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The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). 11 vols. Vol. 10.

Author: Jeremy Bentham
Editor: John Bowring

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

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CHAPTER XIII.

1800—1801. Æt. 51—53.

Correspondence: Dr Roget, Addington, Abbot, Morton Pitt.—Project of a Frigidarium.—Letter on the Population Bill.—Prevention of Forgery.—Lind’s Widow.—Annuity Note, and Banking Projects.—Correspondence with Rose, Pye, Vansittart, Dumont, and Young.

On the subject of the newly-discovered laughing-gas, “Nitrous Oxide of Azote,” there is the following from

Peter Roget*to Bentham.

“Cheltenham,January 9, 1800.

“Sir,—

Not having been able to procure the number of Nicholson’s Journal, containing the article you refer to in the letter with which you have honoured me, I cannot form any judgment concerning it. I suppose, however, from your account, that it does not differ materially from the ‘Notice on the Respiration of a newly-discovered gas, &c.,’ published by Dr Beddoes in November, in the form of a small pamphlet, under the above, or some similar title. The medical effects of the air in question are, no doubt, very violent and peculiar; but, as far as I was an eye-witness to the experiments, I could not discover in them sufficient uniformity to enable me to draw a conclusion. I shall endeavour, however, to give you some general idea of its effects upon myself. I have respired the air three different times; in the last of which the experiment was pushed as far as was prudent—that is, until the air-bag dropped from my hands. The first inspirations induced a giddiness and stupor, from which I was gradually roused by a kind of delirium, which stole upon me imperceptibly, but which, after a certain time, increased so rapidly that I soon lost sight of every object around me, and all recollection of where I was. I felt as if my whole frame had been violently and tumultuously agitated—a state to which I can conceive nothing similar, unless it be that of high delirium or mania. How long I remained in this situation I cannot pretend exactly to determine, as my estimate of time must, in such circumstances, have been very inaccurate. The whole scene, indeed, had more resemblance to a delirious dream, than to anything that could be distinctly remembered. Its duration was probably not above a few minutes, for every unnatural feeling had completely subsided in a quarter of an hour. But I perfectly recollect that, during the whole time I was under its influence, I experienced no pleasurable sensations of any kind, but rather those of an opposite description. Nor was I singular in this respect; for some other persons on whom I saw the experiment made, were affected unpleasantly. The pleasure expressed by the rest might have arisen possibly from the novelty of the sensation. One chemist, I think it is the Abbé Rozier, describes his feelings on his first inspiring hydrogenous gas, as highly pleasurable, for which, perhaps, the same cause may be assigned.

“In July last, I gave Mr Davy, the discoverer of this air, an account I had written at his request, of the effect it had had upon me. This account, I find, has been suppressed.

“I should not apprehend any dangerous consequences from moderate trials with a gas diluted with a large proportion of common air; but I confess, until its effects on other animals be better known, I should have no inclination again to venture my health in any trial of its full effects. I am, indeed, disposed to doubt the entire safety of such experiments, after the account given me by one gentleman who had breathed it in a large dose, and, I believe, pure. The feelings it produced in him, he represented as those of a total suspension of all his faculties, impressing him with the belief that he was at the point of death. When pure, it is speedily fatal to small animals; mice, when immersed in an atmosphere of it, die in about four or five minutes. A taper burns in it with greater brilliancy than in common air.

“As you seem desirous of knowing the method of preparing it, I shall conclude by giving you some account of it.

“Crystals of nitrate of ammonia are to be heated till they undergo the aquæous fusion, and while in this state, are to be supersaturated with ammonia, by adding dry carbonate of ammonia till no further effervescence is produced by fresh additions. The salt resulting from this combination is decomposed by a certain degree of heat, below what is called a red heat, in such a manner that this peculiar air is extricated. This process, though simple, is an operation that requires some delicacy in regulating the application of heat; for upon the proper management of this the purity of the gas, as well as the safety of the experiment, depends. If the just medium be exceeded, either nitrous gas is disengaged along with it, or a deflagration is produced, which bursts the retort. I should add, also, that before the air thus obtained can be breathed with any safety, it should be allowed to remain a few hours in contact with a small quantity of water, in order to purify it from all mixture of nitrous gas; but if a large quantity of water be employed, much of the air we wish to preserve will itself be absorbed.—I remain, Sir, your most obedient servant,

“Peter Roget.”

A strange sort of asking for a dinner, Bentham addressed to Mrs Evan Nepean. (March 21st, 1800.)

“Good my Lady,—Heaven bless and preserve your good ladyship! Seeing, as how your ladyship was so good as to be pleased to be so kind as to say, as how that the round of beef would be good cold, and that there would be some of it for dinner to-morrow, and the next day, and the day after, (which is as much as to say this day, an’t please your ladyship,) and that I might have some of it for asking for, if so be as how I behaved well, which is my constant indiver to be, to the best of my poor abilities, whereby if it should please your good ladyship to bestow some of this good beef upon a poor man to-day, or to-morrow, or any time, as long as it keeps good, it would be a great help to him in these hard times; and so no more at all at present from your good ladyship’s humble servant to command. And so, with the proviso that so long as there is such good beef to be had for praying for, and such a dear good lady to bestow the same, your petitioner shall ever pray, being, with the utmost difference and respect, your ladyship’s humble servant to command.

