JB/121/383/001

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10 Apr 1802 Postpone
Dispensing power

In fact, there were two crimes – a necessary one
and an unnecessary one. The necessary one consisted was
in the exercise the secret exercise of the illegal power, the power of frustrating
the designs of Parliament: the unnecessary one; in the
assumption, the open assumption of it that illegal power – by the
motions and pretensions manifested in that letter.
The unnecessary This last second the great crime was but instrumental
to the other. A line of conduct purely negative,
could gentlemen have had resolution and stateliness
viz enough to persevere in it, would have
answered the purpose, without exposing the authors actors agents
to any thing but shame: nor to any but that sort of shame
which amidst in the bustle of office to men in their situations does not give much
trouble.⊞ ⊞ By doing nothing and saying nothing, the establishment would have been equally destroy'd, and the destroyers would have been safe. It was with these great criminals as
with so many petty ones – by struggling to save their
by prating when they should have been silent – by
struggling to save their character, they lost that along and with every thing else. every thing else besides into the bargain. By Making what seemed to them
a case for assuming this illegal power, they made
what of course seemed to them a case for exercising it,
but their but the effect of their case was to make no other
than to make bad worse:⊞2 Could they but have kept their own scent. that which was already bad enough incomparably
worse.⊞1 ⊞ to substitute add a provable crime to an improvable one: – a punishable crime to the unpunishable one. Should the confederacy at length meet with guilt meet at length with its deserts
its deserts, the signing Minister may turn say
to the thinking and writing Minister, and say to him –
It was your vanity that ruined us.

Identifier: | JB/121/383/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 121.
Date_1	1802-04-10	Marginal Summary Numbering	8
Box	121	Main Headings	Panopticon
Folio number	383	Info in main headings field	Dispensing power
Image	001	Titles
Category	Text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	"Recto" is not in the list (recto, verso) of allowed values for the "Rectoverso" property.	Page Numbering	D8
Penner		Watermarks	1800
Marginals	Jeremy Bentham	Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year	1800
Notes public	[[notes_public::Postpone [note in Bentham's hand]]]	ID Number	001
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