 Lord Eldon found this branch of practice, and that 
 it stood not in much need of improvement at his 
 hands : by a few more which follow, a faint yet for 
 this purpose a sufficient idea, will be given of the 
 improvement it has actually received under his care. 
 
 By the command of a father, I entered into the 
 profession, and, in the year 1772 or thereabouts, was 
 called to the bar. Not long after, having drawn a 
 bill inequity, I had to defend it against exceptions 
 before a Master in Chancery. " We shall have 
 to attend on such a day," (said the Solicitor to me, 
 naming a day a week or more distant,) " warrants 
 for our attendance will be taken oirt for two inter- 
 vening days, but it is not customary to attend before 
 the third." What I learnt afterwards was — that 
 though no attendance more than one was ever be- 
 stowed, three were on every occasion regularly 
 charged for; for each of the two falsely pretended at- 
 
6 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 tendances, the clientbeing,by the Solicitor, charged 
 with a fee for himself, as also with a fee of 6s. Sd. 
 paid by him to the Master : the consequence was — 
 that, for everyactual attendance, the Master, instead 
 of 6s. 8d., received 1/., and that, even if inclined, no 
 Solicitor durst omit taking out the three warrants 
 instead of one, for fear of the not-to-be-hazarded dis- 
 pleasure, of that subordinate Judge and his superiors. 
 True it is, the Solicitor is not under any obligation 
 thus to charge his client for work not done. He is 
 however sure of indemnity in doing so : it is ac- 
 cordingly done of course. Thus exquisitely ce- 
 mented is the union of sinister interests.* So far as 
 regards attendances of the functionaries here men- 
 tioned, thus is the expense tripled : so, for the sake 
 of the profit on the expense, the delay likewise. 
 And I have been assured by professional men 
 -now in practice, that on no occasion, for no pur- 
 pose, is any Master's attendance ever obtained 
 without taking out three warrants at the least. 
 
 So much for the state of the practice before 
 Lord Eldon's first Chancellorship : now for the 
 state of it under his Lordship's auspices. 
 
 Within the course of this current year, disclo- 
 sures have been made in various pamphlets. One of 
 the most instructive, is the one intitled "A Letter 
 to Samuel Compton Cox, Esq. one of the Masters 
 
 * Of the result of the above-mentioned experience, inti- 
 mation may be seen in the Theorie des Femes et des Recom- 
 penses, first published in French, anno 1811, or in B. 1, ch. 8, 
 of the Rationale of Reward, just published, being the English 
 of what regards Reward in French. 
 
 These things, and others of the same complexion, in such im- 
 mense abundance, determined me to quit the profession ; and, 
 as soon as I could obtain my father's permission, I did so: 
 I found it more to my taste to endeavour, as I have been 
 doing ever since, to put an end to them, than to profit 
 by them. 
 
§ 2. Equity, Fraud, and Extortion — samples. 7 
 
 of the Court of Chancery, respecting the practice 
 of that Court, with suggestions for its alteration. 
 By a Barrister. London, 1824. r Extracted from 
 it are the following alleged samples : samples of 
 the improvements made in the arts and sciences 
 of fraud and extortion, by Masters in Chancery 
 and others, under the Noble and Learned Lord's 
 so assiduously fostering and protecting care. 
 
 I. In regard to attendances on and by Masters, 
 money exacted by them as above, when no such 
 services are performed. 
 
 P. 12. " The issuing of warrants is another sub- 
 ject which requires consideration. These are issued 
 frequently upon states of facts, abstracts of titles, 
 charges and discharges, &c. not according to tJie 
 time consumed in going through the business before 
 the Master, or his Clerk * but according to the 
 length of the statement. The Clerk takes it for 
 grunted, that the investigation of a state of facts of 
 a given length may be expected to occupy a given 
 number of hours. The Solicitor, therefore, in 
 drawing such his bill of costs, after the statement 
 has been gone through, leaves a blank for the num- 
 ber of warrants " to proceed on the state of facts." 
 The Masters Clerk Jills up the blank, by inserting 
 such a number, as migJit, if there had been much 
 contention between the different parties, have by 
 possibility been issued. Thus, where two or three 
 are all that, in fact, have been taken out, ten or 
 
 * Of the business charged for, as if done by the Master, the 
 greater part, Masters taken together, is done by the Master's 
 clerk. The officers styled Six-Clerks have long ascended into 
 the Epicurean heaven, the region of sinecures : the Masters 
 are jogging on in the road to it. I have known instances of 
 Masterships given to common lawyers, to whom the practice of 
 the court was as completely unknown as anything could be. 
 
8 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 fifteen are charged and allowed. The Solicitor 
 produces those he has actually received in the course 
 of the business, and the Clerk delivers to him so 
 many more as are necessary to make up the requisite 
 number.*" 
 
 P. 12. "A similar process takes place withrespect 
 to the Report. If the charge for the warrants alone 
 were all that was to be complained of, the mischief 
 would not be so great. But you are aware, Sir,-\ 
 that an attendance on each of these warrants is 
 charged for and allowed, and that frequently by 
 several different solicitors, \ so that the expense to 
 the suitors is grievously increased." 
 
 II. Of the sinister profit made by the Solicitor, 
 the greater part has for its cause the rapacity of the 
 Master, supported by the Chancellor. 
 
 P. 9. " Copies of proceedings of all sorts, of states 
 of facts, of affidavits, of reports, of every paper in 
 short which is brought into the office, are multi- 
 plied without the least necessity ; and, in many 
 instances, are charged for, though never made. For 
 instance, in an amicable suit, where the only object 
 is to obtain the opinion of the i Court on some 
 
 * Thus exacting, for the Master, payment for that same 
 number of attendances not bestowed; and as to solicitors, not 
 only allowing but forcing them, on both sides — and there may 
 be any number on each side — to receive payment, each of 
 them, for the same number of attendances on his part. 
 
 t Thus saith the nameless Barrister to the Master, who has 
 taken care all this while to know no more of the matter than 
 Lord Eldon does. He is one of the thirteen Commissioners, 
 commissioned by Lord Eldon, to enquire, along with Lord 
 Eldon into the conduct of Lord Eldon. 
 
 % Though no cause has more than two sides — the plaintiff's 
 and the defendant's — yet on each side there may be as many 
 different Solicitors as there are different parties, and to the 
 number of them there is no limit. 
 
§ 2. Equity, Fraud, and Extortion — samples. 9 
 
 doubtful point, and the Master's report is previously 
 necessary to ascertain the facts of the case clearly, 
 each solicitor concerned is required, in most in- 
 stances, to take, or at least to pay for, a copy of the 
 state of facts carried in, of the affidavits in support 
 of it, and of the draft of the report ; and in the event 
 of his not taking these copies, he is not allowed to 
 charge for any of his attendances in the Master's 
 office." 
 
 P. 10. " The draft of the report is kept with the 
 other papers relating to the suit, in the Master's 
 office ; and to such a length is the system of charg- 
 ing for copies carried, that in amicable suits it not 
 unfrequently happens, I believe, that no copy what- 
 ever of the draft report is made, but the Solicitor 
 merely looks over the original draft in the Master's 
 office. Yet, even in this case, two or more copies 
 will be charged for* as made for the plaintiff and 
 defendants." pp. 10, 11. 
 
 III. How, by breach of duty as to attendance 
 on the part of Masters and their clerks, delai/ and 
 expense are manufactured hi/ them, and profit out 
 of it, over and above what is exacted by them on 
 mendacious grounds, as above. 
 
 P. 15. — "The Masters seldom, I believe, make 
 their appearance in Southampton-buildings before 
 eleven, and are mostly to be seen on their way 
 home by three o'clock at the latest." 
 
 P. 16. — "Another evil, is that of issuing war- 
 rants to different parties to attend at the same 
 hour/' 
 
 "With some exceptions (says another pam- 
 phlet, with a high and responsible name to it, page 
 32.) I find a general understanding prevails, that 
 the earliest appointment for a Master must be 
 
 * By, and for the profit of, the Master. 
 
10 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 eleven, and the latest at two o'clock." Conse- 
 quence — warrant sent for, frequent answer- ' Mas- 
 ter full for a week :' page 31. 'Court sits from 
 ten to four.' So far the authority. Court, sitting 
 as yet in public, cannot convert itself into a sine- 
 curist : this accommodation it cannot afford to any 
 but its feudatories, who, so long as they act, the 
 shorter the proportion of time in a day they sit on 
 each cause, have the greater number of attend- 
 ances to be paid for. 
 
 The attendance, styled the Master s, is, after all, 
 in many instances, only the Clerk's : so that it may 
 be matter of calculation at the end of what period, 
 under the cherishing care of Lord Eldon, all Mas- 
 terships may have ripened into sinecures, and 
 thus completed the course completed already by 
 the Six-Clerkships. Per pamphlet, intitled Re- 
 wards, &c. p. 49, of which presently. Average 
 emolument of one of the Master's Clerks, in 1 822, 
 1823, and 1824, 2,300/. a year. 
 
 IV. Strict community of sinister interest between 
 the judicial and 'professional lawyers ; the judicial, 
 principals, the professional, forced accomplices. 
 
 P. 13. — " Their bills will be less rigidly ex- 
 amined. Under these circumstances, it is not the 
 interest of a Solicitor to quarrel with the Master's 
 clerk." * Both are alike gainers by the existing 
 system. — p. 14. " In cases where the costs come 
 out of a fund in court, much less strict?iess is likely 
 
 * " Since writing the above, I have been informed that in 
 one office f the clerk is not allowed to receive gratuities, but 
 is paid a stipulated salary ; and I understand that the business 
 of that office is conducted as well, as expeditiously, and as 
 satisfactorily in all respects as in other offices. It might seem 
 invidious to say more so." — Barrister. 
 
 t Worth knowing it surely would be by the House of Commons, what 
 that one office is— J.B. 
 
§2. Equity, Fraud, and Extortion — samples, 11 
 
 to prevail. If the plaintiff's Solicitor be allowed 
 for attendances on more warrants than are actually 
 taken out during the progress of the business, a 
 similar allowance must be made to the defendant's 
 Solicitor. But even if it were both the interest 
 and the inclination of the Solicitor to amend this 
 practice, it is not in his power so to do. He 
 might indeed amend it so far as his own charges, 
 go, but no farther. Over those of the Master's 
 clerks, he has no controul ; and he is moreover at 
 the mercy of the clerk. If he quarrels with the 
 clerk, he must expect to be thwarted and delayed 
 in every suit which comes into that office, and to 
 have his bills rigorously taxed. The Master's 
 clerk, with the assistance of a clerk in court, taxes 
 the Solicitor's bill ; but there is nobody to tax the 
 Master's bill."— p. 14. 
 
 V. Corruption and extortion, by bribes, given to 
 and received by Master's clerks, in addition to the 
 sinister pro/it, carried as above to the account of the 
 Master. 
 
 P. 13. — " The gratuities at present allowed to 
 the Master's clerks ought to be done away with 
 altogether. . . . Solicitors, who are in the habit of 
 giving large gratuities to the clerks, will at any 
 rate be looked upon favourably. Their business 
 will be readily attended to, and oftentimes to 
 the delay of others, who, iu strictness, are entitled 
 to priority." 
 
 VI. Anno IS 14, Lord Eldons eyes, forced to 
 open themselves to fraud and extortion in one por- 
 tentously scandalous instance, kept shut in all other 
 instances before and since. 
 
 P. 11. — "With regard to copies of particulars 
 of sale, where an estate is sold in the Master's 
 office, a material alteration has of late years been 
 made. To such a height had these charges 
 
1 2 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 amounted, that in one instance (Casamajor v. 
 Strode) 700/. were claimed for compensation- 
 money, in lieu of written copies of particulars of 
 sale. In consequence of that charge, the general 
 order of 24th MarcJi 1814, was made, by which 
 the Master is allowed sixpence a side for so many 
 printed copies of the particulars as there are 
 actual bidders, and no more. There seems no 
 good reason for making even this allowance. It 
 would be fair enough, if the blasters are to con- 
 tinue to be paid by fees, to allow the expense of 
 copying the particular for the printer, and even a 
 fee, if thought necessary, for settling it ; but 
 beyond that, as there is no actual trouble, there 
 should be no charge on the suitor." — p. 12. 
 
 Of the particulars above given, a general con- 
 firmation may be deduced from ^the contents of 
 the (I now see) named, but not promiscuously 
 published pamphlet, above alluded to— MrVizard's. 
 
 What is above is a small sample of that which 
 is said to have place. Of what follows in sections 
 4, 8, and 9, the design is — to show how that 
 which has place, came, and comes to have place. 
 
 § III. Anno 1807. Order by Chancellor and 
 Master of the Rolls, augmenting the fees i of 
 offices in the gift of one of them. 
 
 It consists of a printed pamphlet of 25 pages, 
 bearing in the title page the words following : 
 
 " List of Costs in Chancery, regarding Solici- 
 tors, and also Clerks in Court, as increased by 
 orders of Court, dated 26th February last ; issued 
 under the joint signatures of the Right Hon. the 
 Lord Chancellor, and Master of the Rolls : being 
 exact copies of those orders. The same having 
 been collated with the original Lists of the Court. 
 
§ 4. Profit, to Subordinates — ditto to Superiors. 13 
 
 " London : printed for Heretad and Co., Law 
 Stationers, parey si root, corner of Bell yard, by 
 .1. and W. Smith, King street, Seven Dials, 1807/' 
 
 In the preamble to that part which regards the 
 " Clerks in Court Fees," the order speaks of itself 
 as establishing "a schedule of — increased fees." 
 Thereupon follows tl\e schedule, and the number 
 of the fees is forty-three. 
 
 Anno 1814. In pursuance of certain orders of 
 the House of Commons, returns were made, 
 amongst other Chancery offices, from that of the 
 S'Lv-Clcrks, and another from that of the Sironi 
 and Waiting Clerks. These are comprised in 
 pages 5, 6, 7, 8, of a paper entitled " Fees in 
 Courts of Justice." Dates of order for printing, 
 13th May, and 11th July 1814. Nos. 234 and 
 250. 
 
 In the return relative to the Sworn Clerks, are 
 reprinted the contents of the pamphlet above 
 mentioned. 
 
 § IV. Profit to Subordinates was Profit to Supe- 
 riors ; so, in course, to Successors. 
 
 Here begins the proof of the fact — that a 
 twopenny loaf costs twopence : in Honourable 
 and Right Honourable House, the proof will be 
 insufficient ; in any other, unless it were a Right 
 Honourable one, it would be superfluous : for in- 
 formation, yes : but, for reminiscence, it may have 
 its use. 
 
 1. Wherever an office has any money value, so 
 has the patronage of it. By the patronage, under- 
 stand the power of determining the individuals by 
 whom, together, or one after another, it shall be 
 possessed ; — the whole power or any share in it. 
 
 Take any office singly, compared with the value 
 
14 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 of the possession, that of the patronage may be less 
 or greater. It is most commonly less ; but it may 
 be many times greater. Patron (say) a father near 
 the grave ; son, in early youth : value of the office 
 if occupied by the father, not one year's purchase ; 
 if by the son, a dozen years or more. 
 
 Present income of a Six-Clerkship, about 1000/. 
 a year : so stated to me by gentlemen belonging 
 to the office. It is regarded as a sinecure ; patron, 
 the Master of the Rolls. One of these Judges was 
 Sir Thomas Sewell ; children, numerous. No fur- 
 ther provision for this one, without injustice to 
 others. Suppose it sold, what would it have been 
 worth to him ? Not a fifth of what it was by being- 
 given. — 2,000/. the price usually got by patron. 
 So at least said, by gentlemen belonging to the 
 office. This for the information of Mr Robinson : 
 the Mr Robinson who, as far as I understand 
 hitherto, to secure purity interdicts sale, leaving 
 gift as he found it. 
 
 Say -patron and grandpatron, as you say son 
 and grandson. Grand patronage is not so valuable 
 as patronage. True : nor yet valueless. In the 
 King's Bench, is an office called the Clerkship of 
 the Rules. Annual value, as per Finance Reports, 
 1797-8, 2,767/. Nominal joint patrons in those 
 days, Earl of Stormont and Mr Way ; grand 
 patron, Earl of Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice. 
 Trustee for the Lord Chief Justice, said Earl of 
 Stormont and Mr Way : price paid, 7,000/. : cir- 
 cumstances led me to the knowledge of it. But 
 for grandpatron's cowardice (that cowardice which 
 is matter of history) more might have been got 
 for it. That or thereabouts was got for it a second 
 time. 
 
 Would you know the money value of an office, 
 exclusive of the emolument in possession ? to 
 
$ 4. Profit to Subordinates — ditto to Superiors. 15 
 
 the aggregate value of the patronage belonging to 
 it, add that of the grand patronage. Nor is that 
 of great-grand patronage nothing. Wherever you 
 can see a grand patron other than the king, seeing 
 the king, you see a great-grand patron. 
 
 A Mastership was a fortune to a daughter of 
 Lord Erskine. Had he held the seals long 
 enough, a Six-Clerkship might have been a provi- 
 sion for a son, supposing the matter settled with 
 Sir William Grant, who had no issue. 
 
 If cither patronage, grand patronage, or great- 
 grand patronage of the office arc valueless, so is 
 the possession of it. 
 
 In case of abuse, profit to individuals is one 
 thing; mischief to the public, another. Profit 
 from fee-gathering offices may be made either by 
 sale or by gift. When by sale, small is the mis- 
 chief in comparison of what it is when by gift. 
 But this belongs to another head. 
 
 Neither by the Chancellor, nor by the Master of 
 the Rolls (it may be said) are nominated any of the 
 officers to whose fees the Order gives increase. 
 True : nor by this is the additional value, given by 
 it to the patronage, lessened. Along with the 
 values of the Sworn-clerkship and the Waiting- 
 clerkship, rises that of the Six-clerkship. Ten- 
 pence per folio is paid to Sworn and Waiting Clerks ; 
 ten-pence per ninety words, called a folio, for copies 
 taken by them : out of each such ten-pence, the 
 Six Clerks, for doing nothing, receive four-pence. 
 This is all they receive : an all which to some eyes, 
 may not appear much too little. 
 
 The measure was one of experiment : direct ob- 
 ject, that project of plunderage, which will be seen 
 continued and extended by the hands of Lord 
 Eldon in 1807, and sanctioned by Parliament in 
 
16 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 1822 : collateral, or subsidiary object on his part, 
 giving additional strength to the dominion of Judge- 
 made over Parliament-made law. Full butt did 
 this order run against a special statute, made for 
 remedy against this very abuse : not to speak of 
 the general principle laid down, and thus vainly 
 endeavoured to be established, by the Petition of 
 Rights. But as to this, see next section. 
 
 Of the price the public was made to pay for this 
 sinister profit, not more than half has, as yet, been 
 brought to view. The other half went to stop 
 mouths. Waste, all of it, as well as productive of 
 correspondent delay, is what is exacted for all three 
 sorts of clerks. Thus felt, and even yet say, the 
 solicitors. The plunderable fund is composed of 
 the aggregate property of all those who can afford 
 to buy a chance, for the article sold under the name 
 of Equity. The greater the quantity taken by the 
 one set, the less is left for the other — see an experi- 
 ence of this shewn in §13. Preceded accordingly 
 by the bonuses given to these more immediate 
 cointeressees of the Chancellor and his feudatory, 
 was a like bonus given to the fraternity of solici- 
 tors. 
 
 § V. Contrary to Law was the Order. 
 
 Not to speak of clauses of common, that is to 
 say, imaginary law, called principles, borrowed 
 or made by each disputant for the purpose of the 
 dispute — full butt does the order run against indis- 
 putable Acts of Parliament ; — acts of general appli- 
 cation applying to taxation in any mode without 
 consent of Parliament; — acts of particular ap- 
 plication, applying to taxation in this particular 
 mode : 
 
§ o. Contrary to Law the Order. 17 
 
 1. First comes the g-ewmz/Zy-applying act, 25 
 Ed. 1. c. 7, anno 1297. " We have granted for us 
 and our heirs, as well to Archbishops.... as to 
 Earls.... and to all the commonalty of the land, 
 that for no business from henceforth we shall take 
 such manner of aids, tasks, nor aprises, but by the 
 common assent of the realm." 
 
 2. Next comes 34 Ed. I. stat. 4, c. 1. anno 130C. 
 " No Tallage or Aid shall be taken or levied by us, 
 or our heirs, in our realm, without the good-will 
 and assent of Archbishops, Bishops, Lords, Barons, 
 Knights, Burgesses, and other freemen of the 
 land." 
 
 3. Now comes the specially -applying act, 20 
 Ed. III. c. 1. anno 1346. " First, we have com- 
 manded" (says the statute) " all our justices to be 
 sworn, that they shall from henceforth do equal law 
 and execution of right to all our subjects, rich and 
 poor. And we have ordained and caused our said 
 Justices to be sworn, that they shall not from 
 henceforth, as long as they shall be in the office 
 of justice, take fee nor robe of any man but of our- 
 self, and that they shall take no gift nor reward, by 
 themselves nor by others privily or apertly, of any 
 man that hath to do before them by any way, except 
 meat and drink, and that of small value.''''* 
 
 4. Lastly comes the ail-comprehensively apply- 
 
 * The exception — the meat and drink of small value (need it 
 be said?) speaks the simplicity of the times: roads bad, inns 
 scantily scattered, judges, in their progresses in the suite of* 
 the monarch, starved, if not kept alive by the hospitality of 
 some one or other, who, in some way or other, " had to do before 
 them." 
 
 A few words to obviate cavil. 
 
 Objection. Immediately before this last-mentioned clause in 
 the statute, runs a sort of special preamble, in these words,— 
 " to the intent that our justices should do every right to all 
 people, in the manner aforesaid, without more favour showing 
 to one than to another." Well then: fee, the same to all, 
 shews no such favour. 
 
18 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 ing clause in the Act commonly called the Petition 
 of Rights, 3. ch. 1, c. 1. § 20, " That no man here- 
 after be compelled to make, or yield any gift, loan, 
 benevolence, tax, or such like charge, without 
 common consent by Act of Parliament." 
 
 Turn back now to the Judge-made law, and the 
 enactors of it. Could they have had any doubt as 
 to the illegality of what they were doing? Not 
 unless these sages of the law had forgot the a, b, c 
 of it. 
 
 But a pretence is made, — and what is it? 
 " Whereas the same' 5 (speaking of the fees of the 
 offices in question) " have been at different times 
 regulated by the orders of this Court, as occasion 
 required." 
 
 The " different times," — what are they? They 
 are the one time, at which, by a like joint order, 
 anno 1743, 1? Geo. II. Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, 
 his Master of the Rolls, Fontescue, " did order and 
 direct that the S worn-clerks and Waiting-clerks, do 
 not demand, or take any greater fees or reward for 
 the business done or to be done by them in the Six- 
 clerk's office, than the fees and rewards following : ,J 
 whereupon corner a list of them.*' 
 
 Answer, 1. Preamble limits not enacting part: — a rule too 
 generally recognized to need reference; disallow it, the whole 
 mass of statute-law is shaken to pieces. 
 
 2. Fee the same to all, docs show such favour in the ex- 
 treme. A. has less than 10Z. a-year to live on: B, more than 
 100,000/. a-year : on A. a 5s. fee is more than ten thousand 
 times as heavy as on B. Of the B.'s, there are several : of the 
 A.'s, several millions. By the aggregate of the fees exacted on 
 the plaintiff's side, all who cannot afford to pay it, are placed 
 in a state of out-lawry : in a still worse state those, who, having 
 paid a certain part of the way, can pay no further. Ditto on 
 defendant's side, sells to every man, who, in the character of 
 plaintiff, is able and willing to buy it, an unlimited power of 
 plundering and oppressing every man, who cannot spend as 
 much in law as he can. 
 
 * House of Commons paper, 1814, intituled " Fees in Courts 
 of Justice," p. 5. — Returns to orders of the Honourable House 
 
<§ o. Contrary to Law the Order. 19 
 
 In any of the many reigns in which Parliament 
 never sat but to give money, and in which, could 
 Kings have kept within bounds, there would have 
 been an end of Parliaments, — as the value of money 
 sunk, augmentation of subordinate's fees by supe- 
 riors might have had something of an excuse. But 
 Lord Hardwicke— while he was scheming this 
 order, he was receiving in the House of Lords, 
 money-bills in profusion, brought up by the House 
 of Commons. This tax of his — would the Com- 
 mons have given, or would they have refused their 
 sanction to it? Under either supposition, this tax 
 of his imposition was without excuse. 
 
 Well, and suppose that Chancellor and his Mas- 
 ter of the Rolls had done what Lord Chancellor 
 Erskine and his Mentor did, — ■" order and direct 
 that the said schedule of fees be adopted." ? (p. 18.) 
 But they did no such thing : they were too wary : 
 the time was not ripe for it. George the Second 
 had a Pretender to keep him in check : George the 
 Third had none. True it is, that by their adroitly- 
 worded prohibition, all the effect of alloxcance was 
 produced. But, had anything been said about 
 the Order, there were the terms of it: — all that 
 these models of incorruption had in view by it 
 was repression : alloxcance was what it was con- 
 verted into, by underlings acting out of sight of 
 
 of Commons of 31st March and 2nd of May, 1814: for "a re- 
 turn of any increase of rate of the fees, demanded and received 
 in the several superior Courts of Justice, civil or ecclesiastical, 
 in the United Kingdom, by the Judges and Officers of such. 
 Courts, during twenty years, on the several proceedings in the 
 same, together with a statement of the authority under which 
 such increase has taken place." 
 
 1. England, 2. Scotland, 3. Ireland, 234 and 250.— Ordered 
 by ihe House of Commons to be printed, 13th May and 11th 
 July, 1814. 
 
20 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 superiors. Thus, on a ground of rapacity, was laid 
 an appropriate varnish : — a coaling of severe and 
 self-denying justice. 
 
 The caricature-shops used to exhibit divers 
 progresses : Progress of a Scotchman, Progress of 
 a Parson, and some others. In these pages may be 
 seen that of a fee-gathering Judge. Seen already 
 has been the first stage of it. 
 
 If Lord Erskine, or rather the unfledged Equity- 
 man's Mentor, had any doubts of the illegality of 
 what they were doing, no such doubts had Lord 
 Eldon : for now comes another motion in the 
 gymnastics of lawyer-craft — the last stage, or 
 thereabouts, which for the moment we must 
 anticipate. 
 
 The last stage in the progress, is that which is 
 exhibited in, and by that which will be seen to 
 be his Act— the Act of 1822—3 Geo. IV. c. 69, 
 as per § 13, of these pages : the assumption per 
 force recognized to be illegal; because, as 
 will also be seen, the Court of King's Bench had 
 just been forced to declare as much : whereupon 
 came the necessity of going, after all, to Parlia- 
 ment : illegality recognized, but a different word, 
 the word effectual/y-em ployed, that from all who 
 were not in the secret, the evil consciousness 
 might be kept hid. *« Whereas" (says the pream- 
 ble) " it is expedient that some provision should 
 be made for the permanent regulations and esta- 
 blishment of the fees of the officers, clerks, and 
 ministers of justice of the several Courts of Chan- 
 cery, King's Bench, Common Pleas, Exchequer, 
 and Exchequer Chamber, at Westminster, and of 
 the clerks and other officers of the Judges of the 
 same Courts ; but the same cannot be effectually 
 done but by the authority of Parliament".... 
 thereupon, comes the first enactment, enabling. 
 
§ G. Increase and Sanction to Extortion. 21 
 
 Judges to deny and sell justice for their own 
 profit, and giving legality and permanence (and, by 
 the blessing; of God I — Mr Justice Bailey and 
 
 Mr Justice Park! eternity) to the things of 
 which we have been seeing samples. 
 
 As to the effectuality of the thing, what had 
 been done in this way without Parliament and 
 against Parliament, had been but too effectually 
 done ; and, but for the so lately disclosed We* 
 galitii, might and would have continued to be 
 done, as long as matchless Constitution held to- 
 gether. At the same time, what is insinuated is — 
 that, although what had thus been done without 
 Parliament, had hitherto and all along been done 
 legally, yet, for want of some machinery, which 
 could not be supplied but by Parliament, it could 
 not in future be so effectually done, as it would 
 be with the help of such machinery, which, ac- 
 cordingly, the Act was made to supply. JNot an 
 atom of any such subsidiary matter is there in the 
 Act. All that this Act of Lord Eldon's docs, is 
 to authorize and require himself, and the other 
 Judges in question — the Westminster Hail Chiefs 
 — to do as it had found them doing : taxing the 
 injured — taxing them on pain of outlawry — taxing 
 the people, and putting the money into their own 
 pockets. In § 13, the reader will see whether 
 what is here said of the absence of all machinery is 
 not strictly true. Nothing whatever, besides what 
 is here mentioned, does the Act so much as aim at. 
 