“J. B.

“P. S. This is with the proviso that none of the quality, nor nobody else, dines with your good ladyship and the good family, seeing as how if there was any living creatur besides, I could never make bould to intrude myself, but would ax leave for some other day. With my humble duty and sarvice to good Madam Winkworth and the Squier, concludes me.

“J. Barebones.”

Hasty, but characteristic, is the following letter to Dumont:—

“Q. S. P., 20th June, 1800.

“My dear Dumont,—I return you herewith your Buonaparte letter, with thanks; also Mr North’s letters. Your suspicion about Mallet du Pan, I repel with scorn. You made me the offer, but you never realized it. What I had of you was nothing but Bibliotheque Britannique,—all returned.

“Pray send me Mr North’s address; his parish, and nearest post-town,—do so by the first opportunity.

“I leave out for you seven packets of MSS. God knows what they contain!

“I have a few sheets entitled Omnipotence, about a dozen or so,—viz. Of the Legislature or Supreme Power,—showing that there ought to be no limits to it,—no occasional conventions,—no epochs of revision. But this, I believe, you have seen. I have more about Constitutional Laws,—including old stuff about Etats Generaux, &c.”

To Mr Addington, the Speaker of the House of Commons, Bentham sent (July 24th, 1800) suggestions for architectural arrangements in the House of Commons, in order to give effect to suggestions for the regulation of debate. The proposal is original, and parts of it, at least, feasible:—

Bentham to Speaker Addington.

“Sir,—

The architectural alterations proposed for the two Houses of Parliament, recall to me an old idea, a compressed hint of which I take the liberty of submitting to your consideration.

“Debate beside the question, or even without a question, consuming a large proportion of the time of every deliberative assembly as yet known, would the simplicity and efficiency of the under-mentioned remedy, atone for the novelty of it?

“The subject-matter of debate—Motion—Address—Clause (in a Bill, &c.) to be exhibited in a situation in which it would be visible to every member in the House, in types large enough for the purpose, the matter to be composed, broken up, and recomposed, for successive motions, &c., with that rapidity which is in use among compositors for the press.

“Practicability, in respect of size and distance, was ascertained many years ago, by observations, experiments, and calculations. I found that a quantity of matter more copious than is usually exemplified in any king’s speech or address, might be made legible at the remotest station of a room much more spacious than either of the existing apartments, called Houses of Parliament.

“Supposing the principle admitted, the application of it would be susceptible of two extensions, neither of which I should expect to find capable of obtaining admittance, at least during the life of any person now living, against the resistance that might be opposed by the idea of innovation and the fear of ridicule.

“One is—a Table, exhibiting the Rules of Debate: analagous to the Table of the Ten Commandments, which we see in churches.

“Another is—a Table of the Improprieties men are liable to fall into in debate—an idea suggested by the ingenious but imperfect list of ‘Fallacies’ exhibited so long ago as in the books of school-logic copied from Aristotle.

“A wand or rod (an ensign already borne by more than one officer of state, and thereby protected against the imputation of ridicule; but in their hands an instrument of mere parade) would, in the hands of the Speaker or Chairman, be, in the case supposed, an instrument of indispensable service, by pointing to the passage or word in the Motion, &c., not attended to—to the rule infringed, or, (as it is feared,) in danger of being infringed, to the head of impropriety incurred, or, but for such aid, in a way to be incurred.

“Correction might thus be administered, or rather by timely warning, the occasion for it prevented, without interruption, and with a degree of gentleness, (not to speak of dignity,) hitherto without example.

“Under the approaching influx, a lenitive of this nature, might it not operate upon occasion as a preventive not only of ill blood, but bloodshed?

“Appropriate arrangements of the architectural kind, such as a station for the reception of the apparatus, &c., and adapted to the station of the Speaker or Chairman, &c., would be requisite: and this consideration as it has been the cause, will (I humbly hope) be accepted as an apology, for whatever might otherwise appear intrusive, in an address thus timed, from a man whose nullity for so many years in relation to the public service, has not been the result of indolence.

“Queen Square Place,Westminster,
24th July, 1800.

“To the Right Honourable the
Speaker of the House of Commons.”

Charles Abbot to Bentham.

“Sunday.

“My only reason for not saying anything about your Motion Table was, because I should not have advised you to send the proposal. It might be used practically, I dare say; but I do not think the want of it is at present felt; and as you have one new project in hand, it might be as well not to acquire the character of a Faiseur de projets with people who are not too much disposed to carry into effect the one for which they are pledged.

“As to the Registry, if I did not mention it, it was purely accidental. In truth, if it succeeds at all, it will fall short of what I think ought to be done, and probably very short indeed of what you, who wish to have everything perfect, would desire. But we must work with things and men as they are, if any practical good is to be done.

