JB/013/142/001

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1820 Decr 4

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If prosecuted The Jury by whom I shall be tried will have been
chosen by an official person committed by the closest
State have something
bias with those by whom I shall be prosecuted and in a
state of official dependence on the Judge for the checking of whose power Jurors
are professed to have
been

If prosecuted I shall therefore be convicted: if convicted the
least that could happen to be me would be to be fined to as
great amount and imprisoned for as long a time and as
afflictive a manner as the Judges pleased; the Judges those functionaries, in the development
of whose misrule and corruption fifty years of
my life have been are known to them to have been employed. And
if imprisoned, infirmities which, while at liberty, I can keep
is a something
under, without difficulty, would soon be fatal to me.

From my that illustrious, and much lamented friend of mankind whose name
can not be unknown
to any save to whom
the truce asking
of the English Parliament
are not altogether
unknown —
from my
intimate old friend
and declared disciple
Samuel
Romilly — but a short time before
his death I received the most positive assurance of
the prediction fate which he who was in a situation to
declared to be : the assurance I mean of my
having been devoted to preservation in the event
of my publishing in the way of general sale, one of my works which was notwithstanding
published: it is that in which the abuses of which
our Ecclesiastical system is composed are laid open
to view. 'If you publish this I am as sure as I am of my existence,
that you will be prosecuted: and if you are prosecuted, I am as sure as I am of my existence,
that you will
be convicted". These were
among his last words to me,
his very words
No day but my last
day will obliterate this memory
of them.

Whether it be the sort of character above spoken of, or whatever
else it be, still there is something as
yet has kept from in a state of pulling the sword
thus suspended over my head.[+]1
[+]1 If my there be
any thing that
can keep from being
finally cut the thread by
which it hangs it
is the sort of indirect protection
which it would then be
in the power of your
Government to afford
to me. The land which
has embrewed themselves
with without remorse in the
blood of unprotected individuals,
would shrink
from the imp of
offering an affront to Royalty in the person of a thus distinguished servant.

I am, Dear Sir, with the truest respect, Yours

Jeremy Bentham.

Chevalier d.
Colomb, &c
&c. &c.

When, as may be seen in my Papers on Codification,
my offers of service in that line

were accepted by Emperor Alexander, it was by a
letter written by himself in his own hand: but,

in the present instance, whether the obtainment

of such an authority would be practicable or

desirable, are two questions both of which wd.

be to be or wd. not be to be considered

Identifier: | JB/013/142/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 13.
Date_1	1820-12-04	Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	013	Main Headings	codification proposal (codification offer)
Folio number	142	Info in main headings field
Image	001	Titles
Category	correspondence	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	d18 / e18
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks
Marginals		Paper Producer
Corrections	jeremy bentham; john flowerdew colls	Paper Produced in Year
Notes public	letter 2726, vol. 10	ID Number	4591
Box Contents