JB/012/079/001

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1822 June 5
J.B. to General St Martin Protector of Peru

Not sent 1)
15

If there be a field in which the application of the the sort of Distinction in
question by the sort of hand in question be less
another, Military service field in which the use
of it a single source of being application made of it in least
it may perhaps be the field of military service.
But it is or if it be of the number class
of those which are dist in a particular are in exclusive
or peculiar degree are declaredly attached appropriated to the of
merit in this line, this supposed through an abundance
of instances it private influencing or court favour
without service in any shape rendered will be the cause of its being
granted, yet still unless some particular incident should have
rendered a man an object of aversion to men at the head of
things, if he has rendered any so it be that by him any
considerable and incontestable service has on any particular
occasion been rendered him, such the consequence is that by merit in this shape will
commonly augment and manifestly be augmented

But even in this case as a means of giving birth to
merit, it is greatly and incontestably inapt in comparison
of those means which but for this barbarian custom the nature
of the case would have substituted to it. In the character
of evidence of merit nothing can be more vague and inconclusive.
Merit In this line of service as in others merit is susceptible of an infinity of
degrees: in each individual occurrence the degree it is different
in generality as well as quantity from what it is on
every other occasion. In each individual instance let but
the individual circumstances be ascertained by appropriate
evidence and made public by those the report by whom it had been
ascertained, and they being responsible for the correctness and compleatness
of the report, the correspondent in each instance to the merit displayed
would be the public respect bestowed. On the contrary with the
reward decoration in question is bestowed in the only manner in which it is
bestowed, bestowed in the character of a mere mark of favour on the
part of the patron without any the slightest intimation by whom and
in what manner the evidence was collected on which this judgment
of his was grounded, the consequence is — that even in cases in which the
decoration was fairly earned by appropriate service rendered, favour and nothing more will still have the appearance of having been the sole efficient cause of its having been bestowed.

Identifier: | JB/012/079/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 12.
Date_1	1822-06-05	Marginal Summary Numbering	12
Box	012	Main Headings
Folio number	079	Info in main headings field	jb to general sn martin protector of peru
Image	001	Titles
Category	correspondence	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	e15
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks	c wilmott 1819
Marginals	jeremy bentham	Paper Producer	andreas louriottis
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year	1819
Notes public	[[notes_public::letter 2891, vol. 11; "not sent" [note in bentham's hand]]]	ID Number	4140
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