“On Tuesday se’nnight we go from hence upon a visiting tour, and shall have no fixed abode for some time; but letters left for me in Pall Mall will always follow me.

“You may depend upon a copy of the Record, the first when printed; but it will be scarcely finished before November, on account of the quantity of letter-press in the Appendix, and the number of plates.

“If you have anything to say about the use made of my scraps upon the Sinking Fund, I shall be glad to hear it.”

Bentham to Charles Abbot.

“Q. S. P.,July 30, 1800.

“How comes no report to have been made about the records? I see something about £1000 voted for somebody on that account, but not intelligible.

“Thanks for Exchequer Bill Return received. Pray send me back the enclosed by return of post.

“Copies sent the 24th inst. to the Speaker, Chancellor, and Mr Pitt.

“Yesterday, note from the Speaker in these words:—

“ ‘The Speaker presents his compliments to Mr B., and has the honour of acknowledging his letter of the 24th inst., with many thanks.’

“This was more than I expected,—no notice from either of the two others, of course.

“Do not you think that in case of squabbles, confusion, &c., especially from the Irish, this may perhaps be called to mind? I should be sorry to find that the architectural arrangements had physically precluded the use of it.”

The next is a letter from

Bentham to W. Morton Pitt.

“Q. S. P. 14th Aug. 1800.

“My dear Sir,—

You have been so quiet a creditor for the four years (for it can be little less) that I have been indebted to your liberality for the loan of the two first volumes of the Finance Reports, (anno 1797,) that I am inclined to suspect you have considered it as a lost debt, and found some means or other to replace it. Should that be the case, my character is gone, and worldly wisdom suggests the keeping the one treasure by way of compensation for the other. But if the case be, that you have never ceased to regard me as an honest man, and that accordingly your third and fourth volumes lie to this hour pining for their companions on your — shelves, (‘shelves’ ought to have had an epithet to complete the pathos,) then, and in that case, you have but to acknowledge the same under your hand, and volumes first and second take wing for Arlington Street. The proximate cause of this fit of probity is, that this original impression being, as everybody knows, unpurchaseable, and, in fact, some of the numbers absolutely exhausted, and the pretended reimpression mutilated and good for nothing, and divers efforts I have used to complete my set, (having had volumes third and fourth from the beginning of things,) having proved fruitless,—I have at last succeeded in getting the four volumes at the expense of a burthensome obligation from a man who will not accept of payment. But if it should so happen that you have done the injury to my character, as above-mentioned, I am willing to compound: and if your succedaneous volumes should be as yet unbound, such is my generosity, I would consent to an exchange with you. Had it not been for so providential a resource, I had subdued my conscience and hardened my heart to such a degree that I should absolutely have kept the books on and on till the owner had appeared in the character of a dun, and haunted me,—they having been all along, with reference to my necessities, beyond all price, (whence some people, in my place, would take occasion to say pretty things about the liberality of the owner, and so forth; but this is a parenthesis,) I had, however, just so much grace left as to have guarded you against my representatives, by giving an indication of the lawful owner in a blank leaf.

“I hope that this will find you and yours in wonted health and prosperity,—ever gay and ever busy,—feeding the poor and entertaining kings.—Believe me, &c.”

Bentham was at this time much occupied with a project for preserving fruit, vegetables, &c., from decay, by the employment of cold, and wrote to Dr Roget, September 4th, 1800:—

Bentham to Dr Roget.

“Queen’s Squares Place,Westminster,
Thursday,September 4th, 1800.

“Dear Sir,—

It is with no small satisfaction I avail myself of your obliging permission (received through Mr Romilly) to cast my crudities upon your indulgence. Even in the course of this very letter, I must trust to the same indulgence for tolerating incoherence, the better part of my attention being called aside by matters of superior moment, as well as pressure, and my mind enfeebled by some years of oppression, and ill qualified to sustain these or indeed any other burthens.

“The catch-word (you will find) is Frigidarium, a sort of ice-house, for the purpose of preserving fermentable substances of all sorts, from prejudicial fermentation, by excluding the degree of heat necessary to that process. The commercial plan therein deducible includes, you see, all provisions except grain, with different degrees of advantage.

“In one of the sheets you will see such facts as it has come in my way to collect in a course of casual reading of four or five years.

“That by the means in question, all fermentable substances may be kept from all distinguished species of fermentation, putrefaction included, seems out of all doubt: but whether from all changes perceptible to the palate, is a matter that I suppose remains to be tried. If not already ascertained, I make no doubt of your agreeing with me that the point is worth the trial in every point of view, philosophical as well as commercial not excepted.

“While simple absence of heat (an effect so easily obtained) promised so much, and (as far as resorted to,) in a sufficient degree performed, what weakness to have recourse to the inadequate expedient of mixtures, as by salting, &c., or even the deteriorative expedient of removal of moisture by heat, solution in air, pressure, or otherwise.