 § VI. I/jj it, Increase and Sanction icerc given to 
 Extortion. 
 
 The illegality of the order supposed, taking 
 moi ey by colour of it, is extort o.t;— cither that is, 
 or nothing is. 
 
22 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 Ask Mr. Serjeant Hawkins else. As good 
 common law as Mr. Anybody else, or even my 
 Lord Anybody else makes, is that made by Mr. 
 Serjeant Hawkins ; so says everybody. Look to 
 ditto's Pleas of the Crown, vol. ii., b. i., ch. 68, § 1. 
 In the margin especially, if you take Leach's 
 edition, or any subsequent one, you will see a 
 rich embroidery of references : if the ground does 
 not suit you, go to the embroidery, and hard 
 indeed is your fortune, if you do not find some- 
 thing or other that will suit you better. 
 
 "It is said" (says he) " that extortion, in a 
 large sense, signifies any oppression under colour of 
 right; but that in a strict sense, it signifies the 
 taking of money by any officer, by colour of his 
 office, either where none at all is due, or not so 
 much is due, or where it is not yet due." So 
 much for the learned manufacturer. For the pre- 
 sent purpose, the strict sense, you will see, is 
 quite sufficient: as for the large sense, this is the 
 sense you must take the word in, if what you 
 want is nonsense. If you do, go on with the 
 book, and there you will find enough of it ; and 
 that too without need of hunting on through the 
 references ; for if, with the law-making Serjeant, 
 you want to enlarge extortion into oppression, you 
 must strike out of extortion the first syllable, and, 
 with it, half the sense of the word , which done, 
 you will have tortion — which will give you, if 
 not the exact synonyme of oppression, something 
 very little wide of it ; and here, by the bye, you 
 have a sample of the sort of stuff on which hang 
 life and death under Common Law. 
 
23 
 
 § VII. So, to Corruption. 
 
 Corruption ? No : no such head has the learned 
 aforesaid manufacturer and wholesale dealer in 
 crown-law. No matter: he has bribery. Ram- 
 bling over that field, he picks up corruption, 
 which he takes for the same thing. Had he lived 
 in present times, well would he have known the 
 difference. Bribery is what no Judge practises : 
 would you know what prevents him, see " Obser- 
 vations on the Magistrates' Salary-raising Bill :" 
 Corruption — self-corruption — is what, as you may 
 see there and here, every V/estminster Hall Chief 
 Judge has been in use to practice ; and is now, by 
 Act of Parliament, anno 1822, 3 Geo. IV. c. 69, 
 allowed to practice. 
 
 For bribery too, Hawkins has his strict sense 
 and his large sense. It is in its large sense that 
 he fancies it the same thing with corruption. 
 Neither to bribery, however, nor to corruption, 
 does this law of his apply itself, in any other case 
 than that in which he who commits it has some- 
 thing or other to do with the administration of 
 justice.* But, as before, this is all that is wanted 
 here. 
 
 " Bribery" (says he) " in a strict sense, is 
 taken for a great misprision of one in a judicial 
 place, taking any valuable thing whatsoever, ex- 
 cept meat and drink of small value, \ of any one 
 
 * By Lord Chief Justice Raymond, or by somebody for 
 him, Bench law was afterwards made to explain and amend 
 this Inn of Court law of the learned Serjeant, in addition 
 to judicial law : corruption election bribery was thereby made 
 bribery likewise. See the embroidery as above. 
 
 f To Serjeant Hawkins (we see) to Serjeant Hawkins, 
 though he never was a Judge— the Statute of Edward the 
 
24 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 who has to do before him any way, for doing his 
 office, or by colour of his office, but of the King 
 only. 
 
 " § 2. But bribery in a large sense" (con- 
 tinues he) " is sometimes taken for the receiving 
 or offering of any undue reward, by or to any 
 person whatsoever, whose ordinary profession or 
 business relates to the administration of public 
 justice, in order to incline him to do a thing 
 against the known rules of honesty and integrity*; 
 for the law abhors [inuendo the common law, 
 that is to say, it makes the Judges abhor] any the 
 least tendency to corruption in those who are any 
 way concerned in its administration." 
 
 Here the learned Serjeant waxes stronger and 
 stronger in sentimentality, as he ascends into the 
 heaven of hypocrisy, where he remains during the 
 whole of that and the next long section. — "Ab- 
 hor corruption?" Oh yes, even as a dog does 
 carrion. 
 
 Be this as it may, note with how hot a burning 
 iron he stamps bribery and corruption on the 
 foreheads of such a host of sages : — of Lord Erskine 
 (oh fie! isn't he dead?) Sir William Grant (oh 
 fie ! was he not an able Judge ?) and Lord 
 Eldon, the Lord of Lords, with his cceteras the 
 inferior Chiefs. 
 
 § VIII. How Lord Eldon pronounced the Exaction 
 contrary to Law — all the while continuing it. 
 
 The following is the tenor of a note obtained 
 from an eminent barrister present, who had particular 
 means and motives for being correct as to the 
 
 Third was not unknown, though so perfectly either unknown 
 or contemned by the host of the under-mentioned Judges. 
 
§ 8. Ediortion confessed and con turned. 25 
 
 facts, and who does not, to this moment, know the 
 use intended to be made of it. In the Court of 
 Exchequer, February .5, 1820. 
 
 " DONNISOX V. CUllRIE. 
 
 " A question was made upon a petition, whe- 
 ther certain allowances, made to a solicitor on the 
 taxation of his bill of costs, were regular, which 
 they would have been, if the Court of Exche- 
 quer adopted in its piactice the additional allow- 
 ances made by Lord Erskine's order, otherwise 
 not. 
 
 " It was objected that those additional allow- 
 ances were not adopted by the Exchequer, inas- 
 much as Lord Erskine's order was not legal, and 
 that Lord Eldon had intimated an opinion that he 
 did not consider it as legal. 
 
 " The Chief Baron (Richards) admitted that he 
 understood Lord Eldon had said that he did not 
 consider Lord Erskine's order as being legal, but that 
 it had been note so long acted upon, that the Court 
 must be considered as having sanctioned it, and that 
 he (Richards) should follow what had been said 
 by Lord Eldon/' Thus far the Report. 
 
 As to its being for his own benefit — see §4. 
 
 Thirteen years, and no more, having sufficed 
 thus to set Bench above Parliament, anno 1820, 
 qurere what is the smallest length of time that will 
 have become sufficient before the reiero of John 
 the Second is at an end ? 
 
 Objector. — Idle fears! how inconsiderable in all 
 this time, the utmost of what the people can have 
 suffered from the exercise of this power ! 
 
 Answer. — True, the plunderage has its limit. 
 Thank for it, however — not Learned moderation, but 
 a very different circumstance, which will be ex- 
 
2G Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 plained in §13, when the Act by which the last 
 hand put to the plan comes to be considered : 
 moreover, what makes fees so stickled for in pre- 
 ference to salary, is — that as plunderable matter 
 increases, so will plunderage. 
 
 As to its being for his own profit that Lord 
 Eldon thus continued the exaction, see §4. 
 
 Bravo, Lord Chancellor Eldon ! bravo, Lord 
 Chief Baron Richards ! " So long!" that is to 
 say, just thirteen years : assuming what of course 
 is true — that of the course of illegality begun 
 under Lord Erskine, and pursued under Lord 
 Eldon, the continuation commenced with his re- 
 accession. Years, thirteen ! Here then is on 
 length of time which suffices to entitle the West- 
 minster Chiefs, all or any one of them, to set 
 aside any Act or Acts of Parliaments they please : 
 and in particular any Act of Parliament, the 
 declared object of which is to prevent them from 
 plundering, without stint, all people, who can and 
 will buy of them, what they call justice, and from 
 denying it to all who cannot. 
 
 But Bar ? . . . what said Bar to this ? Oh ; Ex- 
 chequer is a snug Court : small the quantity of 
 Bar that is ever there. But, were there ever so 
 much, Bench cannot raise itself above Parliament 
 but it raises Bar along with it. Between Bench 
 and Bar, even without partnership in money or 
 power, sympathy would of itself suffice to make 
 community of sinister interest. The same fungus, 
 which, when green, is made into Bar, is it not, 
 when dry, made into Bench ? 
 
 No want of Bar was there, anno 1801, when 
 Lord Eldon, as per next section, laid the ground 
 for the decision, thus pronounced anno 1820; 
 as little, when, the next year (1821) as per § 12, 
 
§8. Extortion confessed and continued. 27 
 
 ground and all were laid low by the shock of an 
 earthquake. Matchless Constitution (it will be 
 seen) may be turned topsy-turvy, and lay-gents 
 know nothing of the matter : Bar looking on, and 
 laughing in its sleeve. 
 
 Note here the felicity of Lord Eldon: the profit 
 reaped by him from his Hegira of a few months. 
 We shall soon see, how, from one of the most 
 unexpectable of all incidents, the grand design of 
 the Grand Master of Delay experienced a delay of 
 six years : a delay, which, like so many of his own 
 making, might never have found an end, but for 
 the short-lived apparent triumph and un-quict 
 reign of the pretenders to the throne. When, upon 
 their expulsion, the legitimates resumed their due 
 omnipotence, it seemed to all who were in the se- 
 crets of providence — and neither Mr Justice Bailey 
 nor Mr Justice Park, nor any other chaplain of 
 Lord Eldon's, could entertain a doubt of it — that 
 it was only to give safety and success to this grand 
 design of his, that the momentary ascendancy of 
 the intruders had been permitted. The Chancellor, 
 by whom the first visible step in the track of exe- 
 cution was taken, being a Whig, — not only was a 
 precedent set, and ground thus made for the ac- 
 commodation of Lord Eldon, but a precedent 
 which the Whigs, as such, stood effectually estopped 
 from controverting. Poor Lord Erskine — all that 
 he had had time to do, was to prepare the treat : to 
 prepare it for his more fortunate predecessor and 
 successor. Scarce was the banquet on the table, 
 when up rose from his nap the " giant refreshed," 
 and swept into his wallet, this, in addition to all 
 the other sweets of office. As to poor Lord 
 Erskine, over and above his paltry 4000/. a-year, 
 nothing was left him, but to sing with Virgil — *S7c 
 vos non nobis mellijicatis apes. 
 
28 Indications respecting Lord Eldun. 
 
 § IX. How the Chancellor had laid the ground for 
 the more effectual corruption of himself and the 
 other Chiefs. 
 
 For this ground we must, from 1821, go as far 
 back as the year 1S01. In the explanation here 
 given of the charges, it seemed necessary to make 
 this departure from the order of time ; for, till some 
 conception of the design, and of a certain progress 
 made in the execution of it, had been conveyed, 
 the nature of the ground, so early, and so long ago 
 laid for it, could not so clearly have been under- 
 stood. 
 
 In nonsense (it will be seen) was this ground 
 laid : plain sense might have been too hazardous. 
 The document in which the design may be seen 
 revealed, is another reported case, and (what is bet- 
 ter) one already in print: E.r-parte Leicester, Vesey 
 Juniors Equity Reports, VI. 429. Buried in huge 
 grim-gribber folios, secrets maybe talked in print, 
 and, for any length of time, kept. The language 
 nonsense, the design may be not the less ascertain- 
 able and undeniable. Nonsense more egregious 
 was seldom talked, than, on certain occasions, by 
 Oliver Cromwell. Whatever it was to the audience 
 then, to us the design is no secret now. 
 
 Here it follows — that is to say, Lord Eldon's. 
 
 Vesey Junior, vi. 429 to 434. Date of the re- 
 port, '801, Aug. 8. Date of the volume, 1803, 
 p. 432. — Loud Chancellor (p. 423) — " A prac- 
 tice having prevailed, for a series of years, contrary 
 to the terms of an Order of the Court, and sometimes 
 contrary to an Act of Parliament, it is more con- 
 sistent to suppose some ground appeared to former 
 Judges, upon which it might be rendered con- 
 sistent with the practice: and therefore, that it 
 would be better to correct it in future, not in that 
 
§ 10. Chancellor stopi short by a Solicitor. 29 
 
 particular instance. Upon the question, whether 
 that order is to be altered, or to be acted upon ac- 
 cording- to its terms, which are at variance with 
 the practice, I am not now prepared to deliver a 
 decisive opinion : for this practice bavin ; been ever 
 since permitted to grow up as expository of the 
 order, it' my opinion was different from what it is 
 as to the policy of the order according to its terms, 
 I must collect, that there is in that practice testi- 
 mony given, that, according to the terms, it would 
 be an inconvenient order."' 
 
 No abstract this — no paraphrase — Verba ipsissi- 
 via. Eldon this all over. None but himself can be 
 his parallel. 
 
 Nothing which it could be of any use to insert is 
 here omitted. Those who think they could find 
 an interpretation more useful to Lord Eldon by 
 wading through the five or six folio pages of his 
 speech, let them take it in hand, and see what they 
 can make of it. All they will be able to do, is to 
 make darkness still more visible. 
 
 § X. Ihnv the Design was stopi short by a Solicitor, 
 till set a-going again, as above. 
 
 The deepest-laid designs are sometimes frus- 
 trated by the most unexpected accidents. From 
 the hardihood of a man whose place was at his 
 feet, we come now to see a design, so magnificent 
 as this of the Chancellor's, experiencing the above- 
 mentioned stoppage of six years. 
 
 Before me lies an unfinished work, printed but 
 not published : title, " Observations on Fees in 
 Courts of Justice :" date to the Preface, South- 
 ampton Buildings, l?th November, 1822. In that 
 street is the residence of Mr Lowe, an eminent 
 
30 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 solicitor. The work fell into my hands without 
 his knowledge. He is guiltless of all communica- 
 tion with me. This said, I shall speak of him 
 as the author without reserve. From that work I 
 collect the following facts. Year and month, as 
 above, may be found material. 
 
 1. Page 20. Early in Lord Eldon's first Chan- 
 cellorship, to wit, anno 1801, his Lordship not 
 having then been five months in office, Mr Lowe, 
 in various forms, stated to his Lordship, in public 
 as well as in private, that in his Lordship's Court, 
 11 the corruption of office had become so great, that 
 it ivas impossible for a solicitor to transact his busi- 
 ness with propriety." This in general terms : ad- 
 ding, at the same time what, in his view, were par- 
 ticular instances, and praying redress. Note, that 
 to say in his Lordship's court, was as much as to 
 say under his Lordship's eye : — after such informa- 
 tion, at any rate, if not before. 
 
 2. Page 20. Argument thereupon by counsel : 
 Mansfield, afterwards Chief Justice of the Com- 
 mon Pleas; Romilly, afterwards Solicitor-General. 
 On the part of both, assurance of strong conviction 
 that the charge was well founded ; proportionable 
 fears, and not dissembled, of the detriment that 
 might ensue to the personal interest of their client 
 from the resentment of the noble and learned 
 judge. 
 
 3. Page 20, 21. Proof exhibited, of the rea- 
 sonableness of these fears: — " Judge angry.".... 
 Petitioner "bent beneath a torrent of power and 
 personal abuse" 
 
 4. Page 21 . Five years after, to wit, anno 1806 
 — Lord Erskine then Chancellor — similar address 
 to his Lordship ; a brief again 'given to Romilly 
 (at this time Solicitor-General) but with no better 
 
§10. Chancellor siopt short by a Solicitor. 31 
 
 fortune: further encouragement this rebuff — fur- 
 ther encouragement, to wit, to Lord Eldon, when 
 restored. 
 
 3. Page 21. In a note, reference to the above- 
 mentioned case, Kr-parte Leicester, in Vesey, 
 junior, with quotation of that portion of his Lord- 
 ship's speech, which may be seen above in § 0. 
 Hence a conjecture, that in that same case, Mr 
 Lowe himself, in some way or other, had a special 
 interest. From the reference so made to that case, 
 and his Lordship's speech on the occasion of it, it 
 should seem that the design of it, as above, was not 
 a secret to Mr Lowe, and that his Lordship knew 
 it was not. 
 
 Here ends the history of the stoppage. 
 
 6. Preface, pp. 6, 7. Upwards of eighteen months 
 antecedently to the above-mentioned 17th Novem- 
 ber, 1822, say accordingly, on or about 17th May, 
 1821, page 6, on the occasion of two causes — 
 Limbrey against Gurr, and Adams against Lira- 
 brey, — laid by Mr Lowe before the Attorney- 
 General of that time, to wit, Sir Robert Gilford, 
 matters showing " that the increasing amount of 
 fees and costs was like a leprosy rapidly spreading 
 over the body of the law." 
 
 7. Preface, p. 3. Anno 1821, Trinity vacation 
 — day not stated — to wit, sometime between July 
 and November, mention made of his Lordship's 
 courtesy, and of " a promise which his Lordship" 
 (wrath having had twenty years to cool) " very con- 
 descendingly performed. - ' On this occasion, hear- 
 ing before his Lordship, Master of the Rolls sitting 
 with him : proof presumptive, not to say, conclu- 
 sive, that, on this occasion, Lord Erskine's Order 
 was under consideration ; " Controverted" by 
 Mr Lowe, a fee that had received the confirma- 
 
32 I mi 'teat ions respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 tion of one of the sets of Commissioners, appointed 
 by Lord Eldon for this and those other purposes 
 that everybody knows of. 
 
 S. Preface, p. 5. Anno 1822, Easter term. Ob- 
 servations on the same subject, laid before the 
 " Master in Ordinary," meaning doubtless one of 
 the officers ordinarily styled Masters in Chancery, 
 ten in number, exclusive of the Grand Master, the 
 Master of the Rolls. With as good a chance of 
 success might the gentleman have laid them before 
 the Master of the Mint. 
 
 9. P. 5. Anno 1822, soon after the above " In- 
 formation and Bill " filed against Mr Lowe, by 
 Mr Attorney-General, and said to be fully an- 
 swered. Solicitor to the Treasury, " Mr Maule." 
 Answer put in by defendant, attachment for con- 
 tempt in not answering. Qusere, what means 
 "Information" and " Billl " Information in King's 
 Bench ? Bill in Chancery ? But what answer can 
 an information in King's Bench admit of? 
 
 10. P. 6. Shortly afterwards, Observations laid 
 by him before the Lords of the Treasury, soliciting 
 the investigation of the charge laid before the At- 
 torney-General (Sir Robert G'^ordi) eighteen months 
 before, on the occasion of the cases of Limbrey and 
 Gurr, &c. as per No. 6. 
 
 Containing, as it does, pages between 5 and 6, 
 this same preface is too long for insertion here. 
 Carefully have the above allegations been culled 
 from it. Of the passage contained in the body of 
 the work, the matter is too interesting and instruc- 
 tive to be omitted : it will be found below. 
 
 Here then is one source, from which, had it ears 
 for corruption, Honourable House might learn at 
 any time, whether, from the above alleged corrup- 
 tion, Lord Eldon has not, during the whole of his 
 
§ 10. Chancellor stopt sho?*t by a Solicitor. 33 
 
 two Chancellorships, been reaping profit, and whe- 
 ther it was possible so to have been doing without 
 knowing it. By Lord Eldon's present set of nomi- 
 nees, evidence from Mr Lowe has, I hear, been 
 elicited. Little, if any fruit, I hear, has been ob- 
 tained from it. No great wonder any such barren- 
 ness. Anything unacceptable to their creator they 
 could not be very desirous to receive : nor, perhaps, 
 Mr Lowe, since the experience had of his Lord- 
 ship's " courtesy," to give. 
 
 Astonished all this while at the stoppage — asto- 
 nished no less than disappointed — must have been 
 the goodly fellowship — the solicitors and clerks in 
 court ; importunate for six long years, but not less 
 vain than importunate, had been their endeavours 
 to obtain from Lord Eidon and his Sir William Grant 
 — yea, even from Lord Eidon ! — that boon, which 
 with the same Sir William Grant for mediator and 
 advocate, — at the end of six short months, we 
 have seen them obtaining from Lord Erskine : — 
 the said Sir William Grant being, as per § 4, in 
 quality of patron, in partnership with the said 
 clerks in court.* 
 
 * Since writing; what is in the text, a slight correction has 
 come to hand. Not the whole of John the Second's first reign, 
 only the two last years of it experienced this disturbance. 
 There was an old Sixty-Clerk named Barker who was a fa- 
 vourite at Court, and had his cntra's. Cause of favour, this- — 
 after pining the exact number of years it cost to take Troy, 
 Mr Scot, junior, had formed his determination to pine no 
 longer, when providence sent an angel in the shape of Mr 
 Barker, with the papers of a fat suit and a retaining fee. 
 Him the fellowship constituted for this purpose Minister 
 Plenipotentiary at the Court. Upon an average of the two 
 years, every other day, it was computed, the Minister sought, 
 and as regularly obtained an audience : answer, no less resrular 
 — '* to-morrow." On this occasion, observation was made of 
 a sort of competition in the arena of frugality between the 
 potentate and his quondam protector, now sunk into his hum- 
 
 C 
 
34 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 P. 19. " An attempt in 1801 to reform practice " 
 Whilst Lord Thurlow held the great seal, tables 
 of fees taken by (fjicers in the Court of Chancery 
 remained set up or affixed in their respective of- 
 fices, and the most trifling" gratuity was received 
 with a watchful dubious eye, and cautious hand ; 
 but soon after the great seal was resigned by his 
 lordship, those tables began to disappear, and (in 
 1 822) have never since been renewed : gratuities then 
 augmented, until they had no limits : and so early 
 as the year 1801, when increased fees and costs 
 had attained little of the strength and consistency at 
 which they have since arrived, the Author of these 
 observations stated to the Court " that the corrup- 
 tion of office had become so great, that it was impos- 
 sible for a solicitor to transact his business with pro- 
 priety ;'* to justify such statement he, by petition, 
 set forth certain payments made, which he insisted 
 
 ble friend. Without an extra stock of powder in his hair, 
 never, on a mission of such importance, durst the plenipoten- 
 tiary approach the presence ; consequence, in that article alone. 
 in the course of the two diplomatic years, such an increase of 
 expense, as, though his Excellency was well stricken in years, 
 exceeded, according to the most accurate computation, the 
 aggregate expenditure in that same article, during the whole of 
 his preceding life. 
 
 * " On hearing the case ex-parte Leicester, 6th Vez. jun. 429, 
 where it was said, ' that a practice having prevailed for a series 
 of years, contrary to the terms of an order in Court, and some- 
 times contrary to an Act of Parliament, it is most convenient to 
 suppose some ground appeared to former judges upon which it 
 might be rendered consistent with the practice ; and therefore 
 that it would be better to correct practice in future, not in 
 the particular instance.' Whereas, the Author of these obser- 
 vations thinks that all practice which is contrary to an Act of 
 Parliament, or to the terms of a standing order of Court, ori- 
 ginates in corruption, and ought to be abolished in the parti- 
 cular instance complained of, or when, or however, a practice, 
 at variance with law or order, is first made known to the Court." 
 
§ 10. Chancellor stopt short by a Solicitor. 35 
 
 ought not to have been demanded or received, and 
 prayed for redress; and he wrote a letter to one of 
 the Lord Chancellor's secretaries, in which he stated 
 an opinion, which (until the great charter, and the 
 before-mentioned statutes of King Edward III and 
 King Richard II are repealed,) he is disposed to 
 maintain : and which, (though otherwise advised 
 by his counsel) he then refused to retract.* The 
 petition came on for hearing, and was supported by 
 Mr Mansfield and Mr Romilly, with a spirit, and 
 in a manner, peculiar to those advocates, and satis- 
 factory to the feelings of the petitioner ; and re- 
 sisted by Mr Attorney-General (Sir Spencer 
 Percival) and Mr Richards. 
 
 In vain did Mr Mansfield urge that "gratuity 
 %ras the mother of extortion" and Mr Romilly state 
 the intrepidity of his client. On that occasion, 
 the Author of these observations, who never heard 
 an angry judge give a just judgment, bent beneath 
 a torrent of power and personal abuse. 
 
 On the coming in of a new administration, in the 
 year 1806, the Author of these observations ad- 
 dressed a letter to Lord Erskine, and prepared to 
 further hear his petition ; but he was given to 
 understand, by those who had once applauded his 
 
 * " Mr Mansfield sent for the Author of these observations to 
 his chambers, and there told him, that the Lord Chancellor 
 had expressed displeasure at something said in a letter to his 
 secretary, and advised an apology to be made. In reply, the 
 Author of these observations told his counsel, that he was pre- 
 pared to maintain what he had written, and that he would not 
 make an apology ; and, having read to Mr Mansfield the draft 
 of the letter, Mr Mansfield said that he recollected when Lord 
 Thurlow was made Lord Chancellor, his Lordship had men- 
 tioned to him in conversation, that he had been told that he was 
 entitled to receive some fees, which he doubted his right to 
 take. And Mr Mansfield added, that such fees must have been 
 those alluded to in the letter. 
 
36 Indicatio?is respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 ft 
 efforts,* that a change of men did not change mea- 
 sures ; and since that time the irregular increase of 
 fees and costs has introduced much confusion into 
 the law. 
 
 § XI. Hoiv the other Chiefs were corrupted 
 accordingly. 
 
 As to what regards the Chief of the Exchequer 
 Judicatory, an indication has been seen in § G. 
 As to what regards King's Bench and Common 
 Pleas, the like may be seen in § 12. Invitation, 
 — " Take and eat." Seen it has been and will be, 
 whether there was any backwardness as to accept- 
 ance. 
 
 Forget not that these men were, all of them, his 
 creatures : breath of his nostrils ; sheep of his pas- 
 ture. 
 
 Ǥ XII. How the illegality got ivind : and how 
 Felix trembled. 
 
 Of the spread of the contagion from Chancery 
 to Exchequer, indications were given in § 8 : 
 mention was there made of its having completed 
 the tour of Westminster Hall. What is there said 
 is no more than general intimation : the manner 
 how, comes now to be set forth. 
 
 Anno 1821, lived a broken Botanist and Ex- 
 Nursery-man, named Salisbury. To distinguish 
 him from a namesake of the gentleman-class, Salis- 
 bury minor is the name he goes by among the 
 
 * " The letter to Lord Erskine was delivered to the late Mr 
 Lowton, who had a conversation with the Author of these ob- 
 servations thereon, and Sir Samuel Romilly sent for and had his 
 brief to reconsider." 
 
§ 12. Unrighteousness exposed — Felix trembles. 37 
 
 Fancy. At the end of a series of vicissitudes, he 
 had sunk into one of those sinks of misfortune, 
 in which, to help pamper over-fed judges, debtors 
 are squeezed by jailors, out of the substance that 
 should go to creditors. As from Smithfield an over- 
 driven ox into a china-shop — breaking loose one day 
 from his tormentors, Salisbury minor found means, 
 somehow or other, to break into one of the great 
 Westminster Hall shops ; in which, as often as a 
 demand comes for the article so mis-called justice, 
 bad goods arc so dearly sold to all who can come up 
 to the price, and denied, of course, to those who 
 cannot. The china-shop scene ensued. Surprised 
 and confounded, the shopmen exhibited that sort 
 of derangement, which the French express by loss 
 of head — its ont perdu la tete. Under the notion of 
 defence, confessions came out, which come now to 
 be recorded. 
 
 Anno 1821, Nov. 21.— (The date is material.) 
 Barnewall and Aldcrson's King's Bench Reports, 
 Vol. v. p. 2GG. 
 
 •' IN THE MATTER OF SALISBURY (iN PERSON !) 
 
 " Salisbury in person had obtain a rule nisi, for 
 one of the tipstaffs of the Court, to answer the 
 matters of his affidavit. The affidavit stated, that 
 the tipstaff had taken a fee of half a guinea, for 
 conveying him from the Judge's chambers, (to 
 which he had been brought by habeas corpus) to the 
 King's Bench prison, such fee being more than he 
 had a right to demand, according to the table of 
 fees affixed in the King's Bench, in pursuance of 
 a rule of this court. 
 
 " Gurney and Piatt shewed cause, upon affidavits 
 stating that the fee had been taken for a very long 
 period of time by all tipstaffs in both courts, and that 
 it was allowed by the Master in costs. 
 
