JB/013/293/001

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5

1822. March 9.
J.B. to Nunez

In that delightful letter of yours, you come
out with your exclamation – the Constitution, the whole
of the Constitution, and nothing but the Constitution!
With the rendering of this Letter of yours public through the
medium of the press, I have most abundant reason to
be gratified; but there is this inconvenience in it: I mean,
the obligation you seem to have considered yourself as under to
chime in in this particular with the public prejudices.
In the maintenance of determination to maintain the whole of the Constitution taken
together, the door being shut by it against all possibility
of amendment, I included are included in my view of the matter not only utter destruction to
every thing good in it, but I know not how many imossibilities,
a many accordingly Many are the points, that not
only have not been observed, but could not possibly
have been or be observed: these being bad ones, so far there is no
harm in their not being observed: but the harm is
that being in the habit, and that plainly an unavoidable
one, of trampling upon so many of its points and that not
only with impunity but without reprehension, those
who have the power in their hands will find the less difficulty
in trampling upon all such good ones as stand
in the way of their sinister interests and prejudices. Thus,
though no good alterations can be made according to
law, bad alterations will be made – made without difficulty, and
without limit – contrary to law. As an example of impossibilities,
what think you of the stocking the Cortes
of Madrid with Deputies from Ultramaria, when you
could as soon have had them from the moon? and
this, without intimation of any distinction between
those spurious ones and the real ones? All this, to no use but the making for a
pretence, for exercising, over their distant kinsmen, a
tyranny, the miseries of which were in their nature
more decidedly incapable of mitigation, than those of
the tyranny from which they were occupied in delivering
themselves. Oh yes! there was the further use:
the having a set of creatures of their own, with interests hostile to those of the, and Spanish people, creatures whose votes they could
command for every purpose hostile to the interests of the Spanish people.

Identifier: | JB/013/293/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 13.
Date_1	1822-03-09	Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	013	Main Headings
Folio number	293	Info in main headings field	jb to nunez
Image	001	Titles
Category	correspondence	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	d5 / e5
Penner	john flowerdew colls; richard doane	Watermarks	[[watermarks::i&m [fleur de lys] 1818]]
Marginals		Paper Producer	arthur wellesley, duke of wellington
Corrections	jeremy bentham	Paper Produced in Year	1818
Notes public	letter 2857, vol. 11	ID Number	4742
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