“Freezing keeps animal substances estable for any length of time, as is known by universal practice throughout the Russian empire; but not altogether, I understand, without prejudice to flavour: but, by freezing, the texture is quite broken up and destroyed.

“The object is to keep the subject-matter unfrozen in a temperature not higher (say) than 36. This equability may be preserved, (by an adequate magazine of ice throughout the year,) I suppose, in the air of the Frigidarium, and, without doubt, (I imagine,) in what I call the Balneum, viz. under water.

“In cellars, joints of meat are kept for six or eight weeks, I believe, even in summer time. This, as far as it goes, proves in favour of the project, and proves nothing against it where cellars fail; the temperature of a cellar in summer being hardly below 50.

“You will see various paragraphs relative to a Tepidarium, and to contrivances for preserving different degrees of temperature in a regular scale. All these experiments I should have tried together, had fortune favoured: as it is, I must confine myself, for the present at least, to the most simple and most profitable, with a view to practice and commercial profit, as above. In the choice of the subject-matter of philosophization, the principle of utility—your old acquaintance, has been my guide. I leave it to Mr Tonorant to employ gold in the destruction of diamonds.

“You will see abundance of repetitions, and not a few absurdities: but to expunge them, would have taken up more time than I can spare.

“My Frigidarium I think of making semi-globular, (or rather a frustum of a globe mounted on a cylinder,) about sixteen feet diameter clear in the inside: estimated expense, by an able and confidential architect, about £170. It will form a mount in my garden, and will be pretty well shaded by tall trees. Vessels and instruments may make up the expense, say £250: and subject-matter of experiment for the twelvemonth, perhaps £100 more. Some rough graphical sketches of the Frigidarium (not by the architect, as you will perceive) may perhaps be with the rest of the papers.

“In case of success on this gally-pot scale, I have a situation at command extremely well adapted to the purpose of carrying it on upon the commercial scale, and a plan of architecture invented by my friend above-mentioned, (Mr Bunce, architect to the Naval Works,) which promises to reduce very considerably the expense on that score, viz. a means of making a concave semi-globular arch: in a word, a dome without the scaffolding, called centering.

“The grounds in respect of supposed or known matter-of-fact of the projected course of experiment are contained in the sheet of Collectanea, which, therefore, I would recommend to be the first read.

“The number of sheets sent is thirteen. I send the copies as most legible, but have not had time to revise them. Of a few of the sheets which I could least bear to lose, I have taken copies.

“Now, then, as to my views in troubling you with these papers:

“1. Does any matter-of-fact or consideration present itself to you as opposing an insuperable bar to success?

“2. Item, anything as necessary or particularly conducive to success?

“3. Does the course of experiments and observations I think to engage in, (unless you should show cause to the contrary,) strike you as sufficiently interesting in any point of view, to produce an inclination on your part to observe and attend the progress of them?

“4. Could you make it convenient to give me your company at the time of planning the building and other arrangements?—a business which could not, I think, well be deferred (in respect of the season and weather) beyond the first week in October. I feel much the want of a confidential friend, whose sympathetic zeal might animate my languor, and to whose information and intelligence I might look for a supply of my own deficiencies.

“Even in the paper of the latest date, you will find the arrangements in a very crude and imperfect state. As yet, I have given none but superficial glances. The business has never yet been the order of the day. I have never yet applied to it seriously: but I hope to be able to do so in less than a fortnight. In less than three weeks I expect the architect, who is now at Plymouth upon duty in the same party with your cousin Romilly.

“By the very next opportunity after this comes to hand, I would beg a line from you, if it were only just to let me know of its arriving safe: if you had time to glance over the papers, so much the better. I could wish at first to have the picture of first impressions: and afterwards, when you have had time, the result of your maturer thoughts.

“I hope Mr Romilly conveyed in due season my thanks for the favour of your instructive letter relative to the wonder-working gas: I see an advertisement of a new and larger volume on the subject by Mr Davy. I left your uncle on Sunday in the declared intention of setting out on the then next, and now last Tuesday, bag and baggage, household and all, on his excursion to the Isle of Wight. Believe me, &c.”

Dr Roget answers:—

Dr Roget to Bentham.

“Sidmouth,September 9th, 1800.

