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No. VII.: Circular. — To the Governor of the State of - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 4 [1843]

Edition used:

The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). 11 vols. Vol. 4.

Part of: The Works of Jeremy Bentham, 11 vols.

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No. VII.

Circular.To the Governor of the State of

Sir,

On the subject of Condification, an offer of mine, in the design of which, the State, over the councils of which your Excellency presides, was included, may be seen in a letter which I took the liberty to address to Mr. Madison, in his then character of President of your United States:—of this letter a copy, as exhibited in and by No. I. of the accompanying set of printed documents, solicits the honour of your acceptance, in the view of its being submitted to the competent authority in your State. No. II. is a copy of the answer received by me from Mr. Madison. No. III. is a copy of a letter, addressed, by Mr. Gallatin, at that time Minister Plenipotentiary from your Union to this Court, to Mr. Snyder, then Governor of Pennsylvania, recommending to his notice the one which follows. No. [V.] is the copy of a letter written by Mr. Snyder on the subject of it. In No. [VI.] being an extract of a Message delivered by his Excellency to the Legislative Body of his State, may be seen the notice which on that occasion he was pleased to take of it.

In the view taken of the subject by Mr. Madison, it happened not to be competent to the high situation at that time filled by him, to give to the offer in question the advantage of his sanction in any of the forms, which, for want of a sufficient acquaintance with the constitution of the United States, I had taken the liberty of submitting to his choice. Nevertheless, after so substantial an approbation as has been bestowed upon the offer in question, not only by those other distinguished citizens of your United Commonwealth, but by your late President himself, to wit, in and by the very letter in which he declined making, in a direct way, the proposed communication of it—I hereby take the liberty of submitting to your notice that same offer, as described in the accompanying letter to Mr. Madison, now printed for that purpose: and, forasmuch as of the twenty different States of which your Union is composed, if the offer in question has any claim to regard in any one, so has it in every other—hence the universality of the currency, which it has been my endeavour to give to it, and hence accordingly the word circular, by which an intimation of that endeavour is conveyed.

As to the nature of the communication,—though it is not in the number of those which come every day to be made and received in the ordinary course of public business, yet if in your judgment any prospect of useful service to the State, over the councils of which you preside, shall appear to be afforded by it, the circumstance of its singularity will not of itself, I am confident, operate as a bar to any such attention as, in consideration of the importance of the subject, it might otherwise be deemed proper to bestow upon it.

Having of late the good fortune to be not altogether unknown to Mr. Adams, at that time Minister Plenipotentiary from your Union to this Court, and at present your Congressional Secretary of State, who has moreover done me the honour to take charge of all the several papers above-mentioned, for the purpose of facilitating the transmitting of them to their respective destinations,—I take the liberty of mentioning that gentleman as being neither unable, nor I dare flatter myself unwilling, to afford, in relation to the person thus addressing you, any satisfaction that may happen to be desired.

On the occasion of the offer thus made, of the outline of a complete body of law for the use of any political state, as a work, which, though the foundations of it have so long ago been laid, remains yet to be completed,—it is matter of no small regret to me, that a correspondent number of copies, of a work containing a very considerable sample of the work now proposed to be executed, cannot accompany this address: I mean the work intituled, Traités de Legislation Civile et Penale, &c. in three vols., 8vo., Paris, 1802. The case is—that, though got up from some unfinished papers of mine, written in this my own language, (the fundamental principles of it, so far as concerns the penal branch, having moreover been laid down in my Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, published so long ago as the year 1789, but for this long time out of print) yet no translation of that work into this same language has ever yet been published: and that, of the 3000 copies which at the time (anno 1802) were printed at one impression, none (it is believed) are now to be found on sale in this country, nor by this time probably at Paris, where it was printed: and, by one cause or other, equally out of my reach have been placed two other works published in French, in like manner, from my unfinished papers, by my above-mentioned friend, viz., Théorie des Peines et des Récompenses, &c., and Essai sur la Tactique des Assemblées Politiques. Thus it happens, that so far as concerns the penal and civil branches of law, the only documentary evidence herewith transmissible, from which any conception of the work now proffered can be formed, is the testimonial evidence, composed of the letters hereto subjoined, together with the several official testimonies, spoken of or alluded to, in my above-mentioned and hereto also subjoined Letter to President Madison, and a Letter of mine to the Emperor of Russia, which, with his Imperial Majesty’s answer and my reply, is also designed to accompany this address. It is my ambition to approve myself, Sir, yours and your country’s diligent and faithful servant,

Jeremy Bentham.