JB/106/228/001

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23 March 1807

On the same disgraceful occasion it was maintained
that between right and wrong, probity and improbity, honesty and dishonesty, virtue and vice, there is no distinction
other than what has been is made by law, and may at
any time be abolished by it; that when if lawyers whose
decrees and opinions make law invite and make men to become clients,
and see there is no it ought not to be matter of reproach
to a man that he is so: that to justify such invitation
and encouragement it is sufficient that lawyers
have been in use to give it: that, as in the works of the
Almighty so in the works of lawyers, whatever is – is
right: and that or nothing that has by lawyers at least
has been done for a certain uncertain length of time can
be wrong, so on the part of the people no suffering that
has endured for a correspondent length of time ought ever
to receive any alleviation.

Doctrines such as these – if not in exact words –
(for alas, the words by which if recorded the names of the authors would have
been consigned to everlasting infamy are not recorded!) if not
in terms yet in exact purport, were maintained: for by and indeed
from any thing less than this, what were done could have could that which was was done or have
received support?

Were maintained? and where? and by whom? and when seated?
Englishmen – Britons when you think of this tremble with terror at least – for well
you may – if not Scotchmen tremble with indignation.

Never in the ardour of debate was the vizor mask of hypocrisy
more compleatly detached from the forehead of Iniquity. Oh, but could
one but have had for the tenor of the speech! it would have stood forth a lesson of virtue – a source of instruction,
because an object of just abhorrence, to all future ages!

⊞ Think not that in
the indignation thus hence
forth any circumstance of
a personal nature has any
the smallest share: between
him and me no individual relation
of any kind, social
dissocial or self regarding present or remote secret or indiscreet, ever
did take place. My very
person is unknown to him:
and what may seem still much
more extraordinary, his is
so to me. He: it is not
the person, it is the principle
and the character that
constitutes the object of my
abhorrence: and would be so
though they belonged to the of every thing I could so, were it my misfortune to find them in the posture of a Brother.
To convey a lesson of sobriety
to his children a father would
exhibit a slave intoxicated
with .
In that Were but the words preserved
it might be seen another
sort of slave, drunk with
ambition, base and groveling
ambition, tinctured
with jealousy and envy.
To become in any shape an instrument of
beneficence in any shape to mankind
is foreign to his nature:
and the good that it seeks
not to do, says he to
himself, shall never be done
so long as I can help it by any other hand.

Identifier: | JB/106/228/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 106.
Date_1	1807-03-23	Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	106	Main Headings	scotch reform
Folio number	228	Info in main headings field
Image	001	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	e4
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks
Marginals		Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	34816
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