“I received your parcel, very safe, yesterday morning. As you express a wish to know what were my first impressions on learning the nature of your scheme, I shall begin by telling you, they were very much in its favour. On a superficial glance over the papers, I was struck with the extensiveness of the views they seem to open; and a nearer inspection convinced me that the proposed experiments must lead to a wide field of investigation on various subjects, scientific as well as economical. From what I have as yet collected, I should conceive it to be no very difficult matter to succeed in maintaining a temperature, sufficiently constant and uniform, for every purpose in which it was required. I can perceive, at present, nothing that opposes any insuperable bar to success; and, indeed, we have it so much in our power to retard to almost any degree, the transmission of heat, that some sort of success can hardly fail to result from the attempt. By the means you propose, it appears in the highest degree probable that the total suspension of every species of fermentation may be obtained for any length of time. There is one consideration too, which just now occurs to me, (though you have probably anticipated the remark,) and is apparently of great moment in the future prosecution of the plan on a great scale:—it is, that the space gained by enlarging the dimensions of the building, will increase in a much greater proportion than the surface exposed to the heating or cooling influence of the atmosphere increases; the former being as the cube of the diameter, the latter as the square only. Hence, the larger the scale on which it is constructed, the greater proportion will the space cooled, bear to the quantity of cooling materials required to produce or maintain the same given temperature in that space. However favourable the results on a small scale, they will be still more so on a larger. The only discouraging reflection that has presented itself to me is, that the immediate utility that may result from the scheme, does not, as yet, appear in so clear a light, as the possibility of carrying it into execution does. But I am too ignorant on the subject of commercial speculation to venture offering any crude observations of mine to your maturer experience. When I have had a little more time to ruminate on the subject, I will trouble you with what has occurred to me. Allow me to mention, in the meantime, that I feel extremely flattered at your having selected me as not unworthy of your confidence, and at your permission to witness your experiments, and participate in your labours; a permission of which I shall very gladly avail myself. It was already my intention to have been in town towards the end of October,—as I purpose attending some hospital in the course of next winter. It will not materially derange my plans, to hasten my journey a week or two earlier,—I am, &c.”

Bentham is only strengthened in his convictions by the few difficulties which Dr Roget suggests—and replies of date September 13th:—

“Nothing could be more flattering or encouraging to me, than your obliging letter of the 9th instant, just received. I take you at your word, and consider you as in a state of requisition; but of that, more before I conclude.

“As to utility, in a commercial point of view, I wish it stood as clear of doubts in all other points of view as in that. Provisions to this purpose may be divided into classes. No. 1, those which are not to be had at all under the existing order of things, but at certain times of the year. No. 2, those that are regularly dearer at certain times than others. No. 3, those of which under the present impossibility of preservation, the price not only varies as between season and season, but fluctuates from day to day. Fish of most kinds do this on a scale of amazing length: for example, between 1s. or 1s. 6d. a lb. and 1d.

“Of No. 1, the instances are innumerable, the same peach or parcel of green peas which at one time may be had for 1s., shall at another time only by being a few months or even weeks earlier, fetch a guinea. What would they fetch at Christmas? Even early potatoes, have, by mere dint of earliness, been sold for 2s. per lb., and that at Manchester. At such enormous prices, the sale, it is obvious, must be extremely limited; yet, even at such prices, in such a place as London, the monopoly must be worth something. Reducing the rate of profit from 2000 per cent. to £100 or £200, the consumption might be so great as to render the amount of profit very considerable. To this class belong, you will find, most vegetables: item, a great many articles of animal food deemed delicacies, and bearing a high price: ex. gr. venison (buck,) house-lamb, even poultry, considered with reference to age.

“Of No. 2, I learnt one example t’other day by accident, in conversation with Mr Colquhoun, (police Colquhoun,) pig meat is at one time of the year dearer by 50 per cent. than at another.

“No. 3, it is that interests me more particularly. Nos. 1 and 2 do but administer to luxuries. No. 3 may afford substantial assistance to the poorer classes. On this subject I have a fortunately timed Report of the House of Commons before me. The prices of the other articles will form in due season the subject of a regular inquiry; but these broken hints, will, I suppose, be enough to remove your doubts. Grain excepted, all branches of the provision trade are subject to loss by spoiling, which must be made up by profit. On this plan, the profit might be reaped without the loss. A branch thus new and monopolized, might command ready money, and thus be clear of loss by bad debts.

“The thing that presses, is the calculation of the proportion necessary, as between quantities of ice for the years, or say one and a half year’s stock, and quantities of preservanda, taking succession into account. Unfortunately, I have never seen the inside of an ice-house, nor do I know anything of the quantities of ice usually employed, or of the average time of sojournment, for the purpose of manipulation in the way of trade, (the confectioner’s.) Before the building is begun, or the plan of it fixed, I must endeavour to get access to one or two of these places; and shall hope for the benefit of your company on that occasion. In the meantime, the most material assistance you could afford me, would be by turning that matter in your thoughts, and putting together and applying in calculation what data you may have had or could obtain access to from conversation and books. Lavoisier, Rumford, Kirwan, I am, of course, aware of. Are you ready at calculations? I am very slow and awkward.

“Upon the equity of the assurance given in your letter, I shall rely on your making my house your home, for such time at least as is occupied by the planning, building, and if season favours, original stocking of the Frigidarium: supposing the abode, (which in situation is not unpleasant,) and the retired life I lead in it, not to be incompatible with your plans of study and amusement, it certainly will not, with your intended attendance at an hospital. Of two rooms—one on the ground floor, the other on the two pair of stairs, (not to speak of two small rooms without fire-places, appendages to the upper room,) you will have exclusive possession, with abundance of out-house room if you wanted it for any purpose.