38 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 " The Court, however, adverting to the statutes 
 2 Geo. II. c. 22, § 4, and 32 Geo. II. c. 28, § 8, and 
 the rule of court of Michaelmas term, 3 Geo. II. 
 and the table of fees settled in the following year, 
 said, that it was clear, that the tipstaff had no right 
 to take any other fee for taking a prisoner from the 
 Judge's chambers to the King's Bench prison, than 
 six shillings, which was the fee allowed him in 
 that table. They, therefore, ordered the fee so 
 taken to be returned to the complainant."* 
 
 Figure to himself, who can, the explosion. Ban- 
 cum regis shaken, as by an earthquake. Bancam 
 regis in an uproar ! the edifice it had cost Lord 
 Eldon twenty years to rear, laid in ruins. We are 
 above Parliament, had said, as above, Lord Eldon, 
 — " Alas ! no: at the first meeting cried Lord Abbot, 
 I could not for the life of me, keep where you set us. 
 I had not nerve for it. That fellow .... such im- 
 pudence ! who could have thought it ? As to the fees, 
 it is from Parliament, you see, we must have them 
 now, if at all. It may take you some little trouble; 
 but you see how necessary it is, and you will not 
 grudge it" 
 
 This is not in the report ; but it is in the nature 
 of the case, and that is worth a thousand law re- 
 ports, drawn up by toads under harrows. 
 
 Think now of the scene exhibited in and by 
 King's Bench ; — culprit and judge under one hood 
 • — Guilty or not guilty ? — Not guilty ? O yes, if 
 the Master, whose every-day business it is to tax 
 costs, knows not what they are : if the Chief Jus- 
 tice, whose every-day business it is to hear dis- 
 cussions about costs, knows not what they are, or 
 what they ought to be. — See now how the account 
 
 * " See the table of fees in the rules of the King's Bench, 
 p. 241." — Here ends the Report. 
 
12. Unrighteousness exposed — Felix trembles. 39 
 
 stands: — the money account. Of the 10s. 6d. 
 legalized, say 6s. . remains confessed to have been 
 extorted, 4*. 6d. : sub-extortioner's profit, the 
 4s. 6d. : head -extortioner's, the 4*. 6d., minus x : 
 to find the value of x see above, §4, and forget 
 not, any more than Lord Eldon and Lord Abbot 
 forgot, that pounds and thousands of pounds are 
 made of pence and shillings. 
 
 Mark now another sort of account. Case, a 
 criminal one. Co-defendants, had the list been 
 complete, Tipstaff, Master, and Chief Just ice. Had 
 it been as agreeable to punishers to punish them- 
 selves as others, what a rich variety of choice was 
 here ! Motion for imprisonment by attachment, 
 as above : for this is what is meant by answering 
 affidavits: Indictment for extortion, Indictment 
 for corruption, Indictment for conspiracy ; Infor- 
 mation for all or any of the above crimes. 
 
 Mark now the denouement. The case, as above, 
 a criminal one : the crime not punished, but with- 
 out the consent of the sufferer compounded for ; 
 of the fruit of the crime the exact nominal amount 
 ordered to be restored : — not a farthing even given 
 to the hapless master-man by whose sad day's 
 labour thus employed, so much more than the 
 value had been consumed in thus sueing for it : 
 with cost of affidavits several times as much. 
 After seeing in this precedent the utmost he could 
 hope for — what man, by whom like extortion 
 had been suffered from like hands, would ever 
 tax himself to seek redress for it ? Redress — • 
 administered in semblance, denied in substance. 
 With not an exception, unless by accident, such 
 or to an indefinite degree worse, is matchless 
 Constitution's justice ! 
 
 But the punishment? — where was the punish- 
 ment? This is answered already. Had the order 
 
40 Indicatiojis respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 for redress comprised a sixpence beyond the 
 4s. 6d. the inferior malefactor might have turned 
 upon his principal, and the fable of the young 
 thief, who at the gallows bit his mother's ear off, 
 have been realized. Isn't it you that have led 
 me to this? These four and sixpences that I 
 have been pocketing — is there any of them you did 
 not know of! Had it not been for his mishap, 
 would not my place have been made worth so 
 much the more to you, by every one of them? 
 Is there any one of them that did not add to the 
 value of the place you will have to dispose of when 
 I am out of it? Why do you come upon me then? 
 Can't you afford it better than I can ? Pay it 
 yourself. 
 
 But — the two learned Counsel, who thus fought 
 for the As. 6d. —by whom were they employed! by 
 Tipstaff, Master, or Chief Justice ? Not by Tip- 
 staff, surely : seeing that his cause was so much 
 the Chief Justice's, he would not thus have flung 
 away his money : he would not have given six, 
 eight, or ten guineas to save a As. 6d. : these, if 
 any, are among the secrets worth knowing, and 
 which House of Commons will insist on knowing. 
 Insist? — But when? when House of Commons 
 has ceased to be House of Commons. 
 
 Well, then, this four-and-sixpenny tripartite 
 business — is it not extortion? Is it not corrup- 
 tion? If not, still, for argument sake, suppose, 
 on the part of all three learned persons — all or 
 any of them — suppose a real desire to commit 
 either of these crimes ; can imagination present a 
 more effectual mode of doing it? Till this be 
 found, spare yourself, whoever you are, spare 
 yourself all such trouble as that of crying out 
 Shame, Shame! Contempt of Court ! Calumny! 
 Blasphemy ! 
 
§ 12. Unrighteousness exposed — Fdli Irunblcs. 41 
 
 Contempt of Court ? forsooth ! If contempt is 
 ever brought upon such Courts (and, for the 
 good of mankind too much of it cannot be brought 
 upon them) it is not in the telling of such things, 
 but in the doing of them, that the culpable cause 
 will be to be found. 
 
 Here then, we see, were Statutes — here (accord- 
 ing to Lord Eldon's instructions) laid clown -as 
 per § 9, at the outset — here were Rules of 
 Court disposed of in the same way, and at 
 one stroke. Anno 1801, in the first year of 
 his reign — disposed of at one stroke, and in 
 the same way. A liberty which might so 
 easily be taken with Acts of Parliament — hard 
 indeed it would have been, if a Judge might not 
 take it with the Rules of his own Court. Con- 
 formable (we see here exactly) was this opera- 
 tion to the instructions laid down by him, as 
 per § 9, just 20 years before, anno 1801, in the 
 first year of his reign. As to the Rules of Court, 
 it was not in the nature of the case that they 
 should present any additional difficulty ; Rules 
 which, if it were worth the trouble, and would 
 not make too much sensation, he might have 
 repealed in form at any time. 
 
 Be this as it may, here was the exact case, so 
 long ago provided for by Eldonic providence : 
 the case, which, being the principle laid down, with 
 virtual directions given, for the guidance of his 
 next in command, had been made broad enough 
 to fit. " You need not be told (say these direc- 
 tions) how much more obedience-worthy Common 
 is than Statute law : — law of our own making, 
 than any of the law we are forced to receive from 
 Lay-gents. But, though you should find one of 
 our own laws in your way, nay, though with one 
 of their s, you should find in your way one of 
 
42 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 ours to give validity and strength to it — never 
 you mind that ; your business is to make sure 
 of the fees. At the same time, for decency sake, 
 while our underlings, who get more of them 
 than we do, are screwiug them up (and you may 
 trust them for that) you of course will know- 
 nothing of the matter. Should any unpleasant 
 accident happen — such as the having the Table with 
 the lawful fee, in company with the proof of the 
 additional money habitually exacted, bolted out 
 upon you in the face of the public, you will of 
 course be all amazement. Though the thing can 
 never have taken place, but under your own 
 eye — while the prisoner was beginning to be con- 
 ducted from your own chambers, where you had 
 just been examining him — never had you so 
 much as suspected the existence of any such 
 difference." 
 
 As to Lord Abbot, whatever want of disposition 
 on his part there may have been to pay regard 
 to Acts of Parliament, no such want could there 
 have been as to any such instructions as these of 
 Lord Eldon's. But whether it was that he had 
 not got them by heart, or that when the time 
 came to repeat them and apply them to practice, 
 his heart failed him, — so it was — they were not 
 followed : and so, out came the confession that 
 has been seen : the confession in all its nakedness. 
 This is not all ; not more than three years before, 
 this very fee had been taken into consideration 
 by specially-appointed authority, and the 4*. 6d. 
 disallowed. Under the head of ' Tipstaff/ " the 
 Table of 1760" (say certain commissioners, of 
 whom presently) " directs the fee of 6s. to be paid 
 to the Tipstaff that carries any prisoner committed 
 at a Judge's chambers to the King's Bench prison." 
 . . . ." The fee of 10*. Gd. we conceive, to have been 
 
§ 12. Unrighteousness exposed — Felix trembles. 43 
 
 taken in respect of these commitments .... for 
 twenty-five years, and probably longer: but we 
 recommend " that the fee of 6s. only be received 
 in future."* 
 
 Mark now the regard manifested by these 
 commissioners — by these commissioners of Lord 
 Eldon's — for the authority of Parliament. Re- 
 commendation soft as lambskin : of the extor- 
 tion, and contempt of Parliament, impudent as it 
 was, not any the slightest intimation, unless the 
 rotten apology, thus foisted in instead of censure, 
 be regarded as such. Of this recommendation the 
 fruit has been already seen : the fee taken, and for 
 aught that appears uninterruptedly taken, notwith- 
 standing. What? — In all the three intervening years, 
 the Chief Justice, had he never heard of any such 
 recommendation ? never heard a Report, of which 
 his own court, with the fees belonging to it, were 
 the subject? never seen any thing of it? 
 
 And the commissioners ? For what cause dis- 
 allow the 4?. 6d. 9 . — Only because the Act of Par- 
 liament, and the contempt so impudently put upon 
 it, and the extortion and corruption for the purpose 
 of which the contempt was put, had been staring 
 them in the face. Men, who from such hands 
 accept, and in this way execute, such commissions 
 — is not some punishment their due ? Yes surely : 
 therefore here it is. Public — behold their names! 
 1. John Campbell, Esq. Master in Chancery ; — 2. 
 William Alexander, Esq. then Master, now, by the 
 grace of Lord Eldon, Lord Chief Baron of the 
 Exchequer; — 3. William Adams, Doctor of Civil 
 Law; — 4. William Osgood, Esq. — 5. William 
 Walton, Esq. 
 
 * Report printed for the House of Commons — Date of order 
 for printing-, 14th May, 1818.. Sole subject of it: "Duties, 
 salaries, and emoluments as to the Court of Kings Bench." 
 
44 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 Accompanied are these recommendations by 
 certain non-recommendations. From those as to 
 Tipstaffs, reference is made to ditto as to Mar- 
 shal: and there it is, that, after stating (p. 172) 
 that his profit arises chiefly out of two sources, of 
 which (be it not forgotten) the tap is one — with 
 this source before them it is that (after ringing the 
 praises of it) another of their recommendations is 
 — " that this matter be left in the hands of the 
 court to which the prison more immediately be- 
 longs." In plain English, of the Chief Justice, 
 whose interest it is to maximize the profit in all 
 manner of ways, and of whose emoluments they 
 saw a vast portion, rising in proportion to the pro- 
 ductiveness of t Jils source. Throughout the whole 
 of the Report, except for a purpose such as this, 
 not the least symptom of thinking exhibited : "fees- 
 taken so much, we recommend so much ;" such 
 throughout is the product of the united genius of 
 these five scholars of the school of Eldon.* 
 
 See now, Mr. Peel, and in its genuine colours, 
 this fresh fruit of the consistency of your consistent 
 friend. See, in this rich fruit, the effect and cha- 
 racter of his commission. Oppose now, Mr Peel, 
 if you have face for it ; oppose now, Mr. Attorney- 
 General, if you have face for it ; oppose now, Mr. 
 Attorney-General Copley — for neither must your 
 name be covered up — the permitting of the House 
 of Commons to exercise the functions of the House 
 of Commons. 
 
 Oppose now, if you have face for it, " the drag- 
 ging the Judges of the land" before the Catos 
 
 * Report of the Commissioners on the duties, salaries, and 
 emoluments in Courts of Justice; — As to the Court of King's 
 Bench. " Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 
 14th May, 1818." 
 
§13. Corruption established by Parliament. 45 
 
 whom you arc addressing — the tribunal of Parlia- 
 ment. Fear no longer, Mr. Peel, if ever you feared 
 before, the obtaining credence for your assurance 
 — that it was by Lord Eldon his Majesty was ad- 
 vised to commission Lord Eldon to report upon 
 the conduct of Lord Eldon. Mr. Canning — you, 
 who but two years ago — so light in the scale of 
 scntimentalism is public duty weighed against 
 private friendship, (and such friendship !) — you 
 who, so lately uttered the so solemn promise 
 never to give a vote that should cast imputation 
 upon Lord Eldon, watch well, Sir, your time, and 
 when, these imputations having come on, votes 
 come to be given on them, repress then, if pos- 
 sible, your tears, and, wrapping yourself up in 
 your agony, hurry out of the House. 
 
 § XIII. How the Chancellor went to Parliament, 
 a nd got the Corruption established. 
 
 The explosion has been seen. Blown by it into 
 open air, was the scheme of taxing without Par- 
 liament, and in the teeth of Parliament. At the 
 same time, a handle for denunciation was left 
 prominent ; and it has been seen how broad an 
 one : a handle too, which some Williams or other 
 might at any time lay hold of, and give trouble : 
 the trouble which the driver of pigs has with his 
 pigs — the trouble of collecting Honourable Gen- 
 tlemen together, and whistling them in when the 
 question is called for. Delay, therefore, was not 
 now in season. Nov. 21, 1821, was the day on 
 which the breach, as above, was made : a session 
 did not pass without proving for the repair of 
 it: the 10th of June, 1822, is the day on which 
 the first stone was laid ; and how thorough and 
 complete the repair is, remains now to be shown. 
 
40 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 The hand of Parliament being the only applicable 
 instrument, stooping at last to employ it could not 
 but be more or less mortifying to a workman to 
 whom, for so many years, it had been a football. 
 But, to Lord Eldon, the part of the reed is not less 
 familiar than that of the oak ; and what was lost 
 in universally applicable power will be seen gained 
 in ease and tranquillity, reference had to this spe- 
 cial and most valuable use of it. 
 
 Act 22 July 1822, 3 Geo. IV. c. 66. Title, 
 " An Act to enable the Judges of the several 
 Courts of Record at Westminster to make regu- 
 lations respecting the fees of the Officers, Clerks, 
 and Ministers of the said Courts." 
 
 The preamble has been seen : business of it, 
 skinning over the past illegality, section 6. Busi- 
 ness of the first, empowering these same Judges 
 to screw up to a maximum, and without stint, 
 the accustomed fees : of the second, to add any 
 number of new ones ; of the third, making it 
 to this effect, the special duty of all underling 
 to do whatever their masters please : of the 
 fourth, anxiously easing them of the trouble of 
 regulating Solicitors' fees, forasmuch as nothing was 
 to be got by it : of the fifth, providing, as has been 
 and will be seen, for the concealment of the fees as 
 before, should more be to be got at any time by 
 their being concealed than by their being known : 
 of the sixth, which is the last, providing com- 
 pensation for any the smallest fee, which, by 
 accident, should happen to slip out : should any 
 such misfortune ever happen, the losers are not 
 only authorized, but " required,'" to tell " his 
 Majesty' of it. 
 
 For every possible additional duty, an additional 
 feel or batch of fees : Good. In § 14, or elsewhere, 
 it will be seen how it is that, by multiplying such 
 
§13. Corruption established by Parliament. 47 
 
 duties under the rose, equity pace, and equity 
 cost, have been rendered what they are. 
 
 Everything at " discretion :" (§ 1 :) everything 
 as they " shall see Jit :" (§ 1 :) the people of Eng- 
 land, all who have redress to seek for injury from 
 without doors — all who have to defend themselves 
 against any of those injuries of which these same 
 Judges are the instruments — all who have to 
 defend themselves against injuries, the seat of 
 which is in the pretended seat of redress — all 
 who have to defend themselves against the attacks 
 of any of those villains with whom Lord Eldon 
 has thus placed these Judges, together with 
 himself, in partnership — all, all are thus deli- 
 vered up bound, to be plundered in secret, with- 
 out stint or control, hy the hand of these same 
 Judges. Never could more solicitude have been 
 demonstrated : never more appropriate talent, 
 as well as care, expended in satisfying it : so 
 exquisite the work, the most exquisitely mag- 
 nifying microscope might be challenged to bring 
 to view a flaw in it. In the style of English 
 legislation, it may be given as a model : as a study 
 — for a young draughtsman, who, for sections 
 a yard long, looks to be paid at so much a word. 
 The same hand, which, had no better interest than 
 the public's been to be provided for, would have left 
 loop-holes, through which the entire substance 
 of the measure might be extracted, has, in this its 
 darling work, as if by an hermetic seal, closed 
 all such crannies. Could this pamphlet have 
 been made to hold it, I should have copied it, and 
 pointed out the beauties of it. For comprehen- 
 siveness it has but one rival, and that is in the law 
 called Civil Law. Quod principi placuit legis 
 habct vigorcm. For principi, put jitdici, you have 
 
48 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 the Act of English Law — the Act of George the 
 Fourth. 
 
 The enacting part could not be too clear of equi- 
 vocation : and not a particle is to be found in it. 
 The preamble presented an irresistible demand for 
 equivocation ; and here it is. Seen already (in § 5) 
 has been this same preamble, with its essential 
 word effectually. Note here the use of it : it is 
 this. The more effectually to turn men's minds 
 aside from the idea of the illegality, — causing them 
 to suppose, that though nothing had been done but 
 what was legal, strictly legal, yet, to give to what 
 had been done its full effect, legal machinery in 
 some shape or other was needed, in addition to such 
 as learned workmen stood already provided with : 
 and that, to give existence to such additional ma- 
 chinery, was accordingly the object of the Act. 
 Now, the fact is that no such additional machinery 
 does the Act provide or attempt to provide : not 
 an atom of it. What it does, is — easing the hands of 
 the criminals, of whatsoever check they felt applied 
 by the consciousness of their so lately divulged 
 criminality, — thus giving to them the undisturbed 
 power of taxing the people for their own profit, 
 without stint; and, for this purpose, rendering that 
 power which had so long been arbitrary in fact, at 
 length arbitrary by law. 
 
 Remains the clause about keeping the table of 
 fees exposed to view. They are to be " kept 
 hung up" — these tables of fees — " hung up in a 
 conspicuous part of the" room. Good : and while 
 there hung up, what will be the effect of them? 
 The same as of those hung up in virtue of those for- 
 mer statutes of George II, with the King's Bench 
 Rule that followed them. The place they are 
 hung up in, is to be a conspicuous one. Good : 
 
§ 13. Corruption established by Parliament. 49 
 
 but the ch a meters ! of these nothing is said; so 
 that here is a loophole ready made and provided. 
 
 In the above-mentioned case,* which produced 
 the demand for this act, a document, referred to as 
 a ground of the decision, is — a Rule of Court of 
 Michaelmas Term, 3 Geo. II,t and " the Table of 
 Fees settled in the following year." In article 8, 
 of the document intituled " Rules and Orders," 
 &c. mentioned in that same Rule of Court, which 
 without any title, is in Latin, in speaking of the 
 Table of Fees, it is said, that it shall be " fairly 
 written in a plain and legible hand." With this 
 clause lying before him — and he could not but 
 have had it lying before him — with this clause 
 lying before him it is, that the penner of this same 
 Act of Lord Eldon's contents himself with speaking 
 about the place, and says nothing about the hand. 
 
 What the omission had for its cause, whether 
 design or accident, judge, whosoever is free to 
 judge, from the whole complexion of the business. 
 Not that even in this same Rule of Court, with its 
 ** fair and legible hand" there was anything 
 better than the semblance of honesty. Tables of 
 Benefactors to Churches and Parishes — Tables of 
 Turnpike Tolls — were they, even in those days, 
 written in a fair and legible hand! No : they 
 were painted in print hand, as they are still, in 
 black and gold. But, if instead of fair and legible, 
 the characters should come to be microscopic, and 
 as illegible a scrawl as can be found — suppose m 
 the grim-gribber hand called Court hand— a prece- 
 
 * 1821. Barnewell and Alderson, vi. 266. 
 
 t See the book intituled " Rules, Orders, and Notices, in the 
 Court of King's Bench ... to the 21 Geo. II. inclusive." 2nd. 
 edit 1747. Page not referable to, there being no paging in the 
 book! 
 
 D 
 
50 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 dent of this sort will not be among the authorities 
 to be set at nought : this will not be among the 
 cases, in which, according to Lord Eldon's con- 
 sistency, as per page , " It would be more con- 
 sistent to suppose some ground appeared to former 
 Judges, upon which it" (the Act of Parliament, or 
 the Rule of Court, or both) " might be rendered 
 consistent with the practice" — meaning, with the 
 practice carried on in violation of them. 
 
 Lord Eldon s Act, or Th e Eldon Act, should be 
 the style and title of this Act. Precedent, Lord 
 Ellenborough 's Act, — so styled in a late vote paper 
 of Honourable House:* Lord Ellenborough's Act, 
 sole, but sufficient and characteristic, monument, 
 of the legislative care, wisdom, and humanity of 
 that Peer of Parliament, as well as Lord Chief 
 Justice.f 
 
 As to the Chancellor's being the primum mobile 
 of the Act, — only for form's sake, and to antici- 
 pate cavil, can proof in words be necessary. The 
 Bill being a Money Bill, it could not make its first 
 appearance in the House in which Lord Eldon 
 rules these matters by his own hand. The Mem- 
 bers, by whom it was brought into the only com- 
 
 * May 17th, 1825. 
 
 f Note, that "effectually," as all future corruption is sanc- 
 tioned, nothing is said of any that is past. If, in the situation 
 in question, the word responsibility were anything better than 
 a mockery, the fate of Lord Macclesfield — and on so much 
 stronger grounds — would await Lord Eldon, his instruments, 
 and accomplices. But, forasmuch as all such responsibility is a 
 mere mockery, the only practical and practicable course would 
 be — for some Member (Mr John Williams, for example,) to 
 move for a Bill of Indemnity for them : which motion, to prove 
 the needlessness of it, would call forth another stream of Mr 
 Peel's eloquence : a reply might afford no bad occasion for 
 Whig wigs, could a decent cloak be found for their departed 
 saint. 
 
§ 14. Swindling connived at, and profited by. 51 
 
 petent House, were the two Law Officers : and that, 
 by these two official persons, any such Bill could, 
 consistently either with usage or propriety, have 
 been brought in otherwise than under the direction 
 of the Head of the Law, will not be affirmed by any 
 one. The Act, then, was LORD ELDON'S Act. 
 
 § XIV. How the Head of the Law, seeing Swindling 
 at work, continued it, and took his profit out of it. 
 
 Swindling is an intelligible word : it is used here 
 for shortness, and because familiar to everybody. 
 Look closely, and see whether, on this occasion, it 
 is in any the slightest degree misapplied. 
 
 By statute 30 Geo. II, c. 24. § 1 : •■ All persons 
 who knowingly or designedly, by false pretence, or 
 pretences, shall obtain from any person, or persons, 
 money .... with intent to cheat or defraud any 
 person, or persons, of the same, . . . shall be fined or 
 imprisoned, or ... be put in the pillory, or publicly 
 whipped, or transported . . . for . . . seven years.'''* 
 
 1 . All persons, says the Act. If then a Master 
 in Chancery, so comporting himself as above, is not 
 a person, he is not a swindler : if he it a person, 
 he is. 
 
 2. And so, in the case of a Commissiofier of 
 
 * Let it not be said, that to come within this Act it is neces- 
 sary a man should have proposed to himself the pleasure of 
 being, or of being called, a cheat ; the man the Act means, if 
 it means any man, is he who, on obtaining the money by any 
 false pretence, intends to convert it to his own use. Instead 
 of the words cheat and defraud, words which, — and not the 
 less for being so familiar — require a definition, better would 
 it have been, if a definition such as the above had been em- 
 ployed. But logic is an utter stranger to the Statute-book, and 
 without any such help from it as is here endeavoured to be 
 given, the Act has been constantly receiving the above interpre- 
 tation in practice. 
 
52 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 Bankrupt?, if any one there be who has so com- 
 ported himself. 
 
 3. So likewise in the case of any other function- 
 ary, holding an office under Lord Eldon. 
 
 4. So likewise in the case of every Barrister, 
 practising in any of the Courts in or over which 
 Lord Eldon is Judge : in the case of every such 
 Barrister, if so comporting himself. 
 
 5. Add every Solicitor. 
 
 If, however, it is true, as indicated in the sam- 
 ples given in § 2, that in the case of the Solicitor, 
 in respect of what he does in this way, he is, by 
 the subordinate Judge (the aforesaid Master) not 
 only to a great extent allowed, but at the same 
 time to a certain extent compelled, — here, in his 
 case, is no inconsiderable alleviation : in the guilt 
 of the official, that of the non -official malefactors 
 is eclipsed, and in a manner swallowed^ up and 
 drowned. 
 
 So far as regards Masters in Chancery, to judge 
 whether, among those same subordinate Judges 
 under Lord Eldon, there be any such person as a 
 sw'mdler, and if so, what number of such persons, 
 see the sample given in § 2. 
 
 Same question as to Commissioners of Bank- 
 rupts, concerning whom, except as follows, it has 
 not as yet been my fortune to meet with any indi- 
 cations. Lists of these Commissioners, 14: in each 
 list, 5 : all creatures, all removable creatures — 
 accordingly, all so many virtual pensioners during 
 pleasure — of Lord Eldon. Further subject of en- 
 quiry, whether these °roupes likewise be, or be 
 not, so many gangs of his learned swindlers. 
 
 Indication from the Morniny Chronicle, Friday, 
 April 15, 1825. 
 
 At a Common Council, Thursday, April 14, 
 
§14. Swindling; connived at, and profiled by. 53 
 
 Information given by Mr Favel. Appointment 
 made by list 2 of these Commissioners, for proof 
 of debts in a certain case : hour appointed, that 
 from 12 to 1 : Commissioners named in the instru- 
 ment of appointment, Messrs. Glynn, Whitmorc, 
 and Mr M. P. Horace Tiviss. Attendance by Mr 
 Glynn, none: by Mr Whitmore, as little: conse- 
 quence, nothing- done : by Mr Horace Tiviss, an 
 hour and a half after the commencement of the 
 appointed lime, half an hour after the termination 
 of it, a call made at the place. Had he even been 
 in attendance from the commencement of the time, 
 instead of stepping in half an hour after the ter- 
 mination of it, still, Commissioners more than one 
 not being present, no business could (it seems) 
 have been done. To what purpose, then, came 
 he when he did, unless it was to make a title to 
 the attendance-fee ? Moreover, for this non- 
 attendance of theirs, Messrs Glynn and Whitmorc, 
 have thev received their attendance fees ? If so, 
 let them prove, if they can, that they are not 
 swindlers. Mr Horace Tiviss, who does not attend 
 any part of the time, but steps in half an hour 
 after, when his coming cannot answer the purpose, 
 has he received for that day any attendance fee? 
 If so, then comes the same task for him to perform. 
 Mr FaveCs candour supposes some excuse may 
 be made for Mr Tiviss : if so, a very lame one it 
 will be. An option he should have had to make, 
 is, to do his duty as a Commissioner of Bankrupts, 
 and not be a Member of Parliament, or do his duty 
 as a Member of Parliament (oh, ridiculous f) and 
 not be a Commissioner of Bankrupts : — a Com- 
 missioner of Bankrupts, and, as such, one of Lord 
 Eldon's pensioners. Convinced by his commis- 
 sionership of the immaculateness of his patron, 
 Commissioner makes a speech for patron, much, 
 
54 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 no doubt, to the satisfaction of both. Should a 
 Committee be appointed to inquire into Chancery 
 practice, there, Mr Peel, there, in Mr Twiss, you 
 have a Chairman for it. 
 
 Meantime, suppose, for argument sake, Mr 
 Twiss comporting himself in any such manner as 
 to give just cause of complaint against him — be 
 the case ever so serious — to what person, who had 
 any command over his temper, would it appear 
 worth while to make any such complaint ? To 
 judge whether it would, let him put the question 
 to Mr Lowe, as per § 10. 
 
 These men — or some (and which?) of them — 
 being so many swindlers, — he who, knowing them 
 to be so, protects them in such their practices, and 
 shares with them — with all of them — in their pro- 
 Jits, what is he ? Is not he too either a swindler, 
 or, if distinguishable, something still worse ? If, 
 with strict grammatical or legal propriety, he can- 
 not be denominated a receiver of stolen goods, — 
 still, the relation borne by him to these swindlers, 
 is it not exactly that which the receiver of stolen 
 goods bears to the thief 1 Masters in Chancery, 
 10 : Commissioners of Bankrupts, 90 ; together, 
 100 ; and, upon the booty made by every one 
 of them, if any, who is a swindler, does this 
 receiver of a portion of their respective gains make 
 his profit : these same swindlers, every one of them, 
 made by him what they are. — Stop ! Between the 
 two sorts of receivers, — the thief-breeding and the 
 swindler-breeding receivers, — one difference, it is 
 true, there is. The thief-breeder, though, in so far 
 as in his power he gives concealment to his confe- 
 derates, he does not, because he cannot, give them 
 impunity : whereas, the swindler-breeding receiver, 
 seeing that he can, gives both. 
 
