Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow Lord Lansdowne to Bentham. - The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 10 (Memoirs Part I and Correspondence)

Return to Title Page for The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 10 (Memoirs Part I and Correspondence)

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Lord Lansdowne to Bentham. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 10 (Memoirs Part I and Correspondence) [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. 10.

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

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


Lord Lansdowne to Bentham.

“Bowood Park, 27th August, 1790.

“Dear Sir,—

Allow me to answer your very long letter of yesterday in, I hope, a short one of to-day, not to save myself trouble, but to avoid digressions, and, above all, personalities.

“I am impatient to set you right about your Foundation Fact, upon which we are very far from agreed; as I do solemnly assure you, upon my word and honour, that I never made you any such offer as you suppose. I might, with great propriety, stop here; but from motives both of esteem and regard, I will go farther with regard to what has past and what is to come.

“While the public has been my first object through life, my temper has insensibly and involuntarily led me to advance everybody about me to the utmost of my power: my worst political enemies have told me that I carried this disposition to a failing, and experience has proved them to be in the right: but I have always lived within a very small circle, and I have been particularly fortunate in this respect; for I believe no person has served more people, especially considering the short intervals which I have been in power, nor with more real, nor upon more disinterested principles. In 1782, I left none who had political claims upon me unprovided for, and very few who had any of friendship or habits. It was natural for me to regret that you were among the last; but, in fact, no opportunity occurred of serving you in the line which I thought would have been most agreeable to you. As I have known many opportunities lost for want of knowing men’s wishes beforehand, it was equally natural for me to sound yours, in case I should return into Ministry. Finding, to my surprise, that your wishes were not of the nature I had supposed, different things were mooted, and among others parliament, under a prepossession that it was not your object, for this plain reason, that the same reasons which made you decline the practice of your profession applied in great measure to parliament, which prepossession was confirmed by what passed, and would be by your words, even as you now state them. It was the incident of this conversation upon which we were both agreed in town. It was I who referred first to it, not you—not as an offer, but as an incidental conversation; nor was the word offer ever brought forward in that conversation. As to what included Lord Lonsdale’s name, which you only say you think was conpled with it, I can only say, it is a commonplace which I have, properly or improperly, I am sure, mentioned to fifty people. But allow me to add, that I was much more confirmed by repeated conversations regarding yourself, in which you stated your happiness to depend on your perfect independence, and every view you had to be centred in your particular pursuits, and that you looked, where you addressed yourself, only for society—in terms of such disinterestedness and kindness as does not become me to repeat, especially in an argumentative way. The moment you mentioned parliament to me in town, you were witness to my astonishment, and it fully explains the forgetfulness you mention, which you attribute to affectation, certainly not one of my failings; and you then appeared to me to blame yourself so far for the past.

“As to what is to come, now that I know your wishes, I assure you that it will give me great pleasure if I can contribute to the completion of them; and that I will spare no pains for the purpose, so far as consists with the engagements I have express or implied, which have taken place when I was totally ignorant of your inclinations, which I do not think requisite to state, feeling the discussion of them unbecoming towards myself and others, from the same motives of delicacy which would influence me in your case, mutatis mutandis. But I must annex two conditions—one, that it must not be considered as the consequence of any past engagement, which I am now disclaiming; another, that it shall not be understood to be with any political view, for you quite mistake my plans. I wish well to what I call the new principles, and will promote them as far as a free declaration of my own sentiments in public or private will go; but politics have given long since too much way to philosophy, [for me] to give myself further trouble about them. I would as soon take England upon my back, as take the trouble of fighting up a second time the game to which you allude. If I plant any more, I have long determined that it shall be like the birds: the trees must depend on the nature of the soil—I will bestow no pains on fencing, much less manuring and dunging them.

“I am now only afraid that you will be angry that your sixty-one pages have not on the one hand had the effect of subduing or terrifying me; or, on the other, made me angry; and that you apprehend them to be thrown away. They have not occasioned to me one moment’s irritation—but they are not thrown away. I select, with satisfaction, the seeds of esteem and regard which I perceive interspersed. It’s no small pleasure to me to reflect that, open and unguarded as I am well known to be, in such intimate habits as I have indulged with you, I have exposed myself so little. I see the merit of the advice which is mixed, which, if I was as perseveringly ambitious as you suppose, is as good as any Lord Bacon could have given to the Duke of Buckingham; and though the rest is at the expense of myself, and of friends whom I highly respect and esteem, concerning whom you appear to have fallen into strange mistakes, I cannot help admiring the ingenuity with which you attach expressions to meanings, and meanings to expressions, to advance your argument; besides a great deal more I could say, if I was not afraid of your suspecting what I might say in the best faith, to partake of any sort of persiflage. But I consider the whole as an ebullition, excited by fine feelings, and by the pique you mention, arising from your brother Abbott’s being brought in for the disputed borough in Cornwall; which I am sure I enter into as well as all which regards your father’s house, and wish to God I could remedy it. But as to ebullitions, I am myself subject to them; and though they are more momentary, they are not half so ingenious, and, therefore, not half so pardonable: you may, therefore, depend, whatever you say or do, upon my remembering nothing, but how truly I am your affectionate, humble servant,

“Lansdowne.

“P.S.—Saturday, 28th,—My hand could not hold out to finish my letter yesterday; but, as there is no post to-day, I send it by a packet. I have not wrote half so much to anybody with my own hand since my illness.”

Bentham thus answered Lord Lansdowne:—