“I hold you, therefore, in a state of requisition on the first summons; which summons I should give even now, and by these presents, were it not that I wait for the clearing my mind of a task, of which I hope and trust it will be cleared within a week; but while it stays there, will render me very bad company, as well as incapable of attending to any other business. In the meantime, I will beg the favour of your answer, including any further remarks that may have occurred to you in relation to the scheme.

“The following particulars, relative to the fluctuation of the price of fish, are subjoined, for your edification, from the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on the British Herring Fisheries, printed 30th June, 1800.

“1. Largest cod, price from one guinea to two guineas each, the high price in winter.

“2. Mackerel, from five pounds to six shillings per hundred, p. 139.

“3. Herrings, from fifteen to two shillings per hundred, p. 139.

“4. Thornbacks, maids, and other flat fish, taken near Yarmouth, have been sold sometimes 20lbs. for a shilling, sometimes come in such quantities they cannot be disposed of at all. They come from banks, near Yarmouth, which are inexhaustible. None of these flat fish are good for salting, pp. 130, 131.

“5. The trade in cod and haddock, afforded a sufficient profit to the fishermen at a time when they never obtained so much as twopence per lb., pp. 126, 127.

“6. Vessels being allowed but eight days (instead of twelve) to clear their cargoes, is the cause (in the opinion of Selby, a person examined) that there is a great glut for a short time, and no supply for a considerable time after, p. 129.

“7. Fish, when they die at sea, (lobsters excepted,) are salted, or otherwise preserved. Inland codfish, two cargoes salted in bulk, (without barrels,) weight fifty or sixty tons. Quere, in Tepidario, with or without a cheap acid, (sulphuric diluted,) lobsters and all.

“Frigidarinm would neither buy at the cheapest of those prices, nor sell at the dearest. Yet would there be any want of profit?

“Twopence per lb., the price before the war raised the insurance as high as 40 guineas per cent., (p. 146,) affording a sufficient profit, seems to hold out a prospect of an unlimited sale, at a rate profitable to the seller, and yet cheap to the poor.”

Roget replies by consenting to become Bentham’s inmate, and to superintend the erection and management of the Frigidarium.

The following is a letter on the subject of Registration, from

Bentham to Charles Abbot.

“On Friday (I think it was) that I addressed by the post a letter to you at Cheltenham, in which I told you of the effects produced instanter upon the price of land in the part of Poland last ceded to Prussia by the system of Registration, viz., raising it from seventeen years’ purchase to twenty. In the other parts of the Prussian dominions (property being upon so much securer a footing than it used to be in Poland) the price is, and has for some time been, thirty years’ purchase. The plan of Registration is in Prussia much more extensive and detailed than I believe it is here in the Register counties, or than you would, I imagine, think it advisable to attempt introducing. It includes not only mortgages, as well as conveyances outright, but servitudes (Latinè,) easements &c., (Anglicè.) In a word, it does for the whole country, and at all times, what I understand to be done once for all by the late Act in regard to the New Forest.

“I told you, at the same time, of an opportunity I thought I had of getting any queries answered in a satisfactory manner, that you might wish to put relative to the subject, if you thought it worth your while: at any rate, I shall use my endeavours to get a copy of the regulations printed on that subject, which regulations will, I suppose, contain, in most points, as satisfactory an answer to any such queries as could be procured by the queries themselves.

“Hearing to-day that you had left Cheltenham some time, it seems probable enough that the above letter has never reached your hands. I wish this, therefore, that if you think it worth while you might write about it to the Postmaster at Cheltenham. The direction was to ‘Charles Abbot, Esq., M.P., Cheltenham,’ nothing more. It contained some little matters besides, but of no great consequence.

“Talking with Wilson t’other day, I found that, according to his conception of the matter, the acknowledgments that country bankers give for their money, which they borrow at interest, are not negotiable bills, nor notes employed as currency, (as their notes, payable on demand, and the notes of the Bank of England are,) but simply promissory notes. You would oblige me, if you could inform me how that matter stands in the part of the country where you are at present, and any other that you may happen to be acquainted with.

“In the last Budget speech, 24th February, 1800, (as per Times, 25th February,) Pitt takes credit for ‘imprest money’ to the amount of £750,000, as expected to be received ‘in repayment of money advanced.’ Quere—to whom advanced, and on what account? Is this what we find sometimes under the head of Army Savings?”

Charles Abbot answers:—

“High Lake, near Neston, Cheshire, 11th September, 1800.

“I shall be very glad to have the Prussian scheme of Registration. And I also want to know how the American plan has proceeded, which was enacted by Congress two years ago; but I have no American acquaintance.

“My plan you will despise very much; but you would do more justly by transferring your censure to those who have not the understanding or spirit to adopt a better. I can only hope to establish the Middlesex and Yorkshire Registration throughout England. When this is done, it will be less difficult to do more afterwards.

“See Lord [Sir Mathew] Hale’s Essay on Registration.