 Masters in Chancery — creatures of this same 
 
§ 14. Swindling connived at, and profited by . 55 
 
 creator, almost all, if not all of them— is there so 
 much as one of them who is not a swindler ? an 
 habitual swindler? Say no, if you can, Lord 
 Eldon ! Say no, if you can, Mr Secretary Peel ! 
 Deny, if you can, that your Mentor is in partner- 
 ship with all these swindlers. Deny it, if you can, 
 that, out of those who have accepted from him the 
 appointment of reporting him blameless, two are 
 of the number of these same swindlers ! 
 
 " Oh ! but," by one of his hundred mouth- 
 pieces, cries Lord Eldon, " nothing has he ever 
 known of all this : nothing, except in those in- 
 stances in which his just displeasure at it has well 
 been manifested. Whatever there be that is amiss, 
 never has been wanting the desire to rectify it — 
 the anxious desire .... But the task ! think what 
 a task ! think too of the leisure, the quantity 
 of leisure necessary ! necessary, and to a man who 
 knows not what it is to have leisure ! Then the 
 wisdom ! the consummate wisdom ! the recon- 
 dite, the boundless learning ! Alas ! what more 
 easy than for the malevolent and the foolish to be- 
 sputter with their slaver the virtuous and the 
 wise!" 
 
 Not know of it indeed ? Oh hypocrisy ! hypo- 
 crisy ! The keeper of a house of ill-fame ... to 
 support an indictment against him, is it necessary 
 that everything done in his house should have 
 been done in his actual presence? Ask any bar- 
 rister, or rather ask any solicitor, whom retirement 
 has saved from the Chancellor's prospect-destroy- 
 ing power — ask him, whether it be in the nature 
 of the case, that of all the modes in which depre- 
 dation has been practising in any of his courts, 
 there should have been so much as one, that can 
 ever have been a secret to him ? 
 
 No time for it, indeed ! Of the particular time 
 
56 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 and words, employed by him in talking backwards 
 and forwards, in addition to the already so elabo- 
 rately-organized general mass, as if to make delay 
 and pretences for it, a thousandth — a ten thou- 
 sandth part — would have served an honest man 
 anywhere for a reform : a reform, which, how far 
 soever from complete, would suffice for striking 
 off two-thirds of the existing mass, and who can 
 say how much more ? 
 
 Have you any doubt of this, Mr Peel ? — accept 
 then a few samples. 
 
 1. Reform the first. (Directed to the proper 
 person.) Order in these words. Charge for no 
 more days than you attend. Number of words, eight. 
 At the Master's office off go two-thirds of the 
 whole delay, and with it of the expense. 
 
 2. Reform the second. Text. On every attend- 
 ance-day attend ten hours. Paraphrase. Attend 
 these ten, instead of the five, four, or three, on 
 which you attend now. For your emolument, 
 with the vast power attached to it, give the attend- 
 ance which so many thousand other official per- 
 sons would rejoice to give for a twentieth part 
 of it. 
 
 3. A third reform. In the year there are twelve 
 months: serve in every one of them. Months ex- 
 cepted for vacation, those in which no wrong that 
 requires redress is practised anywhere. 
 
 4. A fourth reform. You are one person : any 
 clerk of your's, another. The business of any clerk 
 of your's is to serve with you, not for you. Serving 
 by another is not serving, but swindling. 
 
 Small as is the number of words in the above 
 proposed Orders, anybody may see how many 
 more of them there are than are strictly needful 
 to the purpose of directing what it is desired shall 
 be done. 
 
§ 14. Swindling connived at, and profited by. 57 
 
 Numerous are the reforms that might be added : 
 all of them thus simple ; many of them still more 
 concisely expressible. 
 
 Oh, but the learning necessary ! the recondite 
 lore ! fruit of mother Blackstone's twice twenty 
 years' lucubrations ! Learning indeed ? Of all 
 the reforms that have been seen, is there a single 
 one that would require more learning than is pos- 
 sessed by his lordship's housekeeper, if he has one, 
 or any one of his housemaids ? 
 
 Wisdom necessary for anything of all this? Oh 
 hypocrites ! nothing but the most common of all 
 common honesty. 
 
 Of those whom, because unsuccessful, poor, 
 and powerless, men are in the habit of calling 
 swindlers, the seat — that of many of them at least 
 — is in the hulks : of those hereby supposed 
 swindlers, whom, because rich and powerful, no 
 man till now has ever called swindlers — the seat — 
 the seat of ten of them at least — is in the House of 
 Lords. As between the one class and the other, 
 would you know in which, when the principle of 
 legitimacy has given way to the' grcatest-happiness- 
 priuciple, public indignation will press with se- 
 verest weight ? Set them against one another in 
 the balance. 
 
 1 . Quantity of miscliicf produced ? is that among 
 the articles to be put into the scale ? 
 
 Nothing, in comparison, the mischief of the se- 
 cond order : nothing the alarm produced by the 
 offence of him whose seat is in the hulks. Against 
 all such offences, each man bears what, in his own 
 estimation, is little less than an adequate security 
 — his own prudence : a circumstance by which 
 the swindler is distinguished, to his advantage, from 
 the thief No man can, for a moment, so much 
 as fancy himself secure against the hand of the 
 
58 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 swindler, if any such there be, whose seat is in 
 the House of Lords. United in that irresistible 
 hand, are the powers of fraud and force. Force is 
 the power applied to the victim ; fraud, the power 
 applied to the mind of the public ; applied as, 
 with but too much success, it has been hitherto, 
 to the purpose of engaging it to look on unmoved, 
 while depredation, in one of its most shameless 
 shapes, is exercised under the name of justice. 
 
 2. Premeditatedness — is it not in possession 
 of being regarded as operating in extenuation of 
 moral guilt? deliberateness, as an aggravation? de- 
 liberateness, does it not, in case of homicide, make 
 to the offender the difference between death and 
 life, under the laws of blood so dear to Hon- 
 ourable Gentlemen — Noble Lords, and Learned 
 Judges? Of those swindlers, whose seat is in the 
 hulks, how many may there not be, whose delin- 
 quency may have been the result of a hasty thought 
 begotten by the craving of the moment ? Answer 
 and then say — of the swindler, if any such there be, 
 whose seat is in the House of Lords, the offence 
 is it not the deliberate, the regularly repeated, the 
 daily repeated, the authentically recorded practice ? 
 
 3. Quantity of profit made — is that among the 
 circumstances that influence the magnitude of the 
 crime ? For every penny made by the swindler 
 whose seat is in the hulks, the swindler, if any, 
 whose seat is in the House of Lords, makes 6s. 8d. 
 six-and-eight-pence ? aye, six-and-eight-pences in 
 multitudes. 
 
 4. Indigence — is it not in possession of being 
 regarded as operating in extenuation of moral guilt ? 
 all have it of those whose seat is in the hulks. No 
 such extenuation, but on the contrary, the opposite 
 aggravation have they, if any, whose seat is in the 
 House of Lords. 
 
§14. Swindling connived at, and profited by. 59 
 
 5. lined ucatcd?icss — is it not in possession of be- 
 ing regarded as operating in extenuation of moral 
 guilt? Goodness of education, or, at least, the 
 means of it, as an aggravation? The exteuuation, 
 you have in the case of those whose seat is in the 
 hulks : the aggravation, in the case of those, if any, 
 whose scat is in the House of Lords. 
 
 5. Multitude of the offenders — does that oblite- 
 rate the crime? Go then to the hulks and fetch 
 the swindlers who serve there, to sit with their 
 fellows, if such there be, who serve in the House 
 of Lords. 
 
 (J. Long continuance of the practice — is it in 
 the nature of that circumstance to obliterate the 
 crime ? Much longer have there been swindlers 
 out of the Master's office than there can have been 
 in it. The earliest on record are those who 
 "spoiled the Egyptians:" but with them it was 
 all pure fraud : no force was added to it. 
 
 Learning — appropriate learning — of demand for 
 this endowment, assuredly there is no want : and 
 not only for this, which every lawyer speaks of, 
 but for original and originating genius — an endow- 
 ment which no lawyer ever speaks of. Adding 
 to the mass in the Augean Stable, every ox had 
 wisdom enough for : every ox that ever was put 
 into it: to employ a river in the cleansing of it, 
 required, not the muscle, but the genius of a Her- 
 cules. 
 
 Wisdom ? Yes, indeed : but of what sort? Not 
 that which is identical with, but that which is 
 opposite to, Lord Eldon's. Years spent in the 
 pursuit of those which we have seen to be the 
 actual ends of judicature, four-and-twenty. True : 
 but by every year thus spent, a man will have 
 been rendered, not the more, but so much the less 
 apt, for pursuing the ends of justice. Lord Eldon 
 
60 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 serve the ends of justice? He knows not even 
 what they are. Ask him what they are —at the 
 end of half an hour employed in talking backwards 
 and forwards, he will conclude with his speech 
 in Ex-parte Leicester, and the passage that has 
 been seen in it. Ask what are the ends of justice? 
 — Thirty paces are more than I need go, to see boys 
 in number, any one of whom, when the question 
 had found him mute, or worse than mute, could 
 answer and take his place. 
 
 Yes : in that man, in whom the will has been 
 vitiated as his has been, the understanding — sure 
 as death — has been vitiated along with it. Should 
 a pericranium such as his ever meet the hand or eye 
 of a Gall or a Spurtzheim, they will find the organ 
 of justice obliterated, and the organ of chicane, — 
 a process from their organ of theft grown up in the 
 place of it.* 
 
 * How to grant licence under the guise of censure : 
 
 Extract from the Examiner, Nov. 7, 1824 :— 
 " The Six Clerks. — In the Court of Chancery, on Monday, 
 the following conversation occurred. An affidavit having been 
 handed to the Lord Chancellor, his Lordship asked, * What 
 is the meaning of " Agent to a Six-Clerk," which I see there? 
 What is his business?' — Mr Hart's client stated, that the 
 Agent was a person who manages the business for a Six-Clerk. 
 — Lord Chancellor: • And what does the Six-Clerk himself?' 
 — Solicitor: 'Attends the Master.' — Lord Chancellor: 'Then 
 lie is entirely out of the business of his own office : he does 
 nothing in it ?' — Solicitor: 'Nothing, my Lord.' — The Lord 
 Chancellor (after a pause): ' When I came into this Court, 
 the Six-Clerks were the most efficient Solicitors in the Court 
 of Chancery. Some of the most eminent Solicitors were Clerks 
 of that class, and used to transact their business, and draw up 
 minutes with such ability, that we had few or no motions to 
 vary minutes. But now the Six-Clerk abandons his business 
 to a person who knows nothing at all about it. 'Tis no won- 
 der then that delays have crept into the practice, which we 
 formerly knew nothing of. However, before it proceeds fur- 
 
§15. Swindling connived at, and pr<fited by. 61 
 
 If I misrccollect not, this section lias been re- 
 ferred to for something to be said, as to the profit ca- 
 pable of being derived from the source here spoken 
 of: if so, the reader's indulgence must be trusted 
 to for a respite, till the entire of the Judges' Salary- 
 raising measure has been found ripe for a view to 
 be taken of it. 
 
 § XV. How King Georgfs Judges improved upon 
 the precedent .set by King Charles's in the ease 
 of Ship-money. See above, §9. 
 
 The improvement was an altogether simple one. 
 The pocket, which received the produce of the tax 
 imposed by King Charles's judges, was the King's. 
 The pocket, which received and receives the pro- 
 
 ther, I'll take care that Solicitors in this Court shall be obliged 
 to transact their business in person.'" 
 
 4 When I came into this Court:' that is to say, four-and- 
 twenty years ago. Good, my Lord, and where have you been 
 evrr since? Incessant, have been such threats: constant the 
 execution of them with the same punctuality as in this case. 
 What Solicitor, what Barrister, is there, that does not under- 
 stand this? Who that does not know, that, where official 
 depredation is concerned, what in English is a threat, is in 
 Eldonish a licence ? 
 
 When, as per sample in § 2, page , 700Z. was exacted in 
 reduction of a demand of we know not how much more, for 
 office copies of a Particular of Sale — office copies for which 
 there was as much need, as for those which, according to the 
 story, were once taken of the Bible— on that occasion was 
 there any of this vapouring? Silent as a mouse was this 
 Aristidos, who could not endure the existence of the harmless 
 Agent, whose agency consisted in looking over the books, to 
 see that his employers, the Six Drones, were not defrauded of 
 the pcr-centage due to them from the labours of the Sixty 
 working-bees. But this summer-up of six-and-eightpences 
 was an intruder. Lord Eldon's patronage was not increased 
 by him, while official secrets were open to him. Such was 
 his offence. 
 
62 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 duce of the tax imposed by King George's Judges, 
 was and is their own. 
 
 Now for consistency — now for the use of this 
 same principle as a precedent : a precedent set, and 
 with this improvement, in the seats and sources of 
 what is called justice, and thence offered to the 
 adoption of the other departments. But what ap- 
 plies to this purpose will be better understood 
 when the consummation given to the system by 
 the pending measure comes to be brought to view. 
 
 What they did, they contented themselves with 
 doing, as it were, by the side of Parliament: giving 
 indeed their sanction to the operations of an au- 
 thority acting without Parliament, — but not, of 
 their own authority, taking upon themselves to 
 obstruct and frustrate the operations of Parliament. 
 Never did they levy war against the authority of 
 Parliament. Never did they make known by ex- 
 press terms, that whatever Parliament had ordained 
 should, as they pleased, go for anything or for 
 nothing. Never did they adjourn obedience sine 
 die. Never did they say — " A practice having 
 prevailed . . . contrary to an Act of Parliament . . . 
 it would be better to correct it in future not in that 
 particular instance.''* 
 
 $ XVI. How to be consistent, and complete the Ap- 
 plication of the Self-serving Principle. 
 
 Now as to consistency. You, Lord Eldon, you 
 who practice consistency, — you, Mr Peel, you who 
 admire it, — go on as you have begun. Assisted 
 by your official instruments, you have planted in 
 the statute-book, after having established it in 
 practice, the self-serving, the self-corrupting, the 
 
 * Lord Eldon, in vi. Vcsey, jun. p. 433, as above, p. 
 
§ 16. How to wiiversalize the Self -paying Principle. G3 
 
 self-gorging principle. You have rooted it in one 
 department : plant off-sets from it in the others. 
 You have covered witli it the field of Justice : go 
 on with it, and cover with it the field of force. 
 
 Repair, in the first place, the ravage so lately 
 made by the fabled dry-rot ; that dry-rot which, 
 not content with timber, rotted the china and the 
 glasses. Give to the Duke of York the power of 
 settling the pay of his subordinates, and levying, 
 by his own order, the amount of it. . . . What ! do 
 you hesitate ? Not to speak of loyalty, all pretence 
 then to consistency is at an end with you. Dig- 
 nity is, in your creed, the one thing needful : your 
 judges are brimful of it, at least if it be in the 
 power of gold to make them so. So far, " every- 
 thing is as it should be." But the Commander- 
 in-chief — not to speak of the Heir to the Crown — 
 has he not, in his situation, demand enough for 
 plenitude of dignity ? And forasmuch as, in your 
 mathematics, Mr Robinson — applied to adminis- 
 tration of justice, aptitude is as dignity,* — say, if 
 you can, how the same proposition should fail 
 when applied to the still more dignified function of 
 wielding military force? 
 
 Apply it next to the Navy. For the benefit of 
 Lord Melville and his Croker, give legality to 
 
 • In Mr Robinson's speech of 16th May 1825, as per Globe 
 and Traveller of the next day, no less than ten times (for they 
 have been counted) was this ratio assumed in the character of 
 a ■postulate: assumed by the Finance Master, and by his scho- 
 lars, nemine contradicente, acknowledged in that character: 
 every one of them, for self, sons, daughters' husbands, or 
 other et cceteras, panting, even as the hart panteth after the 
 water-brooks, for the benefit of it. Number of repetitions, 
 ten exactly ; for Mr Robinson had not forgot his Horace — 
 with his decus repctitu placebunt. 
 
G4 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 ship-money, as, for the benefit of Lord Eldon and 
 his Abbott, you have given it to extortion and 
 denial of justice. Legalizing that mode of supply, 
 now in the 19th century, you will add to it the 
 improvements you have found for it in your own 
 genius and your own age. You will not, as did 
 the creatures of Charles I, make the faux pas of 
 putting the produce into the King's pocket. No ; 
 you will remember what that experiment cost his 
 Majesty's predecessor. You will, if you can get 
 leave of envy, — you will put it into the pockets of 
 Lord Melville, Mr Croker, and their friends, and 
 thus, in the navy department likewise, " will every- 
 thing be as it should he." 
 
 Rhetoric and fallacy all this (says somebody). 
 Fallacy? — Not it, indeed : nothing but the plainest 
 common sense. Suffer not yourself to be blinded 
 by one of those fallacies which timidity and self- 
 distrust are so ready to oppose to indisputable truth. 
 Say not to yourself, all this is strong, therefore 
 none of it is true. 
 
 What I do not say is that, in the two supposed 
 cases, the mischief of the application is as great as 
 in the real one, 
 
 What I do say is, that the principle would not 
 be different. The principle different ? no : nor the 
 course taken more palpably indefensible. 
 
 § XVII. How Lord Eldon planned and established, 
 by Act of Parliament, a Joint Stock Company, 
 composed of the Westminster Hall Chiefs, and 
 dishonest Men of all Classes. 
 
 In general, Joint-stock Companies are no favour- 
 ites with Lord Eldon ; but general rules have their 
 exceptions. 
 
 That between dishonest men of all classes, 
 
§ 17. Joint-stock Company, Eldon and Co. 65 
 
 Judges taking payment to themselves out of a fund 
 common to both, the strictest community of inte- 
 rest has place, has been proved, if anything was 
 ever proved, over and over. A tax, into what 
 pocket soever the money goes, cannot be imposed 
 on judicial pursuit, but, to all who cannot advance 
 the money, justice is denied, and all those who 
 fail to do what has thus been rendered impos- 
 sible to them, are delivered over to injury in all 
 shapes, at the hands of all persons who are dis- 
 honest enough to take advantage of the licence so 
 held out. A tax, into what pocket soever the 
 money goes, cannot be imposed on the necessary 
 means of judicial defence, but it offers, to all 
 who can advance the money, and are dishonest 
 enough to accept the offer, an instrument, where- 
 with, by the power of the Judges, yet without 
 their appearing to know anything of the use thus 
 made of it, injury, in almost every imaginable 
 shape, may be inflicted, — inflicted with certainty 
 and impunity, and the correspondent sinister profit 
 reaped, at the charge of all those who are not able 
 to purchase the use of that same instrument for 
 their defence. Thus, in so far as the produce of 
 the exaction goes into the Judge's pocket, the 
 interest of the dishonest man cannot, in either of 
 those his situations, as above, be served, but the 
 interest of the Judge is served along with it. 
 
 Of a partnership contract, whatever else be 
 among its objects, one object, as well as effect, is 
 the establishing a community of interest between 
 the several members : and, if the persons acting 
 so described are not dishonest ; and if, between 
 them and the Judge in question, a community of 
 interest is not formed ; let any one say, who thinks 
 he can, in what more indisputable way it is in the 
 power of man to be dishonest ; and whether, between 
 
 E 
 
GO Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 such a set of men and a set of dishonest Judges, it 
 would be possible for a community of sinister in- 
 terest to be formed. 
 
 Not less difficult will it be found to say, how 
 any man, Judge or not Judge, can fail to be dis- 
 honest, who, receiving money in proportion, con- 
 sents, and with his eyes open, to the habitual pro- 
 motion and production of injury in all imaginable 
 shapes, in both or either of the situations described 
 as above. 
 
 True it is that, in general, Joint-stock Com- 
 panies, any at least that can be named on the same 
 day with this for magnitude, have not been formed 
 without a charter : and that, on the occasion here 
 in question, no charter has been employed. Not 
 less true is it, that in the establishment of other 
 Joint-stock Companies, the power of Parliament 
 has been employed ; and that, in the establishment 
 of the Joint-stock Company in question, that hand, 
 so superior to all morality, has, in the manner 
 shown in § 13, most diligently and effectually 
 been employed. In the concession of a charter, 
 the hand of the Chancellor is regularly employed : 
 and, in the passing of the Acts of Parliament in 
 question, it has been shown, how that same learned 
 hand has not been less primarily and effectually 
 employed. 
 
 Such being the 'partnership, now as to the terms 
 of it. A species of partnership as well known as 
 any other is, — A. finds money; B. skill and la- 
 bour. Of the partnership here in question, such 
 are the terms. 
 
 Head of the firm, beyond all dispute, Lord El- 
 don. Found by him, in by far the greatest abund- 
 ance, skill, labour, power, and example. Looked 
 for by him, and received accordingly, profit in 
 correspondent abundance. Behold then, the firm 
 
§ 17. Joint-stock Company, Eldon and Co. 67 
 
 of Eldon and Co. By what other name can the 
 firm, with any tolerable degree of propriety, be 
 denominated ? 
 
 Apprized of the existence of this partnership, 
 Judge and Co. is the denomination by which, for 
 I forget what length of time — some thirty or forty 
 years probably — in print as well as in conversation, 
 I have been in the habit of designating it : not a 
 pen, not a voice having ever raised itself to con- 
 trovert this undeniable truth. But though esta- 
 blished by intrinsic power — by that power which 
 is so much in the habit of setting at nought that of 
 Parliament — never till Lord Eldon stood up, and 
 with so much ease carried the matter through as 
 above, was this Coryphaeus of Joint-stock Compa- 
 nies established by an express Act of Parliament. 
 
 One all-embracing and undeniable truth, when 
 the public mind is sufficiently familiarized with it, 
 will remove doubts and difficulties in abundance ; 
 it will serve as a key to everything, that, in this 
 country, has ever been done in the field of judicial 
 procedure. From the Norman conquest down to 
 the present time, diametrically opposite to the 
 ends of justice have been the actual ends of judi- 
 cature : judicial establishment and judicial pro- 
 cedure included, but more especially judicial pro- 
 cedure. Paid, as Judges have been, by fees, — 
 paid by taxes, the produce of which has all along 
 been liable to be augmented, and been augmented 
 accordingly by themselves, at no time could the 
 system have been in any better state. Suppose 
 that in those their situations, and that in the most 
 barbarous times, Judges would have for the end of 
 action the happiness of suitors ? — As well might 
 you suppose that it is for the happiness of negroes 
 that planters have all along been flogging negroes ; 
 for the good of Hindoos that the Leadenhall 
 
68 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 Street Proprietors have all along been squeezing 
 and excoriating the sixty or a hundred millions of 
 Hindoos. 
 
 § 18. How the King's Chancellor exercised a 
 dispensing Power. 
 
 To those who have read ^§ 9 and 10, or § 9 alone, 
 this can be no news. But of the nature and mag- 
 nitude of the dispensing power thus assumed and 
 exercised by Lord Eldon, conception may be 
 helped by a few words more. 
 
 James the Second and his advisers operated 
 openly and rashly. Prerogative in hand, they ran 
 a-tilt against Parliament law. Lord Eldon was 
 Lord Eldon. In a cause of no expectation, out of 
 sight of all lay-gents, — out of sight of all men but 
 his co-partners in the firm, of which he is the 
 head.; he laid down the fundamental principle. 
 When, under a so unexpected opposition, his good 
 humour, habitual and pre-eminent as it is, forgot 
 itself for awhile, — not so his prudence. Taking 
 instruction from the adversary, he made a full stop : 
 nor, till the impediment ceased, could he be made 
 to move a step, by all the importunity we have 
 seen employed, in the endeavour to urge him on 
 towards the consummation of his own schemes. 
 
 Still out of the sight of lay-gents, when on the 
 cessation of the interregnum, he remounted the 
 throne, and, like Louis XVIII, reaped the benefit 
 of whatever had been done for the consolidation 
 of it by the usurper, — the obstructor, persevering 
 as we have seen him, being for the time dispirited 
 by the rebuff received from Lord Erskine, under 
 the tuition of the learned Jack-of-both-sides,- — 
 still, he imposed not any fresh tax, contenting 
 himself with increasing — in the manner and to the 
 
§ 18. Dispensing Power exercised § improved upon. 60 
 
 extent, samples of which have been seen in § 2 — 
 the produce of those he found established. Nor 
 was this the whole of his labour or of his success : 
 for we have seen how (still out of sight of the lay- 
 gents) at times and in ways altogether invisible 
 to unlearned eyes (at what tables and over what 
 bottles, must be left to imagination) he had suc- 
 ceeded in completely impregnating his Westmin- 
 ster Hall creatures, and, in their several Judica- 
 tories, giving complete establishment to his plan, 
 as well in principle as in practice. 
 
 Then again, when another unexpectable mishap 
 befel him, and the webs, which the united strength 
 of so many learned spiders had, for such a length 
 of time, been employed in weaving, were broken 
 through and demolished altogether by the irrup- 
 tion of one poor hunted fly, — even this shock, 
 severe as it could not but be, did not make him 
 relinquish his high purpose. Bold, where boldness 
 was requisite, pliant where pliancy, all the sacrifice 
 it brought him to was — the accepting from Parlia- 
 ment, and that too with improvement, the con- 
 summation of the ambitious and rapacious plan, 
 at the commencement of which the nature of the 
 case had obliged him to act, though with all pru- 
 dent and practicable secrecy, against Parliament. 
 
 Thus much as to the mode — now as to effect : 
 and the extent given to it. James the Second, 
 with his dispensing power, placed a catholic priest 
 in the Privy Council, and a catholic or no less 
 obsequious protestant fellow, in an Oxford col- 
 lege. John the Second gave the dispensing power 
 not only to himself but to all his underlings, co- 
 vering thus, with a so much more profitable power, 
 the whole field of judicature. 
 
70 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 §XIX. Character Evidence. 
 
 Against specific indications such as these, Ho- 
 nourable House and the Old Bailey receive a sort 
 of evidence, which is neither quite so easily ob- 
 tained, nor quite so efficient when obtained, in the 
 Old Bailey as in Honourable House. It may be 
 called, and, for aught I know, is called, character 
 evidence. Quantity, in pretty exact proportion to 
 that of the hope and fear, of which he, who is the 
 subject of it, is the object. Quality, determined by 
 the same causes. Colours, two — white and black. 
 
 But for my old friend Mr Butler, no such evi- 
 dence as this would have been offered — no such 
 section as this have been written. Nor yet, if in 
 the laud heaped up by him upon Lord Eldon, he 
 had contented himself with using his own hand. 
 But the hand, to which he has assigned this task, 
 is the hand of Romilly : that confidence-com- 
 manding and uncontradictable hand, which for 
 this purpose, resurrection-man like, he has ravished 
 from the tomb. 
 
 Having, in the course of between thirty and 
 forty years' intimacy, been in the habit of hearing 
 sentiments of so widely different a tendency, on 
 every occasion, delivered in relation to this same 
 person, — silence, on an occasion such as the pre- 
 sent, would have been so little distinguishable 
 from assent, that I could not sit easy without 
 defending myself against what might otherwise 
 have appeared a contradiction, given to me by my 
 departed and ever-lamented friend. 
 
 In relation to Lord Eldon, I have no doubt of 
 Romilly's having used language, which, at a dis- 
 tance of time, and for want of sufficient discri- 
 mination, might naturally and sincerely enough, 
 
^19. Character Evidence. 71 
 
 by a not unwilling hand, have been improved into 
 a sort of panegyric thus put into his mouth. But, 
 by the simple omission of one part of it, the strict- 
 est truth may have the effect of falsehood. 
 
 With a transcript of the panegyric in question, 
 or of any part of it, I will not swell these already 
 too full pages. Suffice it to mention my sincere 
 wish, that it may be compared with what here 
 follows. 
 
 By my living friend, — my departed friend, I have 
 reason to think, was never seen but in a mixt 
 company : assured I well am, and by the decla- 
 tion of my departed friend, that between them 
 there was no intimacy. Between my departed 
 friend and myself, confidence was mutual and 
 entire. 
 
