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2nd August 1802.
Dear Sir
I am most thankful, as I ought to be, for the favour of your
most kindly prompt and ingenuous letter. From the circumstances you
mention, it is but too plain, that on the part of Mr Addington in the first
instance, and through him on the part of Lord Pelham, the force of imagined
personal interest is no match for the sense of public duty, though backed
by the obligations of justice. My expectations (for I confess to you I am
not yet without my expectations) are not bottomed on any such precarious
grounds. That they should do their duty without being forced, is indeed
what I do not expect: but I still expect that they will do their duty,
because I do expect that they will be forced to it. All perfidy — all treachery —
all unavouable conduct in public men — is funded on wrongheadedness: &,
in the present instance, so it has happened — that the same incapacity and
shortsightedness that led the former people (with whom the present people are
linked) into the commission of so much injury, led them moreover into scrapes
which they are probably little aware of, & have thereby given to the party injured
certain advantages, which happily he is aware of, & will not be backward to pursue.
As to Parliament — You yourself, my dear Sir, with all your experience in
Parliament, cannot be more fully aware than I with my no experience have always
been, how very faint a chance would be possessed by a case like this, if success
depended upon the obtaining against the existing Administration of the Country,
a Vote of Parliament. Happily my expectations, such as they are, rest on no
such aerial ground. Believe me &c
P.S. Think not from any thing above, that I regard with the less interest,
the kind efforts you announce: to yourself they will not be dishonourable, & it
might be matter of use probably, of curiosity certainly, to me to be apprized
of the dispositions manifested in consequence; before or during the working of other
engines.
P.S. 2nd Saturday 7th August. The above was written at date, but kept in
expectation of something that has not happened. You would oblige me much by
sending me, on the day you know of Ld Pelham's arrival, + + viz: at Brighton. a piece of paper
saying Ld. P. is come.
Identifier: | JB/120/012/004 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 120.
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1802-08-02 |
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120 |
panopticon versus new south wales |
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012 |
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004 |
no. 5 / mr bentham to sir c. bunbury brighton |
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correspondence |
1 |
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recto |
f4 |
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john herbert koe |
1800 |
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1800 |
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copy of letter 1709, vol. 7 |
40417006 |
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