“The £750,000 Imprest Money—expected to be repaid into the Exchequer—refers, I suppose, to some of the Mercantile Loans—or some of the Contractors’ accounts; but I do not believe that Army Savings form any part of it. But our successes at Ferrol, &c. &c., must be very satisfactory.”

The following letter of Bentham, on the Population Bill, signed Censor, and dated November 1800, is published in Peter Porcupine. I find a letter from Cobbett, acknowledging it, and apologizing for its delay for a week, from his wish to give it entire:—

HINTS RELATIVE TO THE POPULATION BILL.*To Charles Abbot, Esq., M.P.

Sir,—

Great is the debt your country owes you on many a score: on none greater than that of your Population Bill. But eulogium, how well soever merited, is not the object of these pages. The object is, to consult with you, if I may aspire to that honour, how that which is already good, may be made, if possible, still better. In this view, I will venture to submit to you a few hints as they present themselves: whether they will bear the test of examination, I do not even myself undertake to say. Suggestion is all I have to offer; for serutiny I have not time; nor for decision, competence.

1.Return of numbers without names.—Numbers (I observe) with sexes but not names: Names omitted, under the notion perhaps of saving trouble. But by this generalization, I am inclined to think, trouble would rather be increased than saved. Persons to be counted, must be distinguished, and how can they be distinguished but by names! Question—‘Well, friend, who have you in this house?’ Answer—‘There be me John Brown, my eldest boy John, likewise; my youngest Thomas, my wife Mary, my daughter Mary, likewise.’ Then and thus comes the general deduction—males, three; females, two. But how should the general deduction come, but from the particular information? I do not see how the trouble is increased by the giving of the names; and the security against error is infinite. If all that is required of a man is to say how many there are of each sex in the family, what check can there be? Some will not know how to make the account; some, through carelessness, will answer anything that comes uppermost: some, possessed by those suspicions which ignorance is so apt to harbour, will give answers purposely false: some theory will come across them, of an advantage to be derived, or burthen evaded, by increasing or diminishing the number. This they may do without much difficulty: falsehood will be exposed to no check. In the other case, where names are to be given in, there is a plain and palpable check.—Is a non-existing Thomas Brown inserted? There is then a plain, palpable, and disproveable lie, with incontestible mala fides as a concomitant of it. Is an existing Thomas Brown omitted? Here, perhaps, there may be no mala fides in the case: or if there be, the proof of it will not be so palpable: but a door will be open at any rate to correction, and such an one, as in the case of mere numbers, would have no existence. What? are these all? Have you not besides these a son or a younger brother, or a daughter, or a younger sister, who is at a day-school, or out a harvesting? Who is that lad, there, of the name of Brown, who is at farmer Hodge’s keeping sheep? Is not he a son or nephew of yours?—Does he come to you of nights, or does he sleep at the farmer’s?

Whatever inaccuracies result from the omission of the particularity I am contending for, will all be on the side of deficiency: forgery of non-existing persons is altogether improbable: omission of existing ones, may happen from any one of a great variety of causes. A part of your population, there is no saying how great a part, may thus slip through your fingers; and the result will be so much the less pleasing and encouraging than it would be otherwise.

“Here allow me to point out an omission, which if it be, (what I suspect,) an oversight, will be easily repaired. In Section 3, penalty on an inhabitant for refusing, or wilfully neglecting to answer such questions, (questions in the plural—so that one refusal or neglect will not constitute an offence,) meaning such necessary questions as shall be put by the persons authorized;—viz. the rector, &c. The addition I propose is, or wilfully, or through neglect, giving any false answer, &c. For the clause, as it stands at present, contains no provision to that effect.

II.Ages omitted.—Another head of inquiry that I do not see,—but should be glad to see, is, the ages: ages are material, inasmuch as they serve to show, not merely the absolute number existing at a given point of time, but the rate of increase. The quicker that rate, the greater the proportion of the infants of the last year, and so on year before year, to the adults. By this means you see likewise the number of fighting men for the current year; and are able to calculate and predict the number of that class, for each of so many years to come. The Americans in their census were not inattentive to this point. Age has the further use of helping to distinguish and identify the individual, where there are several that have both names in common:—a very frequent case.

III.Baptism and Burials.—Series incomplete. The returns required of baptisms and burials are incomplete; while those of marriages are complete. The former for every tenth year, and no more; the latter for every year. Why this difference? forty-five numbers more for the baptisms and as many for the burials, in addition to the six of each that are required, are all I want. When the register book is once taken in hand, how slight would be the addition thus made to the trouble! Names would not be to be collected in this case, as in that of the actual existing stock of individuals: that check exists already, and is already upon the books.—When one, two, three, and so on, are to be counted for each of six years, why not for the remaining and intermediate five-and-forty years? The information thus given by the births and burials, would thus correspond with the information given by the marriages; each would serve as a check and tally to the other; and the body of information given by both together would be complete. As it stands at present there will be a manifest gap in the information, and that a very wide one, without any apparent reason for it.