 Romilly was among the earliest, and, for a time, 
 the only efficient one of my disciples.* 
 
 To Romilly, with that secrecy which prudence 
 dictated, my works, such as they are, were from 
 first to last a text-book : the sort of light in which 
 I was viewed by him, was, in Honourable House, 
 in his own presence, on an ever memorable 
 occasion, attested by our common friend, Mr 
 Brougham, f 
 
 Not a reform at'mncle of his (as Hartley would have 
 called in) did Romilly ever bring forward, that he 
 had not first brought to me, and conned over with 
 me. One of them — that in which Paleys love of 
 arbitrary power was laid open — was borrowed from 
 
 • He was brought to me by my earliest — the late George 
 Wilson, who, after leading the Norfolk Circuit for some years, 
 retired with silk on his back to his native Scotland. 
 
 t Hansard's House of Commons Debates, 2nd June 1818. 
 " He (Mr Brougham) agreed with his hon. friend, the member 
 for Arundel, Sir S. Romilly, who looked up to Mr Bentham with 
 the almost filial reverence of a pupil for his tutor." 
 
72 Indications respecting Lord Eldon: 
 
 my spiders, under whose covering they may still 
 be found. The project so successfully opposed 
 by Lord Eldon's Sir William Grant — the endea- 
 vour to prevail upon Honourable Gentlemen to 
 divest themselves of the power of swindling in 
 their individual capacities, — was, to both of us, a 
 favourite one. Nothing of this sort could ever 
 come upon the carpet, but the character of Lord 
 Eldon came of necessity along with it : a few lines 
 will give the substance of volumes. The deter- 
 minate opposer of everything good ; the zealous, 
 able, and indefatigable supporter of everything 
 evil, from which, to the ruling one or the ruling 
 few, reputed good, in any the smallest quantity, 
 at the expense of the many, appeared derivable. 
 
 " Well ! and what chance do you see of the 
 evil genius's suffering it to pass ?" This, on one 
 part was the constant question. " Why . . . .just 
 now things are so and so :" stating, or alluding to, 
 some hold, which, at the moment, he thought he 
 might have upon Lord Eldon. A favourable circum- 
 stance was — that, though regarding the M.P. with 
 the eye with which he could not but regard one of 
 the most troublesome of his political opponents,' — 
 the Chancellor — such, in his estimation, was the 
 legal knowledge and judgment of Romilly — was 
 in the habit of paying to the arguments of this ad- 
 vocate not less, but even more, deference, than, in 
 the eyes of the profession, was always consistent 
 with justice; so at least I have heard, over and 
 over again, from various professional men. In 
 Romilly's acquirements and character he beheld 
 a leaning-stock, the value of which he knew how 
 to appreciate. 
 
 Now for the like, through channels less exposed 
 to suspicion : — 
 
 " The state of the Court of Chancery is such, 
 
§ 19. Character Evidence. 73 
 
 that it is the disgrace of a civilized society." These 
 are the words furnished me, in writing, by a friend, 
 as among the very words used by Romilly, but a 
 few months before his death, in a mixed company. 
 It was at a place which, for several days of his last 
 autumn (a place I occupied in Devonshire), af- 
 forded to the relator various free conversations, 
 besides those at which I was present. — General 
 result: — " Lord Eldon himself the cause of many 
 of the abuses ; of the greater part of the others, 
 the remedy always in his own hands." 
 
 " If there is a hell, the Court of Chancery is 
 hell." Words these, given as the very words ut- 
 tered by Lord Erskine but a few weeks before his 
 death, in conversation with another person, from 
 whom I have them under his own hand. 
 
 Both relators most extensively known, and not 
 more known than trusted. On any adequate 
 occasion, both papers should be visible. 
 
 Judex () 7io)i judicando, ut lucus d non luccndo y 
 the sort of service of all others for which Lord 
 Eldon is not only most eminently but most notori- 
 ously unfit,* is the very service for the performance 
 of which his unexampled power may have been 
 
 * I would willingly have said most unfit, but Truth, as will be 
 seen, forbids me. 
 
 Saul and Jonathan were Lord Eldon and Lord Redesdale. 
 Lord Eldon, Attorney-General; Lord Redesdale, Solicitor-Ge- 
 neral : Chancellors — Lord Eldon, of England ; Lord Redesdale, 
 of Ireland. Scholars of the school of Fabius, but with one 
 difference: — by the Roman cunctation, everything was per- 
 fected; by the English and Irish, marred. 
 
 The London laid a wager with the Dublin Chancellor, which 
 should, in a given time, do least business. Dublin beat London 
 hollow. 
 
 Witness, Earl Grey, — in those days Lord Howick.* 
 
 " When he" (Mr Ponsonby) " succeeded to the office," (suc- 
 
 * Cobbett's Debates, ix. 731. July 3, 1007. House o{ Common?. Pensions 
 t<t Chancellors. From the Speech of Lord Howick, now Earl Grey. 
 
74 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 originally placed, but if pretended, so falsely pre- 
 tended, to be still kept in his hand. 
 
 This being premised, and admission made of the 
 facility with which, for purposes such as have 
 
 ceeded to Lord Redesdale) " the Chancery Court of Dublin 
 was in arrears for six years of notices, for six hundred motions, 
 and for four hundred and twenty-seven causes : when he" (Mr 
 Ponsonby,) " quitted office, he had got under all the notices and 
 motions, and had brought down the causes to two hundred, be- 
 sides going through the current business. Had he remained in 
 office a few months longer, not a single cause would have been 
 left undetermined." 
 
 This single incident speaks volumes : it paints matchless constitution to the 
 life. Take two traits, out of more. 
 
 1. Profundity and universality of the contempt of human happiness and 
 justice, in the breasts of the ruling; and would-be-ruling few. 
 
 During the whole six years, during which Lord Redesdale, with his unfit- 
 ness, staring him and everybody in the face, was paralyzing justice and 
 manufacturing misery by wholesale — not only his creator silent, but every 
 member of the Aristocracy on both sides, in Ireland as well as in England. 
 Down to this moment, never would anybody have heard of it, but for a per- 
 sonal squabble about Mr Ponsonby, and a clause in his pension of retreat. 
 
 Mr Ponsonby, with his matchless, and, but for admission, incredible apti- 
 tude, — turned out in Ireland ! Lord Eldon, after his six years perpetually 
 demonstrated inaptitude, restored, and continued with continually increasing 
 influence \ 
 
 As to delay, think from hence, whether, though in that, as well as all other 
 shapes, abuse runs through every vein in the system — think whether, of that 
 delay which drew forth the present complaints, there was any other cause than 
 the difference, in point of dispatch, between this one man and every other ; and 
 whether, while this one man is where he is, deliverance from evil in that shape, 
 any more than in any other, be possible. 
 
 Henceforward, in* Honourable House, or in Right Honourable House, — on 
 the one side, or on the other, — should any man have the hardihood to stand up 
 and declare, that, on either side there is anymore real regard for justice there 
 than in the hulks — or in men's breasts any more sympathy for the sufferings 
 of the people than in the cook's for the eels she is skinning — tell him of 
 this ! 
 
 2. Double-bodied monster, Head Judge and Head Party-man, back to back : 
 fitter to be kept constantly in spirits in an anatomy school, than one hour in 
 the Cabinet and the next hour on the Bench. Behold in this emblem one of 
 the consequences of having one and the same man to sit as sole highest Judge, 
 with all the property of the Kingdom at his disposal, and in the Cabinet to act 
 as chief organizer of intrigues, and moderator of squabbles about power, 
 money, and patronage : the Cabinet situation being the paramount one, — the 
 most transcendent aptitude for the judicial situation cannot keep him in it, the 
 most completely demonstrated inaptiiude remove him out of it ! This, under 
 matchless constitution, under which the most loudly trumpeted tune is — the 
 Independence of the Judges. 
 
 Practical lesson. Never by any other means than the making the ruling 
 few uneasy, can the oppressed many obtain a particle of relief. Never out 
 of mind should be the payable of the Unjust Judge. 
 
§ 19. Character Evidence. 75 
 
 been brought to view, he can wrap his misery- 
 breeding meaning up in clouds, such as while 
 transparent to accomplices and natural allies, shall 
 be opaque to all destined victims, — I must, for 
 shortness, refer my readers to Mr Butler's pane- 
 gyric. Sending them to a work which has already 
 had ten times as many readers as any of mine can 
 look to have, I secure myself against the conscious- 
 ness of injustice, and, I hope, from the reproach 
 of it. 
 
 I will advance further in my approach to meet 
 him. 
 
 On any of those nice points on which, expec- 
 tation being equally strong and sincere on both 
 sides, the difference between right and wrong 
 being scarce discernible, decisions, were it not for 
 appearances, might, with as little prejudice to the 
 sense of security, be committed to lot as to re- 
 flection holding the scales of justice, — on any of 
 those sources of doubt and display, which, in any 
 tolerable system of legislature-made law, a line or 
 two, or a word or two, would have dried up — Lord 
 Eldon, at the expense of years, where another man 
 
 Such was the alter idem appointed by Lord Eldon to sit with 
 idem and report the non-existence of delay, together with the 
 most effectual means of removing it. 
 
 Keeping FalstarT in his eye, — inefficient myself, I am the 
 cause (said Lord Eldon to himself) that inefficiency is in other 
 men. In Dublin my foil, in London my Mitford, shall be at the 
 head of my securities, that nothing shall be done, in the com- 
 mission, which with my disciple Peel, to laud and defend me— 
 I will establish for that purpose. 
 
 As to Lord Redesdale, digression upon digression as it is, candour and sym- 
 pathy compel the mention— «he, like Mr Peel, lias committed one act of rebel* 
 lion against his creator: he, too, has made one departure from consistency. 
 Mr Peel's is the Special Jury Act: Lord Redesdale's, the Insolvency Act — 
 Should the day of repentance ever come, — each, with his Bill in his hand, 
 may cry, like Lovelace under the avenging sword — Let this expiate! But 
 Lord Kldon ! — where will be his atonement ? One alone will he be able to 
 rind, and that he must borrow of Lord Casllereugh. 
 
76 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 would have taken days, has given to the amateurs 
 of difficulty a degree of satisfaction beyond what 
 any other man could have given to them : to them, 
 satisfaction ; to himself, reputation — instrument of 
 power applicable to all purposes. This, by the having 
 stocked his memory with a larger mass than perhaps 
 any other man (Romilly possibly excepted) of the 
 cases known to have sprung up within the field of 
 Equity, — and the having also enabled himself, with 
 correspondent facility, to make application of them 
 to the purpose of each moment, whatsoever be 
 that purpose, whether it be to lead aright, to mis- 
 lead, or to puzzle and put to a stand, himself or 
 others. 
 
 So much for intellectuals : now for morals. Be- 
 yond all controversy, — recognized not less readily 
 by adversaries than by dependents, one politico- 
 judicial virtue his lordship has, which, in his noble 
 and learned bosom, has swelled to so vast a magni- 
 tude, that, like Aaron's serpent-rod, it shows as if 
 it had swallowed up all the rest. In the public 
 recognition of it, trembling complaint seeks an 
 emollient for vengeance ; decorous and just satire, 
 a mask. After stabbing the Master of the Abuses 
 through and through with facts, Mr Vizard takes 
 in hand the name of this virtue — and, innuendo, 
 this is the only one that can be found, lays it like 
 apiece of gold beater's skin on the wounds. That 
 which beauty, according to Anacreon, is to woman, 
 — courtesy, according to everybody, is to Lord 
 Eldon : to armour of all sorts — offensive as well as 
 defensive — a matchless and most advantageous 
 substitute. With the exception of those, whom, 
 while doubting, he is ruining, and, without know- 
 ing anything of the matter, plundering,- this it is 
 that keeps everybody in good humour : everybody 
 — from My Lord Duke, down to the Barrister's 
 .servant-clerk. Useful here, useful there, useful 
 
§19. Character Evidence . 77 
 
 everywhere, — of all places, it is in the Cabinet that 
 it does Knight's service. It is the Court sticking' 
 plaister, which, even when it fails to heal, keeps 
 covered all solutions of continuity : it is the Grand 
 Imperial cement, which keeps political corruption 
 from dissolving in its own filth. Never (said some- 
 body once) never do I think of Lord Eldon or Lord 
 Sid mouth, but I think of the aphorism of Helvetius 
 — Celui qui na ni honneur ni humeur est un Cour- 
 tisan par fait. 
 
 When this virtue of the Noble and Learned Lord's 
 has received its homage, the rest may be most 
 effectually and instructively made known by their 
 fruits. These fruits will be his resgestce : exploits — 
 performed, throughout, or in the course of, his 
 four-and-twenty years dominion over the fields of 
 judicature and legislation. Enterprizes consum- 
 mated — enterprizes in progress — measures notorigi- 
 nating with him, but taken up by him and improved 
 —exploits performed by his own hands, exploits 
 performed by the hands of his creatures, or other 
 instruments ; — under one or more of these heads, 
 were any such exactness worth the space and 
 trouble, would some of these exploits be to be 
 entered,- -under another or others, others. But, 
 forasmuch as all judicial censure is altogether out 
 of the question, and the space and research neces- 
 sary for such distinctions altogether unaffbrdable, 
 they must unavoidably be omitted. Under each 
 head, it will be for the reader, from what he has 
 seen or heard, or may choose to see or hear, to 
 consider whether, and, if yes, how far, the imputa- 
 tion attaches. To improve upon these hastily 
 collected hints, and complete the investigation, 
 would, if performed by a competent hand, assuredly 
 be a most interesting as well as useful work. 
 
 1. Nipping in the bud the spread of improve- 
 ment over the habitable globe, ruining fortunes by 
 
78 Indications resjiecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 wholesale, and involving in alarm and insecurity 
 a vast proportion of the vast capital of the coun- 
 try, by wantonly scattered doubts, leaving the 
 settlement of them to a future contingent time 
 that may never come.* 
 
 2. Rendering all literary property dependent 
 upon his own inscrutable and uncontrolable will 
 and pleasure. 
 
 * Of this broadcast dissemination of uncertainty, one obvi- 
 ous cause may naturally be found in the profit made in the 
 two great shops — the Private Act of Parliament shop and the 
 Charter shop, in which the right of associating for mutually 
 beneficial purposes is sold at so enormous a price, — for the 
 benefit of men, by whom nothing but obstruction, in this and 
 other shapes, is contributed. 
 
 Wheresoever, in the case of a public functionary, remunera- 
 tion wears the shape of fees, there, abuse in every shape is sure 
 to have place. Not only in judicial offices so called, but in all 
 offices whatsoever, such cases excepted, if any, in which for 
 special adequate cause, special exception can be shown, salary 
 should be substituted for fees. 
 
 In the case of patents for invention, exaction in this shape 
 has swelled to an enormous magnitude. Justice, in the shape 
 of reward for inventive genius, denied to the relatively poor, 
 that is to say, to probably the far greater number ; — sold at an 
 enormous price to the relatively rich : all inventions, — the au- 
 thors of which are not themselves rich enough to carry them 
 through, nor able to find a capitalist to join with them, — nipt in 
 the bud. Official men, lawyers and non-lawyers in swarms, 
 who contribute nothing but obstruction, murdering invention 
 thus in the cradle, ravish from genius its reward, and in case 
 of failure, aggravate the pressure of ill success. To see the 
 use of matchless constitution, on this occasion, compare the 
 price, paid by inventive genius, for this security, in the United 
 States and in France. Note, that on these occasions, that plun- 
 derage may be tripled, the three kingdoms are disunited. 
 
 In all, or most of these cases, Lord Eldon, after having had 
 a little finger in the pie when Attorney-General, has a finger 
 and thumb in it now that he is Chancellor : adding to the 
 pleasure of licking in the sweets, the gratification of obstruct- 
 ing improvement — called for this purpose innovation. 
 
 A set of motions, calling for returns of these several sources, 
 and of the masses of emolument derived from each by the 
 several functionaries, could scarcely be negatived. 
 
§19. Character Evidence. 79 
 
 3. Establishing a censorship over the press, 
 under himself, with his absolute and inscrutable 
 will, as censor : inviting, after publication with its 
 expense has been completed, applications to him- 
 self for prohibition, with profit to himself in these, 
 as in all other instances. 
 
 4. Leaving the line of distinction between cases 
 for open and cases for secret judicature, for so long 
 as there is any, at all times dependent on his own 
 inscrutable and uncontrovertible will and pleasure, 
 establishing and continually extending the prac- 
 tice of covering his own proceeding with the cloak 
 of secrecy. 
 
 5. Rivetting, on the neck of the people, the con- 
 tinually pinching yoke of an aristocratical magis- 
 tracy, by rendering all relief at the hands of the 
 Chancellor as hopeless, as, by artificial law ex- 
 penses, and participation in .sinister interest and 
 prejudice, it has been rendered, at the hands of 
 the Judge. 
 
 6. On pretence of heterodoxy, by tx post facto 
 law, made by a single Judge for the purpose, — 
 divesting parents of the guardianship of their own 
 children. 
 
 7. Injecting into men's minds the poison of in- 
 sincerity and hypocrisy, by attaching to pretended 
 misdeeds, sufferings, from which, by an unpunish- 
 able and unprovable, though solemn act of insince- 
 rity, the supposed misdoer may, in every case, with 
 certainty exempt himself.* 
 
 * Questions allowed to be put to a proposed witness, " Do 
 you believe in the existence of a God ?" If he, who doer, not 
 believe, answers that he does, — thus answering falsely, he is re- 
 ceived : if his answer be, that he does not believe, — speaking 
 thus truly, he is rejected of course. 
 
 It is by exploits such as this, that rise has been given to this 
 appalling question — "Which, in the capacity of a proposed 
 witness, is most trustworthy — the Christian, Priest, or Layman, 
 
80 Indications respecting Lord Elclon. 
 
 3. In all manner of shapes, planting or fixing 
 humiliation and anxiety in the breasts of all, who, 
 on points confessedly too obscure for knowledge, 
 oppose him, or refuse to join with him, in the pro- 
 fession of opinions, in relation to which there is 
 no better evidence of their being really his, than 
 the money and power he has obtained by the pro- 
 fession of them. 
 
 9. Pretending to establish useful truth by the 
 only means by which success to pernicious false- 
 hood can ever be secured. Proclaiming, in the 
 most impressive manner, the falsehood and mis- 
 chievousness of everything that is called religion, 
 — by punishing, or threatening to punish, what- 
 soever is said in the way of controverting the truth 
 or usefulness of it. 
 
 who, for a series of years, has never passed a day without the 
 commmission of perjury, — or the Atheist, who — when at the in- 
 stance of Lord Eldon, or any one of his creatures in the situa- 
 tion of Judge, interrogated as to what he believes — submits 
 to public ignominy, rather than defile himself with that 
 abomination in so much as a single instance ?" Christians ! 
 such of you as dare, think of this and tremble! 
 
 Question, as to this virtual Statute, the source and seat 
 of which is in the breast of Lord Elclon : — if this is not a 
 subornation of perjury, what is or can be ? Lord Eldon — 
 is his mind's eye really so weak, as, throughout the whole 
 field of legislation, to be kept by words from seeing things as 
 they are ?* Decide who can, and give to head or heart, — some- 
 times to the one perhaps, sometimes to the other, — the credit of 
 this blindness. 
 
 • As to the constant and all-pervading habit of perjury, see "Swear not 
 at all." For cleansing judicature of this abomination, a not unpromising 
 course is in the power of individuals. Any suitor, who sees a witness of 
 whose testimony he is apprehensive — if the witness belongs to any of the 
 classes in question, let his counsel have in hand a copy of the statutes in. 
 question, asking him whether he did not swear observance to every one of 
 these statutes, and whether, in the breach of this or that article, he did not 
 constantly live : on denial, he will be indictable for perjury: on admission, 
 it will be a question whether he can be heard. 
 
 Lord Eldon f did you never take that oath ? Lord Eldon ! did you never 
 violate it? Think of this, Lord Eldon! — Mr Peel! did you never take 
 that oath ? Mr Peel ! did you never violate it ? Think of this, Mr Peel ! 4 
 
$ 19. Character Evidence. 81 
 
 10. Bearding Parliament, by openly declaring 
 its incapacity to render unpunishable anything to 
 which the Judges, with the words Common Lair 
 in their mouths, shall have been pleased to attach 
 punishment, or take upon them to punish : — thus, 
 by the assumed authority of himself, and those his 
 creatures, keeping men under the rod of punish- 
 ment, for habits of action, which, in consideration 
 of their innoxiousness, had by Parliament been 
 recently exempted from it: as if Parliament had 
 not exempted men from declared and limited, but 
 for the purpose of subjecting them to uncon- 
 jccturahlc and unlimited punishment. Witness 
 the Unitarians, and all others, who will not, at 
 his command thus signified, defile themselves 
 with insincerity, to purchase the common rights 
 of subjects. 
 
 1 1 . Doing that which even Parliament would not 
 dare to do, and because Parliament would not dare 
 to do it : doing it, with no other warrant, than 
 this or that one of a multitude of words and 
 phrases, to which one import as well as another 
 may be assigned at pleasure. Witness libel, blas- 
 phemy, malice, contra bonos mores, conspiracy, 
 Christianity is part and parcel of the law of the 
 land : converting thus at pleasure into crimes, any 
 the most perfectly innoxious acts, and even me- 
 ritorious ones : substituting thus, to legislative de- 
 finition and prohibition, an act of ex post facto 
 punishment, which the most consummate legal 
 knowledge would not have enabled a man to avoid, 
 and as to which, in many an instance, perhaps, it 
 was not intended that it should be avoided.* 
 
 * But Parliament — contempts; of its authority all the while 
 thus continually repeated — what does it say to them? Say to 
 them? why nothing at all to be sure: Cabinet, by which the 
 wires of Parliament are moved, desires no better sport. Chan- 
 
 F 
 
82 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 All this — which, under a really existing con- 
 stitution, grounded on the greatest-happiness-prin- 
 ciple, would furnish matter for impeachment upon 
 impeachment, — furnishes, under the imaginary 
 "matchless" one, matter of triumph, claim to 
 reward, and reward accordingly. 
 
 cellor, — by whom the wires of Cabinet are moved, and by whom 
 the acts of contempt are committed or procured, — looks on and 
 laughs in his sleeve. 
 
 Contempt of Parliament indeed ! Parliament desires no 
 better than to be thus contemned : and to be assured of this, 
 observe whether, of the indications given in these pages, it 
 will suffer any, and what use to be made. Contempt of Par- 
 liament ! Why, all this is the work of Parliament itself. 
 That which, with its own forms, it could not do without a 
 world of trouble — what it might even be afraid to do — (for, 
 where guilt abounds, so does cowardice) — it does by simple con- 
 nivance, without a particle of trouble. But why talk of fear? 
 On each occasion, whatever is to be done, the object with all 
 concerned is to have it done with least trouble to themselves. 
 By the hand of a Judge, those by whom Parliament is governed 
 do, without any trouble, that which without trouble in abun- 
 dance could not be done by the hand of Parliament. 
 
 In flash language, Common Law — in honest English, Judge- 
 made Law — is an instrument, that is to say, Judges are instru- 
 ments — for doing the dirty work of Parliament : for doing in 
 an oblique and clandestine way, that which Parliament would at 
 least be ashamed to do in its own open way. 
 
 Nor, for the allotment of these parts, is any such labour as 
 that of concert or direction necessary. Nothing does the pur- 
 pose require that an English Judge should do, more than what 
 in his situation human nature and habit effectually insure 
 his doing: giving, on every occasion, to his own arbitrary 
 power every possible extent, by all imaginable means. While 
 this is going on, so long as what he does suits the purposes of 
 his superiors, it is regarded, of course, with that approbation 
 of which their silence is such perfectly conclusive evidence. 
 On the other hand (to suppose, for argument sake, an effect 
 without a cause) should he ever, in any the smallest degree 
 obstruct their purposes, any the least hint would suffice to stop 
 him. What could any Judge do — what could even Lord Eldon 
 hope to do — against the will of Monarchy and Aristocracy in 
 Parliament? i 
 
§ 19. Character Evidence. 83 
 
 12. Poisoning the fountain of history, by pu- 
 nishing* what is said of a departed public charac- 
 ter on the disapproving side — while, for evidence 
 and argument on the approving side, an inexhaus- 
 tible fund of reward is left open to every eye : 
 thus, by suppression, doubling the effect of subor- 
 nation, of evidence. This by the hand of one of 
 his creatures : his own hand, without the aid of 
 that other, not reaching quite far enough. 
 
 The title Master of the Abuses which occurs in 
 page 76, may perhaps have been thought to re- 
 quire explanation. It was suggested by that of 
 Master of the Revels, coupled with the idea of the 
 enjoyments in which he and his have for so many 
 years been seen revelling by the exercise given to 
 the functions of it. 
 
 The Mastership of the Revels being abolished, or 
 in disuse — the Mastership of the Abuses appears 
 to have been silently substituted: and Lord Eldon 
 presents himself as having been performing the 
 functions of the office, as yet without a salary : 
 with his Masters in Chancery, serving under him 
 in the corresponding capacity, and on the same 
 generous footing, on the principle of the unpaid 
 Magistracy. A subject for calculation might be — 
 at what anno domini, the business of all the deno- 
 minated Offices, possessed by those Masters and 
 their Grand Master respectively, will have been 
 brought into the state, into which, under his Lord- 
 ship's management, that of the Sir Clerks has 
 already been brought, together with that of the 
 Sir Offices, with which the future services of his 
 Honourable Son have been so nobly and generously 
 remunerated ? — at what halcyon period these 
 offices will, with the rest, have been sublimated 
 into sinecures, and the incumbents apotheosed into 
 so many Dii majorum or Dii minorum gentium ot 
 the Epicurean heaven ? 
 
84 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 To help conception, a short parallel between 
 the Noble and Learned Lord, and his Noble and 
 Learned predecessor Jefferies, may be not altogether 
 without its use. — General Jefferies had his one 
 " campaign :" General Eldon, as many as his com- 
 mand lasted years. The deaths of Jefferies's killed- 
 qffwere speedy : of Eldon's, lingering as his own 
 resolves. The deaths of Lord JefFeries's victims 
 were public — the sufferers supported and comforted 
 in their affliction by the sympathy of surrounding 
 thousands : Lord Eldon's expired, unseen, in the 
 gloom of that solitude, which wealth on its depar- 
 ture leaves behind it. Jefferies, whatsoever he 
 may have gained in the shape of royal favour — 
 source of future contingent wealth, — does not pre- 
 sent himself to us clothed in the spoils of any of his 
 slain. No man, no woman, no child did Eldon 
 ever kill, whose death had not, in the course of it, 
 in some way or other, put money into his pocket. 
 In the language, visage, and deportment of Jefferies, 
 the suffering of his victims produced a savage ex- 
 ultation : in Eldon's, never any interruption did 
 they produce to the most amiable good humour, 
 throwing its grace over the most accomplished 
 indifference. Jefferies was a tiger : Eldon, in the 
 midst of all his tears, like Niobe, a stone. 
 
 Prophet at once and painter, another prede- 
 cessor of Lord Eldon — Lord Bacon, has drawn his 
 emblem. Behold the man (says he) who, to roast 
 an egg for himself, is ready to set another's house 
 on fire ! So far so good : but, to complete the like- 
 ness, he should have added — after having Jirst 
 gutted it. One other emblem — one other prophecy. 
 It is not written in the Arabian Nights' Entertain- 
 ments ? — Sinbad the Sailor, Britannia : Old Man of 
 the Sea, the Learned Slaughterer of Pheasants, 
 whose prompt deaths are objects of envy to his 
 suitors. After fretting and pummelling, with no 
 
§19. Character Evidence. 85 
 
 better effect than sharpening the gripe — the Ara- 
 bian slave, by one desperate effort, shook off his 
 tormenting master. The entire prophecy will 
 have been accomplished, and the prayers of 
 Britannia heard, should so happy an issue, out of 
 the severest of all her afflictions, be, in her in- 
 stance, brought to pass. 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 § 1. Under Lord Eldon, Equity an Instrument of 
 Fraud and Extortion, — Samples continued. 
 
 While writing what is above, came to hand a 
 " Review of Chancery Delays," &c. signature, 
 " The Authors." When what they say is seen, 
 the reason for such their concealment will be 
 sufficiently manifest. Read this work of theirs, 
 whoever you are, — you who, thinking for the pub- 
 lic, have any regard for justice : so rich the mass 
 of abuse, it not merely denounces in general terms, 
 but spreads out in detail, bringing it at the same 
 time within the conception of non-lawyers : the 
 matter ranged under some nine or ten heads, fol- 
 lowing one another in the chronological order of 
 the proceedings in a suit. 
 
 " Proper subject of every honest man's indigna- 
 tion," according to them (p. 42) not only " the 
 system which allows," but ** the Judges who en* 
 courage such* conduct :" and with a little attention, 
 every solicitor who has had twenty-five years' 
 
88 Judications respecting Lord Eldoii. 
 
 practice, and a few over, in the Equity Courts, as 
 well as many a man who has had none, will be 
 able to draw the line, and say to himself, whether, 
 by any former Judge, anything like so much 
 encouragement has been given to the sort of conduct 
 therein held up to view. Ask, with so many 
 learned gentlemen, whether it be to Lord Eldon, 
 or to the system, that the phcenomena are due ? 
 Ask first, whether it is to the father or to the 
 mother that the birth of a child is due ? 
 
 From this most instructive publication, take a 
 few hastily-picked-up samples. Pages 48, 49. 
 1. Master's attendance (as everybody knows) never 
 more than one hour in one day in the same cause. 
 
 2. Between attendance and attendance, distance 
 commonly three or four days, frequently a week. 
 
 3. For every such actual attendance, payment 
 for that and two others exacted by the Master, he 
 declaring in writing that on both days he has at- 
 tended, whereas on neither day has he, or anybody 
 for him. attended. 
 
 4. For each such falsely alleged, and unjustly 
 charged attendance, fees exacted by the Master, 
 not only for himself, but for every solicitor em- 
 ployed in the suit a separate one ; there being in 
 every Equity suit parties in any number, having, 
 as many as please, each of them a separate so- 
 licitor. 
 
 5. Hours of such attendance in a day seldom 
 more than five (other accounts generally make it 
 less.) Per Mr Vizard, see above, §2, p. 9, with 
 " some exceptions" only, not more than three. 
 
 6. Months in which such attendances are to be 
 had, out of the twelve, not more than seven. 
 
 Page 52. Recapitulation of the means of delay, 
 employable in ordinary, over and above the ad- 
 ditions employable in extraordinary cases : to wit, 
 
Postscript. 89 
 
 employable by dishonestly -disposed men on the 
 two sides of the suit respectively, thus enabled 
 and invited by Lord Eldon, with or without prede- 
 cessors for stalking-horses, to carry that same dis- 
 position into effect. 
 
 I. By dishonesty on the Defendant's side ; to 
 which side, in a common law-suit, dishonesty is of 
 course most apt to have place. 
 
 Years. 
 
 1. Before the time for what is called 
 appearance (the defendant not being 
 permitted to appear, but forced to em- 
 ploy in appearing for him a solicitor, 
 whom, likewise, without a train of bar- 
 risters to speak for him, the Chancellor 
 
 will not see) . . . . If 
 
 2. By not appearing before the cause 
 is ultimately called on for Judge's hear- 
 ing . . . . .2 
 
 ;}. After hearing "wasted by refer- 
 ence to a Master, years from 4 to 6 :" 
 oftener a much longer period . . 4 to 6 
 
 4. Between Master's report made, 
 and Judge's second hearing . . 2 to 3 
 
 Total, 9 to 12£ 
 II. By dishonesty on the Plaintiff's side, that is 
 to say, on the part of him, who, at common law, 
 had been on the Defendant's side : one half of the 
 business of Equity consisting in stopping or frus- 
 trating the application of the remedy held out by 
 common law ; and at any stage, down to the very 
 last, this stoppage may be effected. 
 
 N. B. This combination of two sorts of judica- 
 tories, proceeding on mutually contradictory prin- 
 ciples, is by Lord Eldon, and by so many others, 
 professed to be regarded as necessary to justice. 
 
90 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 Years. 
 
 1. By amending Bills, from . . 4 to 6 
 
 2. Between the suit's being set down 
 for hearing by the Judge, and its being 
 by that same Judge called on for hear- 
 ing . . . . .2 
 
 3. After hearing, wasteable in refer- 
 ence to a Master, as in the Defendant's 
 
 case, as above, from . . . 4 to 6 
 
 4. Between Master's report and 
 Judge's second hearing, as above . 2 to 3 
 
 Total, 12 to 17 
 Note that (as has been often stated, and never 
 denied) delay on the Plaintiff's side, as here, has 
 been in use to be employed as a regular and sure 
 source of profit by dishonest men with other men's 
 money in their pockets, where the quantity of it 
 in the shape of capital has been deemed sufficient, 
 by means of the interest or profit on it, to pay 
 for the delay sold by the Judges of the common 
 law and equity courts together : they, with their 
 creatures and other dependents in office, and their 
 friends and connections in all branches of the pro- 
 fession, sharing, by means of the fees, with these 
 dishonest men in the profit of their dishonesty. 
 
 Comes in, at the same time, " Letter to Mr 
 Secretary Peel on Chancery Delays, by a Member 
 of Gray's Inn." Pages, 25. 
 
 I. Page 20. Subject-matter of the most common 
 and seldomest-contested species of suit — account 
 of a testator's estate. 
 
 1 . Number of useless copies taken of said ac- 
 count, ten. 
 
 N.B. Cost of each, ten-pence for every ninety 
 words. 
 
Postscript. 9 1 
 
 2. Pages 15, 16, 17. Under Lord Eldon, irrele- 
 vance, technically styled " impertinence" thence 
 useless lengths of pleadings perpetually increasing 
 — " laxity of pleadings, quantity of impertinent 
 matter — a subject-matter of general complaint, and 
 general observation by Lord Eldon" Punishment 
 being all this while unexampled ; encouragement 
 in the shape of reproof in the air, or threats, of 
 which it is known they will never be executed, 
 are at the same time frequent. Before Lord Eldon, 
 the practice was, to saddle the counsel with costs. 
 Per the Authors, as above (p. 9), by " late decisions 
 this abuse has received positive encouragement and 
 increase." 
 
 Pages of all five pamphlets, taken together (Mr 
 Vizard's included) 157. Compressed into perhaps 
 a third of the number, the substance would com- 
 pose a most instructive work. By detaching from 
 the abuses the proposed remedies, the compression 
 might perhaps be aided : the remedies, in a nar- 
 row side column or at bottom, in form of notes. 
 
 But neither should the defences, whatever they 
 are, pass unexamined : for of the charges, with 
 such premiums for defence, whatsoever is passed 
 over unnoticed or slurred over, may, with un- 
 exceptionable propriety, be regarded as admitted. 
 
 § 2. Lord Eldon Squeaking. 
 
 Drama (not to say farce), — " The Courts of Law 
 Bill" Time, June 28, 1825. Editor,— Globe 
 and Traveller. Scene, — Right Honourable House. 
 Enter Lord Liverpool, Prime Minister, Bill in 
 hand. Lord Eldon, Chancellor, in the back ground. 
 Motion by Lord Liverpool for proceeding in the 
 Bill. Enter Lord Grosvenor with a digression — a 
 dissertation on sinecures : Lord Liverpool, in an- 
 
92 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 swer : — determined to save fees from commutation 
 during the incumbency of the present incumbents ; 
 determined to save the Head Fee -eater from all 
 hardships imposed on inferior ones : determined 
 to give the Puisne Judges the proposed 5,500/. a 
 year, because there were others, who, for doing 
 less, were paid more. Mr Robinson having pre- 
 viously (to wit, in Honourable House) demon- 
 strated the necessity of the increase, appropriate 
 aptitude being, in his mathematics, as dignity, and 
 dignity as opulence : the proof being composed of 
 repetitions, ten in number, (for they have been 
 counted) of the word dignity. 
 
 Whereupon, up rises Lord Eldon, finger in eye, 
 answering Lord Grosvenor's digression, with a 
 digression on calumny and firmness. Addresses, 
 two : one to the people, the other to Noble Lords. 
 For better intelligibility, behold these same ad- 
 dresses, in the first place, in plain English : after 
 that, for security against misrepresentation, in 
 Lord Eldonish. 
 
 1. Lord Eldon to the people, in plain English. 
 Have done ! Have done ! Let me alone ! Nay, 
 but don't teaze me so. You had best not; you 
 won't get anything by it. This is not the way to 
 get me out, I can tell you that. Come now, if 
 you will but let me alone, I'll go out of my own 
 accord. I should have been out long ago, had it 
 not been for you. It's only your teazing me so 
 that keeps me in. If you keep on teaze — teaze, 
 I'll never go out : no, that I won't. 
 
 Note that this was on the 28th of June 1825 : 
 ten days after the day on which, without authority 
 or expectation on the part of the Author, the 
 Editor of the Morning Chronicle, with whose 
 stripes the noble and learned back is so well ac- 
 quainted, had given an article on these Indications. 
 
Postscript. 93 
 
 The original in Lord Eldonish.* " Perhaps it 
 is thought that this mode of calumnious mis- 
 representation is the way to get me out of office. 
 They are mistaken who think so : I will not yield 
 to such aspersions ; nor sin ink from asserting what 
 I owe to myself. Had I been treated with com- 
 mon justice, I should not, perhaps, have been 
 Lord Chancellor this day ; but, I repeat it, I will 
 not be driven out of office by calumnious attack. 
 Let me only be treated with common justice, and 
 my place shall be at any mans disposal." 
 
 Calumnious indeed ! Look back, cautious and 
 justice-loving reader. Look back at the Indica- 
 tions : see what any of them want of being proofs: 
 see whether anything but a formulary or two is 
 wanting to render them proofs, and conclusive 
 ones. Suppose, for argument's sake, the defendant 
 guilty, and see whether, on that supposition, any- 
 thing more convincing than what is there brought 
 to view, could have been adduced. Say whether, 
 in case of mis-statement anywhere, there can be 
 any ground for regarding it as wilful : any ground 
 for attaching to it any such epithet as calum- 
 nious. 
 
 2. Lord Eldon to Lordships in plain English. 
 Help! help! help! Going, going! Can't stand 
 it any longer. What! nobody lend me a hand? 
 Nobody speak a word for me ? Do not you see 
 how it is with me ? What. ! and will you turn 
 against me ? Better not : I can tell you that. 
 You'll be all the worse for it. When I am put 
 down, it will be your turn next. What will be- 
 come of your privileges — think of that! I'll tell 
 you what, so sure as they take away my seals, so 
 sure will they take away your privileges. 
 
 * For greater fidelity, and to avoid some circumlocutions, 
 the third person is here all along retransmitted into the first. 
 
94 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 Squeaking, staggering, blustering, crying out for 
 help — all in a breath ! What an exhibition ! 
 
 Original in Lord Eldonish. " The feelinsrs and 
 fate of an individaual are in themselves of small 
 importance to the public, and I may be sacrificed 
 to the insults I daily receive. But I beg noble 
 Lords to reflect, that I may not be the only sa- 
 crifice. If the object is, as it appears to be, to 
 pull down the reputations, and throw discredit on 
 the motives and conduct of men in high official 
 situations, — if every man who occupies a high 
 situation in the church " [turning of course to the 
 Bishops' Bench] " in the Church or State, is to 
 become the object of slander and calumny, then 
 your Lordships may lay your account with similar 
 treatment, and be convinced that your privileges 
 or power cannot long be respected, when such 
 characters have been sacrificed." 
 
 N.B. At what words the tears began to flow is 
 not reported. When a crocodile comes on the 
 stage — Tears, tears, should he added to the Hear ! 
 hears ! 
 
 No, my weeping and fainting and firmness- 
 acting Lord. How purblind soever the eyes you 
 are accustomed to see around you, blindness is not 
 yet so near to entire, as to make Lordships see no 
 difference between your seals and their privileges. 
 Their privileges ! Who is it that is to take away 
 these same privileges ? The King ? or the People ? 
 or the Pope of Rome ? Your seals ! Yes, the 
 King can take away these pretty playthings of 
 yours and not improbably will, so soon as in his 
 estimation there will be more uneasiness from 
 keeping them where they are, than from placing 
 them elsewhere. But Lords' privileges ! they are 
 a sort of a thing not quite so easily disposed of. 
 To bring his hand in, his Majesty will first take 
 away from himself his own prerogatives. 
 
Postscript. 95 
 
 The People ? Yes : supposing guards and garri- 
 sons were all annihilated in a day, the people, that 
 is to say a mob, might not find much more diffi- 
 culty in dealing with these accoutrements of yours 
 than the King would : after burning your bags, 
 they might throw your seals into the Thames, 
 where your predecessor, Littleton, threw his. 
 Yes : all this a mob (for this is what you always 
 have in view when you speak or think of the 
 people) might indeed do. But could they either 
 burn or throw into the Thames their Lordships' 
 privileges ? 
 
 As to the Pope, I say nothing of him here: 
 what regards him, belongs to Catholic Emancipa- 
 tion. 
 
 Seriously, it was found impossible, by anything 
 but extravagance, to comment upon such extra- 
 vagance. What must have been the state of that 
 mind winch could rely upon it as argument? 
 
 In this place, without aid either from witch- 
 craft or from treachery, 1 had actually gone on 
 and given the substance of the argument, with 
 which, in cabinets and over bottles, the noble and 
 learned Lord has for these five-and-twenty years, 
 and more, been occupying himself in the en- 
 deavour — no very difficult one, it must be con- 
 fessed — to keep up, and if possible to increase, the 
 aversion to improvement in so many shapes, and 
 to reform in every shape. But relevancy seeming 
 questionable, and mischief from overweight un- 
 questionable, the papers have been put aside. 
 
 The Indications are before the reader : some 
 original, others copied. In both cases, how de- 
 terminate they are, he can scarcely have failed to 
 remark. As well as the proofs, he shall now have 
 before him the answers. From a clear conscience, 
 accompanied by a clear and well-exercised con- 
 
96 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 ception they would have been correspondently 
 determinate. In generals, at any rate, and in 
 particulars, according as time and occasion ad- 
 mitted, and importance required, every charge 
 would have been noticed ; and, lest omission 
 should be taken for confession, no one left al- 
 together without notice. 
 
 So much as to what the answers might have 
 been, and, in the momentarily supposed case, 
 would have been. Behold now what, in the 
 actual case, they are. 
 
 First, as to the general heads of defence. 
 They will be found composed of uncharacteris- 
 tically-vituperative matter, applied at every turn to 
 the accusations, and expressed in these terms : — 
 
 1. " Misrepresentation and calumnies." 
 
 2. " Calumnious misrepresentation." 
 
 3. " Such aspersions." 
 
 4. " Calumnious attacks." 
 
 5. " Mis-statements and misrepresentations of 
 exery kind." 
 
 6. " Much misrepresentation." 
 
 7. " Calumny and mis-statement." 
 
 8. " Slander and calumny." 
 
 What the noble and learned Defendant's per- 
 turbation did not permit him to perceive is, how 
 strongly this sort of language smells of " the Old 
 Bailey :" of the place he was looking to be " sent 
 to by their Lordships," (as per Globe, June 21, 
 1825) there to be "put to death :" and that when 
 a man can find nothing to say that shall tend to 
 his exculpation, this sort of unmeaning outcry 
 is what he vents his angnish in, rather than be 
 seen to make confession in the shape of silence. 
 
 So much for generals. Follow now all the 
 several specific attempts at defence, with an ob- 
 servation or two upon each. 
 
Postscript. 97 
 
 LORD ELDON. 
 
 [. " From the accounts which have been furnished 
 to me of my emoluments as Lord Chancellor from 
 those who best know the amount" [Lordship himself 
 being - nobly careless of all such things] " apart 
 from my income as Speaker of the House of Lords, 
 I am happy to say, that the Lord Chief Justice of 
 the King's BencJi has received a larger sum from 
 his office : / speak from the average accounts of the 
 last three years.'' 
 
 OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 1. What is this to the purpose? Not of the 
 quantum do we complain, but of the sources: of 
 which sources he dares not say a syllable. 
 
 2. Whatever it be that you receive, is it the 
 less because you receive it from a number of 
 places instead of one ? 
 
 3. Of the patronage, nothing said : whereas, 
 from a small portion of it, you receive, in the 
 person of your Son, according to the undisputed 
 calculation of Mr Miller,* 3,500/. a year, and, 
 unless in case of untimely death, will receive in 
 the whole, 9,000/. 
 
 4. What is it to the purpose what the Chief 
 Justice has ? If the emolument of the man in 
 question is excessive, does the greater excess of 
 another man's make it less so ? 
 
 5. Since he knows, then, what his emoluments 
 are, why will he sit to be thus badgered, rather 
 than produce them ? Why, unless it be because 
 they would be seen not to agree with the account 
 thus given of them ? and because he fears that, if 
 
 * " Inquiry into the Present State of the Civil Law of Eng- 
 land," pp. 79, 80. 
 
 G 
 
98 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 Honourable Gentlemen knew the whole amount, 
 they would grudge giving him full value for it ? 
 
 LORD ELDON. 
 
 II. " And I will further say, that, in no one year 
 since I have been made Chancellor, have I received 
 the same amount of profit as I enjoyed while at the 
 Bar." 
 
 OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 1 . The same 1 No, most probably not ; for, so 
 long as there is a farthing's-worth of difference, 
 this is strictly true. But how is anybody to know 
 whether it is ? 
 
 2. If everybody knows it, what would it be to 
 the purpose ? 
 
 3. While the Chancellor declares himself happy, 
 that the Chief Justice's profits out of other men's 
 misery are so great, may a suitor be permitted 
 to confess himself not quite so happy, that Bar- 
 rister's profits, drawn by insincerity, out of the 
 same impure source, are, if so it really be, so 
 enormous ? 
 
 LORD ELDON. 
 
 III. " Had I remained at the Bar, and kept the 
 situation I held there, 1 solemnly declare I should 
 not have been a shilling the poorer man than I am 
 this moment, notwithstanding my office" 
 
 OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 1. Believe who can: evidence none. Dis- 
 probative counter-evidence, as to the official side 
 of the account, obstinacy of concealment: evi- 
 dence, circumstantial indeed, but not the less 
 conclusive. 
 
 But, possibly, here as before, of his cluster of 
 
Postscript. 90 
 
 offices, with their emoluments, he shuts his eyes 
 against all but one : and thus, by a virtual false- 
 hood, thinks to keep clear of a literal one. 
 
 2. Again — what is all this to the purpose? 
 
 Oh, had he but kept to the bar! or, instead of 
 the Bench, been sent to that Bar to which, as 
 above, he so lately looked to be sent by their 
 Lordships on his way to another place — what a 
 waste of human misery would have been saved! 
 Of human misery, for which who ever saw or 
 heard him exhibiting any the slightest mark of 
 regard? Men, women, and children — widows 
 and orphans being treated by him as if composed 
 of insentient matter, like the stones from which 
 the gold exacted from them was extracted. 
 
 LORD ELDON. 
 
 IV. " No charge of delay can fairly be brought 
 against me." 
 
 OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 1. Now well done, Lord Eldon ! To a host of 
 witnesses continue to oppose a front of brass ! 
 
 2. Not to speak of the mountains of manufac- 
 tured delay opened to view by the samples, as it 
 by a particular providence, -in opposition to this 
 plea of Not Guilty, behold, prepared by anticipa- 
 tion, six months antecedently to the pleading of 
 it, a special piece of criminative evidence : a 
 statement, the manifestly trustworthy result of a 
 course of observation, the commencement and 
 continuance of which was a phenomenon not 
 much less extraordinary than the course observed 
 upon. It is here copied, word for word, from a 
 Morning Paper.* Whence it came from is un- 
 
 * Morning Herald, Thursday, 2nd December 1824. 
 
100 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 known : neither to the whole nor to any part of 
 it whatsoever, has any contradiction been ever 
 heard of. 
 
 3. Under the eyes of so vast a posse of retain- 
 ers, retained by every tie of interest in the defence 
 of this giver of good gifts, — is it in the nature of 
 the case that anything to which the name of mis- 
 representation could have been applied with any 
 chance of being regarded as properly applied, 
 should in all this time have passed unnoticed ? 
 
 "Court of Chancery. — (From a Suitor.) — 
 Term ended on Monday : the Lord Chancellor, 
 when he was rising, apprised the gentlemen of the 
 Bar and the suitors of the Court, that he would 
 not come down till Thursday. His Lordship is 
 no doubt entitled to two day's recreation after his 
 learned labours of a month. In order that the 
 public may duly appreciate those labours, let us 
 briefly review them : — the calculation may appear 
 curious — the time which his Lordship sat — the 
 number of cases heard — not decided — and the 
 quantum of relief afforded. 
 
 " His Lordship commenced his sittings on the 
 1st November, and from that to the 29th, both in- 
 clusive, he sat in Court 24 days. In no day but 
 one, did he sit before ten o'clock ; on one day only 
 did he remain till three : indeed he could not du- 
 ring Term, for as he has often said, ' the students 
 should have their dinner.'' 
 
 " His Lordship out of the 24 days, spent in 
 
 Court 79£ hours ! ! ! 
 
 For 4 clays his Lordship sat 4£ hours each, equal to 18 
 
 For 6 ditto . . . 4 . . . .24 
 
 For 8 ditto . . . S£ . . . .26 
 
 For 4 ditto . . . 2£'. . . .9 
 
 For 2 ditto . . . 1£ . . . . 2£ 
 
 24 days 794 hours 
 
Postscript. 101 
 
 " This statement is correct, if the Court Clerk 
 can be depended on. On two of those short sitting- 
 days his Lordship had to attend in Council to hear 
 the Recorder's Report of the Old Bailey convicts ; 
 on another of them, he rose before twelve o'clock, 
 in indignation that there was no business : — No 
 business in Chancery ! On some of the other 
 short days he was called on business elsewhere. 
 But let us now see how this time was occupied. 
 
 "The case of the Rev. A. Fletcher is entitled to 
 the first place in this enumeration. Indeed the 
 flight of Paris with Helen was not destined to give 
 more employment for the Grecian heroes, than 
 the flight of Mr Fletcher from his Caledonian 
 lassie is to cut out for the gentlemen of the long 
 robe: thus may we fairly exclaim, — Cedent anna 
 toga ! In the King's Bench we had only a skir- 
 mish, from which the parties retired a>qno Marie. 
 The great fight was reserved for the arena of Chan- 
 cery : for four days the contending parties fought, 
 and four times did night, or preparations for the 
 students' dinner, put an end to the contest. On 
 the fifth day, — after hearing from eight Counsel nine 
 speeches, the reply included, — his Lordship de- 
 cided that he would not become an officer of police 
 for a Scotch Synod, to pull the Rev. Preacher from 
 the pulpit.*' 
 
 " This case consumed 17 hours out of 79f. But 
 is it decided ? — No — the contrary, for his Lordship 
 more than once intimated ' that, if it were worth 
 while by a longer term of suspension to bring the 
 question before the Court in a more regular form, 
 his opinion might incline the other way.' His 
 intimations will not be lost on the Synod ; therefore, 
 Mr Fletcher, that you may not be pulled down 
 
 * Sarcasm and false wit, instead of calm judgment ! 
 
102 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 by the skirts, you had better, like Mawworm, wear 
 a spencer. 
 
 " Fourteen hours more were consumed, from day 
 to day, in two cases which were new to the Court. 
 These were — petitions, from Latham and Abbots, 
 bankrupts, praying that his Lordship, by virtue of 
 the enlarged jurisdiction conferred on him by the 
 new Bankrupt Law, would grant them their certi- 
 ficate, which the required number of their creditors 
 refused. His Lordship, after many observations, re- 
 ferred one to be re-examined by the Commissioners ; 
 and, to determine the fate of the other, he de- 
 manded more papers. The cases of these parties 
 are therefore in statu quo, and we are again fated 
 to listen to half a dozen long-winded orations. 
 
 " Next after these in point of duration, is to be 
 placed the motion to commit the Glamorganshire 
 Canal Proprietors, for violating his Lordship's in- 
 junction. After hearing eight counsel for ten hours 
 on different days, his Lordship decided that four of 
 the Defendants were not to be committed ; but the 
 liberty of the fifth is adhuc subjudice. To balance 
 the mildness of the judgment with a sort of trim- 
 ming policy, vengeance w r as denounced against 
 rhe refractory watchmen ; therefore they had bet- 
 ter look sharp. Discite justitiam moniti et non 
 temnere. 
 
 "We have now accounted for 41 hours out of 
 the 79f . Of the rest, the old cases of Grey v. Grey, 
 and of Garrick v. Lord Camden, in which no pro- 
 gress was made, took up 5 hours ; 5 more were 
 devoted to Hale v. Hale, to determine the sale of 
 mother's estates, to be commenced de novo ; and 10 
 from day to day were given to the Attorney-General 
 v. Heales ; Si?ns v. Ridge ; the matter of Bayles, and 
 the matter of Blackburns ; to Honey v. Honey, Wil- 
 cox v. Rhodes — appeals from the Vice-Chancellor, 
 
Postscript. 103 
 
 in the latter of which his Honour s decree was pro- 
 nounced to be 'nonsense, incapable of being exe- 
 cuted.' Not one of them is a jot advanced. 
 
 " Lunatics and the Elopement of a Ward, took up 
 2f hours. The New Alliance Com pant/ took up 3 : 
 and then 9 more were wasted in disputes between 
 Counsel and Court about priority of motions. 
 
 " The opening of the eternal Opera House cases 
 (of which there are now three) took up 3 hours, 
 and the remaining 7 were consumed from time to 
 time on bankrupts' petitions, and miscellaneous 
 orders. 
 
 " To recapitulate the whole, the business and 
 time arc balanced thus : — 
 
 The Attorney-General v. the Rev. A. Fletcher . .17 
 
 Ex parte Latham in re Latham and Parry, bankrupts, and 
 
 Ditto Abbots in re Abbots and Abbots, ditto . 14 
 
 Blackmore v. The Glamorganshire Canal Company . 10 
 
 Grey v. Grey ; Garrick v. Lord Camden, and Hale v. 
 
 Hale . . . . . 10 
 
 The Attorney-General v. Heales ; Sims v. Ridge ; in re 
 
 Baylis, and in re Blackbums, with Honey v. Honey and 
 
 Wilcox v. Rhodes . . . .10 
 
 Lunatics, Elopement of Ward, Alliance Company, and 
 
 disputes about priority of motions . 8£ 
 
 The Opera House cases . . . .3 
 
 Miscellaneous . . . 7 
 
 79J 
 
 LORD ELDON. 
 
 V. " It is a mistake to suppose, that because the 
 drudgery of some oj/ices is performed by deputies, 
 they are therefore to be called sinecures." 
 
 OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 1 . Nebulous-gas — confusion-gas — evasion-gas, 
 from the Eldon laboratory. Eldon junior's six 
 sinecures —four in possession ; two more in rever- 
 sion ; — of course here in view. Never, where com- 
 
104 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 mon honesty is an object of regard — unpunishable 
 swindling, of indignation, — never will they be 
 anywhere out of view. 
 
 2. Mark here the division. Business of official 
 situation, drudgery and non-drudgery. Drudgery, 
 doing the business of the office : non-drudgery, 
 receiving and spending the emoluments of it ; pay- 
 ing for the doing of the business (unless it be of a 
 particular connection) no more than a pittance, the 
 smallest that any one can be found to take. 
 
 Note that, with few, if any exceptions, when 
 from any one of these offices, you have separated 
 the drudgery, you have separated all the business 
 from it. For, laying out of the case those which 
 axe judicial, such as the Masterships and the Com- 
 missionerships and the Examinershjps, — the busi- 
 ness of them amounts to little or nothing more 
 than ordinary clerk-business, such as copying or 
 making entries under heads : business not requiring 
 a tenth part so much appropriate knowledge and 
 judgment and active talent, as that of an Excise- 
 man does. 
 
 3. Note that what his Lordship here does, con- 
 sists in putting a possible case, that those who are 
 eager to lay hold of every supposition favourable 
 to him and his system, may, without proof, set it 
 down in their minds an actual case : an actual case, 
 to a considerable extent exemplified ; and in par- 
 ticular, in the instance of the rich cluster of sine- 
 cures, out of the profits of which, without troub- 
 ling himself with the drudgery either of writing or 
 thinking, his Honourable Son is acting the part of 
 a fine gentleman ; and, if rumour does not over- 
 flatter him, testifying filial gratitude by good 
 dinners. 
 
 4. The possible case is this: — a situation in 
 which one man and no more is placed, though the 
 
Postscript. 1 05 
 
 business of it is more than one man can ade- 
 quately perform : the business being at the same 
 time of such a nature, as to be capable of being 
 divided into two branches : one, requiring extra- 
 ordinary appropriate acquirements, the other re- 
 quiring none beyond ordinary ones ; for example, 
 shopkeepers' clerks' acquirements. In this state 
 of things, the extraordinary talent-requiring part 
 of the business is reserved by the principal official 
 person for himself (his appropriate aptitude, con- 
 sidering the dignity of him of whose choice he is 
 the object, being unquestionable :) the no-more- 
 than-ordmary-talent-requiring part (that, to wit, 
 which is meant by the drudgery) being turned 
 over, or rather turned down, by him to the deputy. 
 Of the thus wisely and carefully made division 
 and distribution, sole object of course — the good 
 of the service. 
 
 5. Now then — supposing an enquiry into this 
 matter included in the enquiries of a House of 
 Commons' Committee, is there so much as a single 
 instance in which any such over-weight of business, 
 together with any such division made, would be 
 found exemplified ? Whoever is a layer of wagers, 
 might, without much danger, venture a consider- 
 able one to the contrary. 
 
 C. In the case of Eldon junior, what I would 
 venture to lay for is — that, of his four places in 
 possession, there is not one, the business of which 
 requires so much appropriate knowledge, judg- 
 ment, and active talent as that of an Exciseman 
 does ; and that there is not one for which he him- 
 self does any business other than signing his name, 
 with or without the trouble of looking over the 
 accounts of the deputies (if in name or effect there 
 be any) to wit, for the purpose of ascertaining 
 
] 06 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 whether the principal receives the whole of what 
 is his due. And so in regard to the reversions : 
 the existence of which, by the bye, is a separate 
 one, and that an abominable and altogether inde- 
 fensible abuse. 
 
 7. True, my Lord. An office, in which, for the 
 public service, a something, an anything, is done 
 - is not in strictness of speech a sinecure : though 
 that something were no more than any charity- 
 school-boy is equal to ; and although it took up 
 but a minute in doing, once out of each of the 
 seven months in a year, during which your Mas- 
 ters (your Lordship's Son-in-law included) serve. 
 
 8. This being conceded to you, what are you 
 the better for it ? 
 
 Would you have the amount of the depredation 
 exercised by the maintenance of an office allowed 
 to be executed by deputy ? I will give you a 
 rule by which, in every case, you may obtain it. 
 From the sum received by the principal, subtract 
 that received by the deputy or deputies : the 
 difference is, all of it, depredation. Of thus much 
 you may be sure ; whether of this which the de- 
 puty or deputies receive, there be any and what 
 part that belongs to that same account, is more 
 than you can be sure of, otherwise than by apply- 
 ing to this case, that matchless criterion of due 
 proportion as between reward and service, fair 
 competition — competition, as in the case of goods 
 sold, and under the name of work done, service, in 
 all shapes, sold to individuals : and, if good in 
 those cases, what should render it otherwise in 
 this? 
 
 9. Casting back an eye on the matter thus era- 
 ployed in effecting the explosion of the Eldon 
 gas, I cannot but regret the quantity. If, by any 
 
Postscript. 107 
 
 instruction contained in it, the labour of looking 
 into it be paid for, it will be by the applications 
 capable of being - made of this concluding rule. 
 
 LORD ELDON. 
 
 VI. " I toil I pledge myself to be as active as am/ 
 Noble Lord in correcting abuses, but I will perform 
 nil/ duty with a due regard to the rights of others." 
 
 OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 1. Pledge himself ? Yes: but giving a pledge 
 is one thing — redeeming it, another. In the whole 
 five-and-twenty years, during which this has been 
 swagging, like an incubus, on the breast of Justice, 
 in what instance has he ever meddled with abuse 
 in any shape, unless it be by the endeavour to give 
 perpetuity and increase to it ? 
 
 Not that, as thus worded, this desire amounts 
 to any great matter beyond what he might have 
 credit given him for, and this without any very 
 wide departure from the exact line of truth. No- 
 ble Lords, — if in a situation such as theirs it were 
 possible for men to feel any such desire, — would 
 not have far to look for the gratification of it. 
 Your Majesty (said somebody once to a King of 
 Spain who was complaining of ceremonies) is but 
 a ceremony. Your Lordships (the same person 
 might have said to their Lordships) are but an 
 abuse. 
 
 As an arounicntum ad homincm, nothing 1 against 
 this challenge can be said. But, the organs, for 
 which it was designed, were the ears of Noble 
 Lords, not the eyes of the public : to which, how- 
 ever, I hereby take the liberty of recommending 
 it. Abuses are neither hares nor foxes. Noble 
 Lords are too well born, and under Noble and 
 Learned Lords too well bred, to take any great 
 delight in // anting them. 
 
108 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 LORD ELDON. 
 
 VII. " The i^eason luhy in the present Bill there 
 appeared no clause regulating offices in the Court 
 of Chancery is — that a Commission is noiv sitting 
 on the state of the Court" 
 
 OBSERVATION'S. 
 
 1. Now sitting ? O yes, and for ever will be, if 
 his Lordship's recommendation to the people is 
 taken by the people, and the operation of teazing 
 ceases or relaxes — Sedet, ceternumque sedebit. 
 
 2. A Commission? Yes: and what Commis- 
 sion ? — A Commission which never could have 
 sat at all — which never could have been thought 
 of at all — had it been supposed that, in either 
 House, there exists any such sense as a sense of 
 shame. 
 
 3. An enormous dilatory plea, set, like a gun, 
 in a self-judication-system ; a transparent veil for 
 corruption ; a snug succedaneum to the still ap- 
 prehended and eventually troublesome inquisition, 
 of a not quite sufficiently corrupt Honourable 
 House, — such is this Commission : — a subterfuge, 
 which, more than perhaps all others, has damaged 
 the reputation of the principal, not to speak of the 
 accomplices. In matchless Constitution, that all- 
 pervading and all-ruling principle, the self-judica- 
 tion principle, has now to that local habitation, 
 which it has so long had, added a name: a name 
 which, so long as the mass of corruption in which 
 it has been hatched continues undissolved, will 
 never cease to be remembered — remembered, in 
 time and place, by every lover of justice and man- 
 kind, as occasion serves. 
 
Postscript. 109 
 
 LORD ELDON. 
 
 VI II. " I am uncorrupt in office ; and I can form 
 no better wish for my country than that my successor 
 shall be penetrated with an equal desire to execute 
 his duties with fidelity." 
 
 OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 1. I am uncorrupt/ And so a plea of Not Guilty 
 was regarded by this Defendant as sufficient in his 
 case to destroy the effect of so matchless a mass of 
 criminative evidence, and supersede the need of 
 all justification and exculpative evidence! 
 
 Incorrupt ? Oh yes : in every way in which it 
 lias not been possible for you to be corrupt, that 
 you are. So far, this negative quality is yours. 
 Make the most of it, and see what it will avail 
 you. Remains, neither possessed, nor so much as 
 pretended to, the whole remainder of appropriate 
 moral aptitude, appropriate intellectual aptitude, 
 and that appropriate active aptitude, without 
 which, a man possessed in the highest degree of 
 appropriate aptitude in both those other shapes, 
 may in your situation be, has in your situation 
 been — a nuisance. 
 
 Desire ! And so in an office such as that of 
 Chief Judge, and that but one out of a cluster of 
 rich offices fed upon by the same insatiable jaws, 
 desire is sufficient : accomplishment, or anything 
 like an approach to it, supervacaneous ! 
 
 Yes : that he does form no better wish for his 
 country — this may be conceded to him without 
 much difficulty : for, whatever be the situation, 
 when a man has been disgraced in it by inaptitude, 
 the least apt is to him, but too naturally the least 
 unacceptable successor. But, as to the can, this 
 is really too much to be admitted : for, even a 
 
110 Indications respecting Lord Eldon. 
 
 Lord Eldon — after rubbing his eyes, for the length 
 of time necessary to rub out of them, for a moment, 
 the motes, which keep so perpetually floating in 
 them in the shape of doubts, — even a Lord Eldon 
 might be able to see that desire and accomplishment 
 are not exactly the same thing ; and that, where the 
 object is worth having, desire without accomplish- 
 ment is not quite so good a thing as desire with 
 accomplishment at the end of it. Put into this 
 Chancellor's place, his housekeeper, supposing her 
 to have any regard for the money it brings, would 
 have this same desire — which, except the uncor- 
 ruption, is all he can muster up courage to lay 
 claim to, and which is so much more than can be 
 conceded to him — the desire, in respect of fidelity 
 and everything else, so far to execute the duties of 
 it as to save herself from losing it. 
 
 Next to this, comes what has been seen already 
 in his Lordship's concluding address to their Lord- 
 ships. Of the visible condition of the Defendant, 
 no intimation is given in the report : to judge from 
 what is given, a man who could with such a perora- 
 tion close such a defence, must have been at the 
 verge of a fainting fit : in which condition he shall, 
 for the present, be left. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY C. AND W. REYNELI,, BROAD STREET, GOLDEN SQUARE. 
 
ON THE MILITIA 
 
 What regards the militia, considered as a source, 
 seat, or subject-matter of retrenchment, having 
 been already brought into a determinate shape, 
 and printed, Anno 1828 or 1820, in a newspaper, — ■ 
 is here reprinted : reprinted in the form in which, 
 when Vol. II. of the Constitutional Code now in 
 the press, and in some advance, comes to be pub- 
 lished, it will be seen in Ch. X. Defensive Force, 
 § 3, Radicals, who. Articles from 21 to 35, botlt 
 inclusive ; pages 40 to 49, both inclusive. 
 
 Instructional. Exemplijicational. 
 
 Art. 1. — To an English or English-bred mind, 
 the idea of an aggregate body, the individuals of 
 which are brought together by compulsion, with a 
 view to land-army service, — and which is distin- 
 guished from an army by its comparative unser- 
 viceableness for the purposes for which both are 
 intended, — presents the word militia. As to the 
 existence of this institution, in England, and in the 
 Anglo-American United States, it is unquestion- 
 able. To find for it anything like a use, must be 
 the work of imagination. Two, and no more than 
 two, uses, does this instrument (it is believed) 
 ever brina - to mind. 
 
2 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 1. Supposable Use the first. Nursery for the 
 army : this phrase may serve to give expression 
 to one. — 2. Supposable Use the second. Protec- 
 tion against the army, and those who have the 
 command of it : this phrase may serve for the other. 
 
 As to the benefit derivable from the keeping up, 
 at all times, by pay and compulsion to boot, a 
 large body of ineffective men, with no better pros- 
 pect than that of a chance of being able, with, or 
 though it were even without, compulsion, at one 
 time or other, to aggregate a small portion of it 
 to the effective army, instead of aggregating to 
 that body, on each occasion, at the minimum of 
 expense, the number actually wanted and no 
 more, — this first imaginable use has just been 
 held up to view. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 2. — Under the head of contentment-maxi- 
 mizing, the affliction attached to compulsory ser- 
 vice, in this line, has been brought to view. To 
 save from all such affliction themselves and their 
 associates, it has, of course, been the effectual 
 care of rulers to grant exemption from it to pur- 
 chasers. Price for a temporary exemption, say 
 (for example) as under English militia law, 10/. ; 
 of the persons on whom the obligation is imposed, 
 some there will be, who, having for their all this 
 same 10/., purchase the exemption, pay for it such 
 their all, and suffer accordingly : others who, if 
 they had had the money, would gladly have paid 
 it for the exemption ; but not having the money, 
 serve per force, and suffer accordingly still more 
 than those from whom their all has, as above, been 
 taken. Thus stands the matter at the bottom of the 
 scale of opulence. Look now to the top. 
 
On the Militia. 3 
 
 Others there are, each of whom, having a mil- 
 lion of pounds at command, pay the 100,000th 
 part of their property, and suffer nothing. Be- 
 tween these two extremes rise, in the scale of 
 inequality, as many degrees as there are farthings 
 between the ten pounds and the million of pounds. 
 Nor is this highest degree of inequality regarded 
 as sufficient. For, at the top of the scale, per- 
 sons there will be sure to be, and in considerable 
 numbers, of whom such effectual care will have 
 been taken, that they will have the benefit of 
 the exception without paying so much as one 
 farthing for it. Such, under matchless constitu- 
 tion, is the regard paid, on this occasion, to the 
 inequality-minimizing principle.* 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 3. — Remains, the protection imagined to 
 be afforded or affordable by the militia against the 
 army : against the army, and thence against those 
 who have the command of this last-mentioned in- 
 
 * When the French had their conies, the English had their 
 statute days labour. To add to the opulence of the opulent, 
 every labourer whose sole source of his day's subsistence was 
 his day's labour, was ordained to starve, while labouring on 
 the road, six days out of every 365 ; for 365, say rather 
 (to make allowance for holidays and sick days, as well as 
 Sundays) 300. 
 
 This by Act of Parliament. To legislators, the misery they 
 were organizing — was it unknown ? Think, then, of their intel- 
 lectual aptitude. Was it known ? Think, then, of their moral 
 aptitude. 
 
 Towards the close of the last century (the exact year is scarce 
 worth searching for), on the motion of a friend of the Author of 
 these pages, Sir Thomas Charles Bunbury, better known by the 
 name of Sir Charles Bunbury, this disgrace to the Statute Book 
 was expunged from i(. 
 
4 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 strument, the force and formidableness of which 
 are not open to dispute. 
 
 Here, if the use itself is imaginary — not so is the 
 fact of its having been held up to view, and that by 
 the highest authority, in the character of a real one. 
 Witness the English statute, 26th Geo. Ill, cap. 
 107, passed for consolidating antecedent statutes, 
 by which the institution styled the militia had been 
 legislated upon. True it is, nothing can exceed 
 the delicacy with which the conception here in 
 question is sought to be conveyed. But what is 
 meant, is either the above, or nothing. "A re- 
 spectable military force, under the command of 
 officers possessing landed property within Great 
 Britain, is essential (says the act) to the constitu- 
 tion of the realm. 2. The militia, now by law 
 established, has (it continues) been found capable 
 of fulfilling the purposes of its institution." Such 
 are the propositions, by which, in the guise of rea- 
 sons, the approbation of the subject-many is bespoken 
 for the institution : — bespoken by the united wis- 
 dom and eloquence of the riding one and the 
 sub-ruling few. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 4. — Thus much for profession. Now for 
 efficiency and sincerity. This shadowy instrument 
 of security, against the irresistible instrument of 
 danger and the hand that wields it — by what 
 hand, if applied, is it to be applied ? By that 
 same hand, and no other. Approving this policy, 
 would you pursue it with consistency? — one course, 
 and one course alone, lies open to you. An inva- 
 sion ? is that what you are afraid of? To the ap- 
 prehended invader give the command of whatsoever 
 army you have for your defence. Bonaparte, when 
 
On the Militia. 5 
 
 at Boulogne, was the man to have commanded your 
 army : Bonaparte, not the King, the Prince Regent, 
 or the Duke of York. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 5. — The engine, with its primum mobile, 
 being in such hands, the machinery — cari it be 
 worth looking at ? Look, then, at the intermediate 
 wheels. Persons holding command in this body — 
 to whom does it belong to locate them ? To the 
 monarch ; every one. To whom to dislocate them, 
 and that at pleasure ? To the same. On whom 
 at all times does it depend whether motion shall 
 be given to them ? To the same. Oh, but the 
 officers must, each of them, have a piece of land 
 belonging to him. True; but such a piece, that, 
 putting all the pieces together, the aggregate will 
 still fall short of what is possessed by this or that 
 individual, whom the vision of a star in the East will 
 lead at all times whithersoever his Majesty pleases. 
 Remain all this while the privates ; and if, as above 
 proposed, it was on their own free-will that 
 their convention and their operations depended, 
 then indeed the security might amount to some- 
 thing. But no : matchless constitution knows 
 better things. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. G. — Well, then — this same machinery — is 
 it altogether useless ? By no means. To whom, 
 then, is it of use ? To the engineers — the civil 
 engineers, — King, Lords, and Commons, that have 
 charge of it. And its value to them, what is it? 
 Answer — Year ending 24th December 1826, 
 287,407/. 1 Is. 5cL Note, however, that what this 
 year gives is the minimum of its value. This year 
 
6 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 the militia was not, as the phrase is, called out : 
 if called out, the value of it, as above, would, to 
 an indefinite amount, have received increase. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 7. — So much for England. Turn now to 
 the Anglo-American United States. 
 
 "When the democracy there does wrong, it is 
 by thoughtless continuation of the usages of the 
 corrupt monarchy out of which it sprung. Witness 
 Senate, as to which, see below, Ch. XXX. Witness 
 Common Law, as to which, see Rationale of Evi- 
 dence, Vol. IV. 
 
 Militiamen. — On paper say 1,300,000*; num- 
 ber in attendance everywhere variable, at all times 
 unascertainable. For estimating effects, two por- 
 tions of the aggregate must be distinguished ; those 
 whom free-will, and those whom compulsion brings 
 together ; to the last alone applies what follows. -\ 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 8. — Danger being equal to 0, query the 
 value of the best security? Of danger from with- 
 out, sole possible source, hostility from the small, 
 still unevaporated, remnant of the savage race. 
 Miles of frontier between 2,000 and 3,000. For 
 
 * Per estimate for year 1826 (being on the 2d of February 
 1828, the last estimate) 1,129,277Z. This information, and what 
 follows it, are from a diplomatic source. — " From some of the 
 States the returns were at that time two or three years old, and 
 in other respects defective." 
 
 + Note, that in so far as it is by compulsion that the four 
 days' attendance has been produced, it is by the local govern- 
 ments that this compulsion has been applied. " Congress are 
 authorised to make laws for the organizing, arming, and disci- 
 plining of the militia, but have never exercised this power to any 
 important extent." 
 
On the Militia. 7 
 
 lining it, number of stipendiaries authorised by law, 
 6,186, officers included; in actual existence, the 
 whole number, never; on the 31st of October, 
 1827, 5,722 ; a little more than two to a mile. In 
 existence, why so few? Answer — because, judg- 
 ing from experience, more are thought not to be 
 needed. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 9. — So much for security against danger 
 from without. Now, as to security against danger 
 from within ; against danger from the above-men- 
 tioned 6,186 stipendiaries. Of the men who, in 
 the character of riflemen, have, from boyhood, been 
 at least as much practised in the effective use of 
 firelocks as any of the above-mentioned 6,186 sti- 
 pendiaries, what shall conjecture state as the 
 number ? Fifty times as many ? Twenty times as 
 many? Ten times as many? Strange, if for bring- 
 ing the danger down to 0, the least of these num- 
 bers be not amply sufficient ; reckoning as amount- 
 ing to nothing, in respect of appropriate force, the 
 number of the fencible men not thus practised. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 10 — So much for security in all shapes. 
 Now, as to expense, expense of the price paid for 
 it. Under this head, a little more accuracy would 
 be worth obtaining, were obtainment possible. 
 Meantime, note, that, under this head, compulso- 
 riness or non-compulsoriness makes no difference ; 
 the pecuniary loss by the non-performance of pro- 
 ductive labour being in both cases the same. But 
 if, and in so far as, in addition to this loss, money 
 or money's worth on the score of pay or equip- 
 ment is expended,— thereupon comes a corres- 
 pondent addition to this same loss. 
 
8 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 In the United States, average value of a day's 
 labour, a dollar ; say, on a low calculation, half a 
 dollar, in English sterling 2s., taking the dollar, 
 for even money, at no more than 4s. Number, 
 of each militiaman's attendance, days in the 
 year, four. This gives for the yearly expense of 
 his attendance, dollars, two ; English sterling, 8*. 
 This multiplied by the above-mentioned 1,300,000, 
 gives dollars 2,600,000— pounds sterling 520,000. 
 Compare this with the total expense of the general 
 Government ; in money, dollars not more than 
 seven millions ; of pounds sterling, 1,575,000. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 11. — Such is the expense, the burden of 
 which is designed and endeavoured to be imposed. 
 True it is that, to a large, and that an unascertain- 
 able amount, the attendance is not paid ; and, in 
 so far, the design is frustrated. True it is that, to 
 that same amount, a deduction will require to be 
 made from the expense. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 12. — But, proportioned to this deduction 
 from the expense, comes an addition to the mis- 
 chief; and that to an amount by which all attempts 
 to bring arithmetic to bear on it are set at defiance. 
 This consists in the debility infused into the whole 
 legal system. Compulsory law covering the 
 whole territory with its whole population, and 
 disobedience to it staring everybody in the face 
 everywhere. Everywhere either the actual suf- 
 fering from the compulsory obedience, or the con- 
 tingent and inappreciable mischief of debility in 
 the Government from the disobedience. 
 
On the Militia. 9 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 13. — As a substitute for the compound 
 composed of indirect waste and the compulsion — 
 pay, to be employed simply, has been proposed — 
 pay to be given to a smaller number for longer and 
 closer appropriate attendance and preparatory ser- 
 vice. That in this way the evil in all shapes 
 might be lessened, seems beyond dispute. But, 
 for a security where there is no danger — for a 
 security the value of which is equal to 0, would 
 be a somewhat more appropriate payment than 
 hundreds of thousands of pounds or dollars, were 
 there ever so few of them. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 14. — But an invading army — Oh, yes; a 
 curious enough sight would be an invading army. 
 But from whence, henceforward, is it to come ? 
 From no whither, unless it be in a fleet of steam- 
 boats sent out from Washington to fetch it. Yes ; 
 the very last invasion from Europe that the con- 
 federacy will ever have experienced, is the one 
 which was disposed of by that General, in whom, 
 because the rifles under him performed so well, 
 the unreflecting multitude behold their fittest 
 President. 
 
 Instructional. 
 
 Art. 15. — From England shall an armament 
 come for this purpose ? If expense be mischief — 
 more mischief will it have done in England — to 
 England — before starting, — than it could reason- 
 ably expect to do in the United States, before the 
 country had closed round it and disposed of it, as 
 Bnrgoy?ie and Cormvallis were disposed of. If to 
 the people of England the Colonies called their 
 Colonies were worth anything, who does not see 
 
10 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 that every one of their compulsorily-governed 
 American Colonies would be in the hands of the 
 freely -governed United States, a security for good 
 behaviour on the part of the distant obedience- 
 compelling rulers ? * 
 
 * In several of the United States, serving in the Militia serves 
 as a qualification for voting on elections. 
 
 Considered in itself, this arrangement presents itself as emi- 
 nently useful, as being powerfully contributory to the supersed- 
 ing all need and demand for compulsion, for the purpose of en- 
 gaging men to the performance of this service. So far as regards 
 the defensive force establishment, the usefulness of it seems, 
 therefore, eminent and unquestionable. 
 
 But qualification on the part of one description of persons, 
 supposes on the part of another description of persons, disquali- 
 fication: — an arrangement which, in proportion to the extent 
 given to it, is inconsistent with the universality of suffrage, pro- 
 posed as per Chap. VI. Legislature, § 5, Electors, who. 
 
LONDON i 
 
 PRINTED BY C. INI) W. T1BYNF.T.T., BROAO STREET, OOLDRN SQ. 
 

ON 
 
 PUBLIC ACCOUNT KEEPING 
 
 Complaints have of late been made, of the 
 method at present pursued, for making re- 
 cordation and appropriate publication, of the 
 transactions of the several classes of function- 
 aries, of whom the official establishment of 
 the British Government is composed ; and of 
 the pecuniary and quasi-pecuniary transac- 
 tions more particularly. By high authority, 
 it has been pronounced inadequate and ill- 
 adapted to its professed purpose. To this, 
 by that same authority, a substitution has 
 been proposed, and that in the character of a 
 well-adapted and adequate one. It consists 
 in simply substituting, to the method and 
 phraseology at present employed, the method 
 and phraseology, which is called sometimes 
 the Italian, sometimes the double-entry mode 
 or system ; and the use of which is confined 
 to the case in which pecuniary profit and loss 
 are conjunctly presented to view. 
 
2 OFFICIAL APTTTUDF MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 Against this change, so far as regards the 
 use of this peculiar and technical phraseology, 
 I protest on two grounds — 1. that, instead of 
 being conducive to, it is incompatible with, 
 the design which, on this occasion, whether it 
 actually be or no, ought to be entertained ; 
 namely, that of rendering the state of the 
 accounts in question more effectually and 
 extensively understood — 2. that, if intro- 
 duced, it would of itself produce deterioration, 
 to an unfathomable degree, in a form of 
 government which assuredly stands not in 
 need of any such change. 
 
 These evils will, when examined, be seen 
 coalescing into use. 
 
 First, as to the design. What ought it to 
 be ? — Answer, as above. To render the trans- 
 actions in question as effectually understood 
 as may be, and to that end as intelligible as 
 may be, to those whose interests are at stake 
 upon them : that is to say, in the first place, to 
 the representatives of the people, in the next 
 place to the people themselves, constituents of 
 those same representatives. 
 
 Now, then, in respect of intelligibility, 
 what would be the effect of the introduction 
 of this same Italian mode? So far from 
 augmentation, it would be little less than 
 destruction : and this, relation had as well 
 to constituents as to representatives. 
 
 Method is one thing ; phraseology is ano- 
 ther — 1. First, as to method: that, by means 
 of it, any addition would be made to the 
 
0/> Public Account Keeping. 3 
 
 number of those by whom the transactions in 
 question would be understood, remains to be 
 proved : no determinate reason for think- 
 ing so have I anywhere been able to find. 
 Whatsoever, if anything, this same addition 
 would be, might it not, to equal effect and with 
 equal conveniency, in every respect, be made, 
 by the phraseology in use with everybody, as 
 well as by that which is peculiar to mer- 
 chants ? With little or no hesitation I answer 
 in the affirmative : at any rate, that which 
 may be asserted without even the smallest 
 hesitation is, that whatsoever may be the 
 advantage derivable from the method, never 
 can it compensate for the evil inseparably 
 attached to the unintelligibility of the phra- 
 seology. 
 
 2. Next and lastly, as to the phraseology. 
 To the whole community, with the exception 
 of the single class designated by the appella- 
 tion of merchants, this phraseology is utterly 
 unintelligible : to all those for whose use it is, 
 or ought to be, designed, by those by whom 
 the substitution of it to that which is univer- 
 sally intelligible, is proposed: Members of 
 Honourable House, and people without doors, 
 included. 
 
 Of the number of those to whom it is unin- 
 telligible, compared with the number of those 
 to whom it is intelligible, what is the amount? 
 To any person whatsoever the answer may be 
 intrusted. Be it what it may, — say who 
 can, that it will not suffice to ground the 
 
4 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 putting a decided exclusion upon the pro- 
 posed change. 
 
 Now then for the other objection : — dete- 
 rioration of the form of Government. To a 
 universally intelligible mode of giving expres- 
 sion to the transactions of the functionaries 
 of Government, and in particular to the plan 
 which consists in the collection of the produce 
 of the taxes, and the disposal made of it, 
 substitute an almost universally unintelligible 
 mode ; what is the consequence ? Answer — 
 Exit Public Opinion : enter Darkness : such 
 as that which forms the characteristic of 
 absolute Government. To matchless Consti- 
 tution may be substituted the Government of 
 Spain, Portugal, or Turkey : and this without 
 responsibility, or danger in any shape, on the 
 part of the authors of the change. 
 
 Obvious as these effects can scarcely fail 
 to appear when once mentioned, to none of 
 those persons by whom the subject has been 
 taken into consideration do they appear to 
 have presented themselves : neither to those 
 by whom the change has been proposed, nor 
 yet even by those by whom it has been op- 
 posed. 
 
 First, as to those by whom it has been op- 
 posed. These are — Messrs Brooksbank and 
 Beltz, two of the three Commissioners for 
 enquiry into the state of the Public Accounts. 
 " A wide difference exists (say they) between 
 the business and circumstances of a trader and 
 those of a government department:" in the 
 
On Public Account Keeping. 5 
 
 observation thus vague and unapplied consists 
 the only objection made by them to the intro- 
 duction of the Italian mode: of the distinc- 
 tion between method and phraseology, no 
 intimation whatever is conveyed by it. 
 
 Next and lastly, as to those by whom the 
 change has been proposed. Not without 
 sincere regret is it, that, on this occasion, and 
 for such a purpose, I hold up to view a pro- 
 duction on so many other accounts so highly 
 estimable as the work entitled " Financial 
 Reform, by Sir Henry Parnell, Baronet, M.P." 
 late Chairman of the Committee on Finance. 
 Pure, once (p. 196), purest, twice (pp. 192 and 
 197) • — in these two words are contained all 
 the arguments I can find in that work, in 
 favour of this same phraseology. " Mr Ab- 
 bot's proposal is" (he says, p. 194) " to esta- 
 blish the Italian system in its purest form ; 
 and to those persons who are practically 
 acquainted with the Italian system of ac- 
 counts, the reasons on which Mr Abbot 
 founds his opinion of its being applicable 
 to all official accounts, cannot but be (he says, 
 p. 173) completely satisfactory."* 
 
 " Applicable?" — Unquestionably. But 
 what is that to the purpose? Just nothing. 
 Applicable means capable of being applied. 
 But, of the truth of this proposition what 
 
 * Session of 1830. House of Commons Report, No. 159. 
 " Copy of a Letter from Mr Abbot, late one of the Commis- 
 sioners," dec 
 
 Parnell.— Purest, p. 192— Pure, 196— Purest, 197. 
 
6 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 need of opinion from that gentleman or any 
 body else, to make ns fully satisfied? Appli- 
 cable, or not applicable with advantage ? — 
 that is the question. And, to that question 
 answer has not been given by Mr Abbot; 
 answer has been given here. 
 
 That of the desire of these so hidilv intel- 
 ligent and well-informed statesmen above- 
 mentioned, unintelligibility on the part of the 
 subject-matter in question, and ignorance, 
 next to entire, on the part of the persons in 
 question, Avere not amongst the objects — I, 
 who write this, am altogether satisfied. But 
 of the desire of those by whom the recom- 
 mendations made by the Committee over 
 which he presided were set at nought, and 
 the existence of that same Committee cut 
 short, were or were not these among the 
 objects? Relieved should I be from an 
 anxiety eminently painful, were it in this 
 paper, consistently with sincerity, to answer 
 in the negative. 
 
 " To bring forward a motion for the emo- 
 lumentofthe persons in question," was, ac- 
 cording to Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 (if the account of the debate is to be be- 
 lieved *) " treating them " (it should per- 
 haps have been placing them) " in an in- 
 vidious point of view :" — and, in effect, he, 
 accordingly, on that same occasion, did what 
 depended on him towards preventing their 
 being placed in that same point of view. 
 
 * Morning Chronicle, May 15, Debate of May 14. 
 
On Public Account Keeping. 1 
 
 But these same persons — who were they ? 
 Answer, " Members," (says he) " of the Privy 
 Council," — " a body composed of the Council 
 of the Sovereign ;" and afterwards, " the first 
 Judge in the land was included in it." — Pro- 
 digious ! And so, in the opinion of this 
 member of the Cabinet Council, be the man 
 who he may, the servants of the Crown have 
 but to obtain the placing of him in a sil na- 
 tion which affords them the means of putting 
 into his pocket an indefinitely large portion 
 of the produce of the taxes, — this done, no- 
 body but themselves is to be informed of the 
 amount of it. What the amount is of the 
 booty thus determined to be screened from 
 detection, the Right Honourable guardian 
 of the public purse has not informed us. But 
 if the imputation couched under the word 
 invidious be all that he objects to, a sure and 
 easy receipt for the wiping it off is at his com- 
 mand. It consists — in the giving publicity to 
 the information in question, in the instance of 
 every public functionary without distinction. 
 
 In and by the original Committee on 
 Finance, of which the late Charles Abbot, 
 afterwards Speaker, and not long ago en- 
 nobled by the title of Lord Colchester, was 
 Chairman, extensive were the disclosures of 
 this sort made ; and, as far as appeared, in 
 endeavours to narrow them. This was in 
 the years 1797? 1798. Thirteen or four- 
 teen years after, came the Committee on 
 Finance, of which the Chairman was the still 
 
8 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 living Mr Henry Banks, the Lord Eldon of 
 Honourable House. From the Report made 
 by that Committee, no possibility was there 
 of learning the aggregate of the emoluments 
 received, in the instance of any one of the func- 
 tionaries occupying the situations mentioned 
 in it. So exquisite was the ingenuity by which 
 the deed of darkness was accomplished. 
 
 In the eyes of the Right Honourable per- 
 sons in question, is the imputation of har- 
 bouring this same design of darkness regarded 
 as matter of importance? is the clearing them- 
 selves of it considered by them as an object 
 worth their regard? The means at their 
 command are most effectual. 
 
 For and during many years in the latter 
 part of the last century, for the use of the Di- 
 rectors of the Life Insurance Company called 
 the Amicable Society, was annually published, 
 in conjunction with an almanac, a list of the 
 situations of which the official establishment 
 was composed, with the emolument attached 
 to each in the shape of salary. At present in 
 the annual publication, intituled the Royal Ca- 
 lendar, of these situations, or at any rate the 
 greatest part of them, a list is published ; but, 
 of emolument in the shape of salary, or in any 
 other shape, in no such publication, or in any 
 other publication, is any mention to be found. 
 
 Now then, by order of some one of the 
 constituted authorities, let a complete list be 
 published of all those several situations, with 
 the amount of the aggregate of the emolu- 
 
On Public Account Keeping. 9 
 
 ment respectively attached to them : and to 
 the columns in which these aggregates are in- 
 serted, let be added another, exhibiting the 
 total of the emoluments received by the 
 functionary in question, from all public 
 sources taken together ; with numeral figures, 
 expressive of the pages, in which the several 
 situations, with their respective masses of 
 emolument, are presented to view. 
 
 Against the proposition for throwing the 
 light of day upon this part of the den of 
 Cacus, the only argument adduced by the 
 Right Honourable Gentleman is composed of 
 the word invidious. In the import of this 
 same word the idea of distinction is included. 
 Do away the distinction — set fire to the gas 
 — illuminate uno flatu the whole den, as 
 above proposed, — extinguished is this argu- 
 ment. Some dictionary, dead or living, he 
 will have to turn over for another such. 
 
 On the present occasion, — after what has 
 been said on the subject of unintelligib'riity, 
 is it worth while to say anything more of that 
 same branch of art and science (for science I 
 see it called ) to which the attribute of purity has 
 so unhappily been ascribed? Of fiction, and 
 nothing else is it composed : of a tissue of mis- 
 representations — of departures from truth — 
 and these not merely useless, but much worse 
 than useless. To things, relations all along 
 ascribed, of which things are not susceptible: 
 to persons, relative situations in which, on 
 the occasion in question, these same persons 
 
10 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 are not placed. Wine is said to be debtor 
 to cloth. To what use this absurd false- 
 hood ? What explanation, if anything, does 
 it give? To what human being who has not 
 been drenching himself with this and the 
 kindred falsehoods for weeks or months, can it 
 present any idea, unless it be an illusive one, 
 unless it be translated into the vulvar tongue? 
 True it is, that, had this locution been origi- 
 nally applied to the presenting to view the 
 ideas annexed to it by the professors of this 
 art-and-science, — it might have served as well 
 for the purpose as does the correspondent part 
 and parcel of the vulgar tongue : but, having 
 once been fixed in the habit of being applied 
 to so different a purpose, thence comes the 
 confusion, and the useless difficulty which 
 stands opposed to all endeavours to under- 
 stand it. 
 
 So much for confusion-spreading proposi- 
 tion : now (to speak in logical language) use 
 for a delusive term. Enter Waste-book, 
 cum told sequela sua •' — Waste-book, a book, 
 composed of paper the value of which is that 
 of waste paper. To an unadept mind, what 
 other idea than this is it in the nature of this 
 appellation to suggest. Yet is this one book 
 the corner-stone, on which the truth and use- 
 fulness of all the others rest : — a book, error in 
 which infects with correspondent error all the 
 rest: — the original, of which, though in diffe- 
 rent forms, all those others are but copies. Call 
 this bobk the original book, those others the 
 
On Public Account Keeping. ] 1 
 
 derivative books, the delusion vanishes. Call 
 this book the chronological, — those others the 
 logical books, the matter being; traced in 
 different orders, according to the different 
 purposes, — a further instruction is afforded. 
 
 It is one of the branches of that art-and- 
 sciencc, which teaches how to make plain 
 things difficult. A curious and not altogether 
 uninstructive parallel, is that which might 
 be made between this regular and technical 
 mode of account keeping (for by both these 
 epithets do I see it honoured) and the tech- 
 nical and rgular system of judicial proce- 
 dure. It would show to what a degree, by 
 the leading-string held by blind Custom, 
 without any additional one tacked on by 
 Sinister Interest, aberration from the rule of 
 right is capable of being effected. Of this 
 phraseology, if any use it have, the use con- 
 sists in giving brevity to the mode of expres- 
 sion. Analogous is the use, in this case, to 
 that of short-hand, as a substitute to ordinary 
 hand, — to that of arithmetical notation as a 
 substitute to ordinary orthography, — and to 
 that of algebraic, as a substitute to arithmeti- 
 cal, notation. But, small in comparison is 
 the utmost service, which, in this character, can 
 be rendered by it : and on this ground, not on 
 an imaginary one, by those who teach it, 
 should the usefulness of it be placed. 
 
 In my Constitutional Code — to wit, in the 
 already published volume of it — may be seen 
 a section, in which, in the compass of sixty- 
 
12 OFFICIAL APTITUDE MAXIMIZED, ETC. 
 
 eight pages, what is designed for an all- 
 comprehensive set of books, for the exhibition 
 of the accounts, pecuniary and quasi-pecu- 
 niary, of any Government whatsoever, is 
 presented to view. But for the bulk of it, 
 it would have been included in this present 
 miscellany. Official establishments, which it 
 embraces in its view, are — not only those of 
 this country, but those of any other country 
 whatsoever. 
 
 To any attention, bestowed upon it by the 
 only persons from whose attention to it any 
 good to the community would ensue, — two 
 objections there are, to the potency of which 
 the author is duly sensible. No title had he, 
 having the effect of a warrant from authority, 
 for the undertaking of it. Instead of the 
 1,600/. a-year, or some such matter, from all 
 the members of the community taken toge- 
 ther, — 16s. from each of such of them as may 
 vouchsafe to purchase it, is the remuneration 
 he will receive from it: by which remuneration, 
 in the case of this work, as in the case of almost 
 all others by which he has endeavoured to 
 render his labours useful to his own country 
 and mankind, — his profits will, to a large 
 amount, be left on the minus side. 
 
 Two objections there are, to its being re- 
 garded as worth the ] 6s. by those with whose 
 title to receive money out of the taxes, Mr 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer is so effectually 
 satisfied, by the consideration of the quantity 
 thereof so received by them. Two objections, 
 
On Public Account Keeping. 13 
 
 and each of them an unconquerable one. 
 No such remuneration will be offered ; and, 
 were it offered, no such remuneration, — nor 
 any remuneration, other than that which 
 would be afforded by the acknowledgment 
 of the usefulness of the work, — would be 
 received. 
 
 But, let but a title, such as that of Privy 
 Councillor, or were it even no other than that 
 at Commissioner, with 1,600/. a year or some 
 such matter, be added to it — oh what a trea- 
 sure it would be! Multiply the 1,600/. by 
 ten, — multiplied by the same number would 
 be the value of the work ! Multiply it by a 
 hundred, — the value would be multiplied an 
 hundred fold! Multiply it by 10,000, its 
 value would outstrip that of Holy Writ ;— and 
 prostrate before it would lie the whole 
 population of the Cabinet, accompanied and 
 sanctified by his Grace of Canterbury, and 
 all those other paragons of piety, whose re- 
 gard for that same Holy Writ is manifested 
 by the fineness of their sleeves, and theTyrian 
 dye of their servants' liveries. Included are 
 all these propositions, in that mathematical 
 axiom, which is the key-stone of matchless 
 Constitution — Aptitude is as opulence. 
 
 * Since the proof of this sheet came in, a Royal Calendar 
 has been taken in hand, of so recent a date as the year 1808 ; 
 and in it are seen names of official situations, with salaries 
 annexed, as in the case of the Almanack mentioned in page 8. 
 What was the year in which this mention of salaries was for the 
 first time omitted, and what the state of the Administration in 
 that same year, may be curious enough subjects of inquiry. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL CODE.— TABLE of CONTENTS, as shewn by Titles of Chapters and Sections. 
 Volume I. contains Chapters I. to IX.— Vol. II. Chapters X. XL— Vol. III. Chapters XII. to XXXII. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 VOL. III. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 \TerritoTtj of this State, Name, 
 Situation, Boundaries, Divi- 
 sions. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Ends and Means. 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 Sovereignty, in whom. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Authorities. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Constitutive Authority. 
 ,i 1. Constitutive what — in whom. 
 j 2. — its Powers. 
 5 3. Powers exercised, how. 
 § 4. Public Opinion Tribunal : 
 — its Composition. 
 -^5. — its Functions. 
 |o e. — i ts Securities against the 
 Legislative, and Judiciary. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Legislature. 
 rj i_ — its Powers, and Duties. 
 2. — its Responsibility. 
 9 3. Powers,astoSub-legislatures. 
 § 4. Seats and Districts. (see Elec- 
 tion Code, § 1 (a). 
 § 5. Electors, who. (see Election 
 
 Code, § 2). 
 V (i. Eligible, who. (see Election 
 < odt , 6 3, and below, § 22, 
 Lovable, who). 
 $ 7. Election Offices, (see Election 
 
 Code, §4). 
 § 8. Election Apparatus. (see£7er- 
 
 tion Code, § 5). 
 § 9. Recommendation of proposed 
 Members — how promul- 
 gated. (sccElectionCode,§ G) 
 § 10. "Voters' Titles, how pre- 
 established. (see Election 
 Code, $7). 
 § 11. Election, how. (sec Election 
 
 Code, § 8). 
 § 12. Election Districts and Vot- 
 ing Districts, how marked 
 out. (see Elect ionCode, § 9.) 
 $13. Vote -making Habitations, 
 how defined, (see Election 
 Code, § 10). 
 § 14-. Term of Service, (see Elec- 
 tion Code, § 11, Members' 
 Continuance: and, in this 
 chapter, §22, Term of Ser- 
 vice — conttn uation). 
 § 15. Vacancies, how supplied. 
 
 (see Election Code, §12). 
 § 1G. Security of the Assembly 
 against Disturbance by 
 Members, (see Election 
 Code, § 13). 
 § 17. Indisposition of President, 
 how obviated, (see Election 
 Code, § 14). 
 § 18. Members' Attendance. 
 § 19. Members' Remuneration. 
 § 20. Attendance and Remunera- 
 tion, how connected. 
 § SI. Sittings, public and secret. 
 § 22. Term of Service, continu- 
 ance, 
 § 23. Sclf-suppletive Function. 
 § 24. Continuation Committee. 
 § B5. Re-locable, who. 
 § 26. Wrongful Exclusion obvi- 
 ated. 
 § 27. Legislation Enquiry Judi- 
 catory. 
 § 28. LegiMation Penal Judicatory 
 | 29. Members' Motions. 
 § 30. Members dislocable, how. 
 §31. Securities for appropriate 
 aptitude. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Legislators* Inaugural Declara- 
 tion. 
 
 § I. Authentication, how. 
 
 § 2. i. Ends aimed at. 
 
 §3. n. Appetites guarded against. 
 
 § 4. in. Economy and Uncorrup- 
 tion promised. 
 
 § 5. iv. Notoriety of Law to all 
 promised. 
 
 § 6. v. Justice accessible to all 
 promised. 
 
 § 7. vi. Impartiality in Elections 
 promised. 
 
 § 8. vii. In International Dealings 
 Justice and Beneficence 
 promised. 
 
 § 9. vm. Impartiality in the gene- 
 ral exercise of power pro- 
 mised. 
 
 § 10. ix. Assiduity promised. 
 
 §11. x. Subordination to the 
 Constitutive Authority pro- 
 
 § 12. xi. Encroachment on Subor- 
 dinate Authorities abjured. 
 § 13. xii. Insincerity abjured. 
 § 14. xin. Arrogance abjured. 
 
 §11 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Prime Minister. 
 
 Fields of Service, logical, 
 
 local. 
 Functions. 
 
 Relation to the Legislature. 
 Self-suppletive Function. 
 Term of Service. 
 Remuneration. 
 Loeable, who. 
 Located, how. 
 Dislocable, how. 
 . Registration System. 
 , Publication System. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Ministers Collectively. 
 
 § 1. Ends in view. 
 § 2. Ministers and Sub-depart- 
 ments. 
 § 3. Number in an Office. 
 § 4. Functions in all. 
 §5. Subordination-grades. 
 §6. Self-suppletive Function. 
 §7. Statistic Function. 
 §8. Requisitive Function. 
 § 9. Inspective Function. 
 § 10. Officially informative Func- 
 tion. 
 § 11. Information-elicitativcFunc- 
 
 tion. 
 § 12. Melioration-suggcstiveFunc- 
 tion. 
 
 §13. Term of Service. 
 
 § 14. Attendance. 
 
 § 15. Remuneration. 
 
 § 10. Locable, who. 
 
 § 17. Located, how. 
 
 Supplement to § 10. Loeable, who. 
 
 Supplement to § 17. Located, how. 
 
 § 18. Dislocable, how. 
 
 § 19. Subordinates. 
 
 § 20. Insubordination obviated. 
 
 §21. Oppression obviated. 
 
 § 22. Extortion obviated. 
 
 § 23. Peculation obviated. 
 
 § 24. Leg! si at ion -regarding Func- 
 tions. 
 
 § 25. Securities for appropriate 
 aptitude. 
 
 §26. Architectural arrangements. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Defensive Force. 
 
 § 1. Branches. 
 
 § 2. Leading Principles. 
 
 § 3. Radicals, who. 
 
 §4. Stipendiaries, who." 
 
 § 5. Term of Sendee. 
 
 §6. Promotion. 
 
 § 7. Discipline enforced. 
 
 § 8. Oppression obviated. 
 
 § 9. Minor delinquency checked. 
 
 § 10. Remuneration. 
 
 § 11. Prize-money. 
 
 § 12. Powers of Military as to 
 Non- military. 
 
 § 13. Military Judicatories. 
 
 § 14. RecruitmentandEnlistment. 
 
 ; 15. Di^bandment. 
 
 §16. Sea Defensive Force. 
 
 § 17. Shipboard Oppression ob- 
 viated. 
 
 § 18. Collateral Employment. 
 
 § 19. Conclusion. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Ministers Severally. 
 
 § 1. Election Minister. 
 
 § 2. Legislation Minister. 
 
 § 3. Army Minister. 
 
 § 4. Navy Minister. 
 
 § 5. Preventive Service Minister. 
 
 §6. Interior Communication Mi- 
 nister. 
 
 §7. Indigence Relief Minister. 
 
 §8. Education Minister. 
 
 §9. Domain Minister. 
 
 § 10. Health Minister. 
 
 § 11. Foreign-relation Minister. 
 
 § 12. Trade Minister. 
 
 § 13. Finance Minister. 
 
 § 14. Conflicts of Authority, how 
 terminated. 
 
 I CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Judiciary Collectively. 
 
 §1. Excepted Judicatories. 
 
 § 2. ActorsontheJudicialTlicatre. 
 
 §3. Judiciary Functionaries. 
 
 §4. Judicatories, their grades. 
 
 § 5. Number in a Judicatory. 
 
 § 6. Fields of Service, logical, local 
 — Judge-shires. 
 
 § 7. Intercommunity of Jurisdic- 
 tion. 
 
 §8. Functions common to Judges. 
 
 § 9. Judges', &c. Elementary 
 Functions. 
 
 § 10. Judges' Self-supplctiveFunc- 
 tion. 
 
 § 11. Judges' Sedative Function. 
 
 § 12. Judges' Aid-compelling 
 Function. 
 
 § 13. Justice for the Helpless. 
 
 § 14. Publicity, Recordution,Pub- 
 li cat ion. 
 
 § 15. Secret Intercourse obviated. 
 
 § 10. Partiality obviated. 
 
 § 17. Migration. 
 
 § 18. Incidental Complaint Book. 
 
 § 19. Judges' Contested-interpre- 
 tation-reporting Function. 
 
 § 20. Judges' Eventually-emenda- 
 tive Function. 
 
 §21. Judges' Sistitive, or say, Ex- 
 ecution-staying Function. 
 
 § 22. Judges' Preinterpretative 
 Function. 
 
 §23. Application of §19, 20,21, 
 22, to unwritten Law. 
 
 §24 Judges' Non-contestational- 
 evidence-elicitation Func- 
 tion. 
 
 §25. Judges' Attendance. 
 
 §20. Judges', &c. Term of Ser- 
 
 § 27. Judges', &c. Remuneration. 
 
 §28. Judges, &C. Loeable, who. 
 
 § 29. Judges, &c. Located, how. 
 
 § 30. Judges, &c. Dislocable, how. 
 
 §31. Judges', &c. Inaugural De- 
 claration. 
 
 §32. Judges', &c. Securities for 
 appropriate aptitude. 
 
 §33. Judiciary Apparatus. 
 
 § 34. Justice Chambers. 
 
 § 35. Judiciary Habiliments. 
 
 §36. Prisons. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Judges Immediate. 
 
 § 1. Night Attendance. 
 § 2. Out-door Attendance. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Judge Immediate Deputes Per- 
 manent. 
 
 §1. Fields of Service. 
 §2. Relation to Principal. 
 § 3. Term of Service. 
 § 4. Attendance. 
 
 For other matters, see Chapter 
 XII. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Judge Immediate Deputes Oc- 
 casional. 
 
 §1. Term of Service. 
 §2. Loeable, who. < 
 § 3. Powers— Referees dcputable. 
 § 4. Referees dcputable. 
 § 5. Remuneration. 
 For other matters, see Chapter 
 XII. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Quasi- Jury. 
 Field of Service. 
 Composition and Number. 
 Functions. 
 Located, how. 
 Subsistence-money. 
 Attendance. 
 
 Securities for appropriate 
 Aptitude. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Judicial Inspectors. 
 § 1. Who and wherefore. 
 § 2. Functions. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Immediate Government Advo- 
 cates. 
 § I j Field of Service. 
 § 2. Relative to Judge. 
 § 3. Functions in Non-penal Cases 
 §4. Functions in purelv public 
 
 Penal Cases. 
 §5. Functions in publico-private 
 
 Penal Cases. 
 § 6. Functions as to Offences 
 
 against Justice. 
 § 7. Money-requisitive Function. 
 For other matters, see Chapter 
 
 XII. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Government Advocate General. 
 
 § 1. Government-Advocate Gene- 
 ral. 
 
 § 2. Government-Advocate Gene- 
 ral's Registrar. 
 
 For other matters, see Chapter 
 XVI II. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Eleemosynary Advocates. 
 § 1. Fields of Service. 
 § 2. Relation to Judge. 
 § 3. Directive Function. 
 § 4. Money-requisitive Function. 
 § 5. Super-tutelary Function. 
 For other matters, see Chapter 
 XII. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Immediate Judiciary Registrars. 
 § 1. Fields of Service. 
 § 2. Relation to Judge. 
 § 3. Effective Functions. 
 § 4. Elementary Functions. 
 §5. Minutation, how. 
 § 6. Attestation, how. 
 § 7. Minutation-ainendinent, how. 
 For other matters, see Chapter 
 XII. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Appellate Judicatories. 
 § 1. Appellate Judges, who. 
 § 2. Fields of Service. 
 § 3. Subject matters of Appeal. 
 § 4. Grounds of Decision. 
 § 5. Quasi-Jury necessary. 
 § 6. Functions as to Decrees — 
 
 Options. 
 § 7. Vexation by Appeal obviated. 
 § 8. Seats, where. 
 For other matters, see Chapter 
 
 XII. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 1 1. 
 
 appellate Judiciary Registrars. 
 
 § 1. Arrangements inserted in 
 Chapter XXI. Immediate 
 Judiciarr/ Registrars. 
 
 For other matters, see Chapter 
 XII. and Chapter XXI. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Professional Lawyers. 
 
 § 1. Professional Lawyers wlm. 
 
 § 2. Litis-contestational Class- 
 one only. 
 
 § 3. Fields of Service. 
 
 §4. Loeable, who. 
 
 & 5. Capacity, as to Offices. 
 
 ijO. Remuneration. 
 
 § 7. Securities for appropriate 
 Aptitude. 
 
 For other matters, sec Chapter 
 XVIII. and Chapter XIX. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Justice Minister. 
 
 §1. Fields of Service. 
 
 & 2. Functions in general. 
 
 § 3. Visitative Function. 
 
 ^ 4. Judicative Function. 
 
 §5. Dispunitive,w.y</7/, Remissive 
 
 Function. 
 § 6. Jurisdiction-adjustitivc Fimc- 
 
 §7. Term of Servive. 
 
 §8. Remuneration. 
 
 §9. Attendance. 
 
 § 10. Loeable, who. 
 
 § 11. Located, by whom. 
 
 § 12. Dislocable, how. 
 
 § 13. Securities for appropriate 
 
 Aptitude. 
 § 14. Inaugural Declaration. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Local Headmen. 
 
 § 1. Fields of Service. 
 
 §2. Self-suppletive Function. 
 
 § 3. General-assistance Function. 
 
 i. Legislature-aiding Functions. 
 
 §4. Presidential Function Regis- 
 tration, uses of. 
 
 § 5. Convocative Function. 
 
 II. Administration-aiding Functions. 
 
 §6. Stipendiary Army Controlling 
 Function. 
 
 § 7. Stipendiary Navy Controlling 
 Function. 
 
 § 8. Damage-preventive Function. 
 
 § 9. Eleemosynary Function. 
 
 $ 10. Hospitality-exercising Func- 
 tion. 
 
 in. Judicature-aiding Functions. 
 
 § 11. Sedative Function. 
 
 §j 12. Justice-aiding Function. 
 
 § 13. Uncommissioned-prehen- 
 sion-warranting Function. 
 
 ^ 14. Judiciary-power-controlling- 
 Function. 
 
 § 15. Subjudiciary Topographical 
 Function. 
 
 $ 16. Subjudiciary VenditiveFunc- 
 tion. 
 
 $ 17. Communication-aidingFunc- 
 tion. 
 
 5 18. Beneficent-mediation Func- 
 
 tion. 
 § 19. Beneficent-informationFunc- 
 
 tion. 
 § 20. Travelling-disputcs-settling 
 
 Function. 
 §21. Hospitable Post-obituary 
 
 Function. 
 ^ 22. Term of Service. 
 § 23. Attendance. 
 § 24. Remuneration 
 § 25. Loeable, who. 
 | 26. Located, how. 
 
 6 27. Dislocable, how. 
 
 § 28. Reports — publicity. 
 
 § 29. Relation to Local Registrar. 
 
 § 30. Securities for appropriate 
 
 Aptitude. 
 §31. Inaugural Declaration. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. ' 
 
 Local Registrars. 
 
 § I. Fields of Service. 
 
 § 2. Self-suppletive Function. 
 
 ; 3. Functions Judiciary-ffttfm$*. 
 
 § 4. Genealogical-recordation 
 Functions — their uses. 
 
 §5. Death-recordation Function. 
 
 § 6. Marriage-rccordativc Func- 
 tion. 
 
 §7. Birth-rccordative Function. 
 
 § 8. Maturity-rccordative Func- 
 tion. 
 
 ^ 9. Insanity-rccordative Function 
 
 | 10. Post-obit-administration- 
 granting Function. 
 
 5 II. Propcrty-transfer-reeorda- 
 tive Function. 
 
 § 12. Contract-recordativc Func- 
 tion. 
 
 $ 13. Extrajudial-cvidencc-recor- 
 dative Function. 
 
 i 14. Subjudk'iary-topographic- 
 
 evidencc-reuonlauvc Fune- 
 
 S$ 15. Divestivc Function. 
 
 ^ 10. Document Chamber. 
 
 ^17. Term of Service. 
 
 ^ 18. Attendance. 
 
 ^ 19. Remuneration. 
 
 § 20. Attendance and Remunera- 
 tion, how connected. 
 
 §21. Loeable, who. 
 
 § 22. Located, how. 
 
 ^ 23. Dislocable, how. 
 
 § 24. Securities for appropriate 
 Aptitude. 
 
 § 25. Inaugural Declaration. 
 
 CHAPTER XWIII. 
 
 Judiciary Messengers 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Prehensors. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 Sub-legislatures. 
 
 § 1. Fields of Service. 
 
 ^ 2. Functions in general. 
 
 ^ 3. i. Ministerial Function. 
 
 ^ 4. n. Institution-rearing. 
 
 ^ 5. in. Money-supplying. 
 
 § G. iv. Expenditure-watching. 
 
 hi. v. Transfer-compelling. 
 
 is. vi. Information-elicitative. 
 
 § 9. vit. Publicity-securing. 
 
 $ 10. Term of Service. 
 
 § II. Attendance. 
 
 § 12. Remuneration. 
 
 § 13. Attendance and Remunera- 
 tion, how connected. 
 
 § 14. Members located, by whom, 
 who. 
 
 § 15. Dislocable, how. 
 
 \ 16. Securities for appropriate 
 Aptitude. 
 
 § 17. Inaugural Declaration. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 Sub-legislation Ministers. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 Government, Simple or Federa- 
 tive? 
 
 (a) [Election Code.]— By Election Code was meant the tracts published A e 1819, under the title of Bentham** Radical Reform BUI, the matter of which it is, that is referred to, in and by sections from 4 to 17 inclusive. A considerable part of the impression 
 old: and is to be had of the Publishers of this Volume. When this Volume was in the press, the intention was to prefix to the remaining copies the new title of Election Code. The intention is now altered; and the work continues to bear the title oi 
 Bentham^ Radical Reform Bill, as abovementioned. Number of pages occupied bv the text part, 51, preceded by Preliminary Explanations, pp. 17, and followed by Notes, in very small type, pp. 19, and by Appendix, pp. 12. 
 


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