In the columns headed with the words Baptisms and Burials, there were no subordinate divisions for receiving the distinction between males and females. It is, however, a distinction universally made, and as universally regarded as an instructing one. Can there be any difficulty or any trouble worth regarding, in obtaining the information relative to it?—In the London Bills of Mortality, you have it, if my recollection does not fail me. You yourself require it, as above, for the actually existing stock.

IV.Houses, not connected in the account with inhabitants. Houses, I observe, are included in the account required as well as inhabitants; that is, two distinct accounts are required to be given, the one of inhabitants and the other of houses. What I should have been glad to have seen is, a connexion between the two accounts, the account of houses serving as a basis for the account of inhabitants; each house characterized by some distinctive mark, such as the street, &c., where situated, with a number; and then the names of the several persons inhabitants of that house. As it is, what I am apprehensive of, is, that the number of houses may be given by one random guess, and the number of inhabitants by another; and what check is there upon inaccuracy in either case? Difficulties, I am sensible, may be liable to occur in respect to the describing the situation, and establishing identity and diversity as between house and house: but for these difficulties, the connexion I propose to establish will afford a simple and very effectual remedy. In the case of this or that house, how to distinguish it by itself and without reference to its inhabitants, might be matter of difficulty: but when the aid of such reference is called in, and the house is denoted by the description of the house, in such a Lane, such a number, inhabited by John Brown, his wife Mary, and so forth, the obscurity is cleared up, the difficulty is at an end.

A circumstance that (I am inclined to apprehend) may render inaccuracy the more frequent, is the general tendency there has been found to be, to make omissions in the account of houses: principally, I believe, with views of favour and indulgence, to enable the inhabitant to elude the pressure of some tax or other burthen; and, perhaps, not unfrequently to save the time and trouble of the examinations and journeys, that might be necessary to ascertain whether any, and what additions have been made, and where, to the number of houses, in the time that has elapsed since the last return or examination. This propensity, whencesoever derived, seems to stand in need of some counter-force to counteract it.—One may be, the making the designation of dwellings, and the designation of their respective inhabitants, serve as indexes of each other, as above proposed: the other, the requiring an averment sanctioned by an oath; or, perhaps, still better, by a simple penalty without oath, (but of this afterwards,) that the houses, given in as the houses contained in the parish, &c., are really all the houses; and the persons, given in as inhabitants of the respective houses, really all the inhabitants.

V. Mode of circulating the inquiries, &c.

Another topic is the mode of circulation:—I mean the mode of conveying to those by whom the information is more immediately to be obtained, the instructions designed for their guidance, in respect to the obtainment of it. On this point I have my fears on the score of expense. Not that I myself should grudge the expense, supposing it necessary, were it ever so much greater than the mode proposed would render it. But there are some that oppose everything; some that have a particular aversion to every species of information; and some that, in proportion as a measure is good—good, even according to their own conception of it,—take a particular delight in everything that can tend to present it as impracticable. To such eyes, a degree of expense, more than appears to have been expected, would be a discovery too valuable not to be made the most of.

Under the bill, the documents in question are to be transmitted, in the first instance to the clerks of the peace of the respective counties, &c., and by them to the several acting justices in each county, &c. But why not to the several justices at once? (if their intervention should be necessary, of which afterwards,) and that by the cheapest, surest, and quickest of all channels, the post-office? As to the ascertaining here in town, who, in each county, &c., are the acting justices, I should not expect to find it a matter of any difficulty. Acting justices are among those whose names are inserted in the several commissions for the several counties, &c.—those who have taken out their respective dedimuses. In the metropolis there must surely be an office, one office at least, probably more than one, by which the list of them might be made out. If not, and at the worst, the clerks of the peace might send the lists to the post-office, from whence they might be conveyed to the respective magistrates, as well as to the several parish-officers concerned, (who cannot any of them be without their places of known residence,) without any additional expense. If this best and most approprite of all channels be not employed, what must be the consequence? The whole business of circulation must be performed by special messengers, riding about the country at a great expense, and at uncertain and successive points of time, to do what might be done all at once, in the compass of less than a week at most, without any expense.

The more I reflect on the expense, the more I am alarmed at it. The organization of the official system for the execution of the measure,—the selection of the persons to be employed about it—is taken, I observe, (upon a principle, the prudence and propriety of which is beyond dispute) from an existing precedent,—the 25th G. III. c. 56, Anno 1785: the Act for making returns relative to the Poor’s Rates. What the expense was of collecting that information, according to the plan of collection there chalked out, I do not pretend to know:—I am inclined to suspect not altogether inconsiderable. Taken separately, the fees (I observe) are very moderate (not to say trifling and inadequate) in their absolute amount, at least in some of the instances. For each return made,—Clerk of the Peace, 1s.; High Constable, 1s. 6d.; Overseer, 2s.; Justice’s Clerks, 1s.,—total 6s. 6d. But, even under that act, the trouble of the Overseer must, according to the magnitude of his parish, have been from five or ten, to some hundreds of times as great as that of the Clerk of the Peace, whose fee was half as great: the Overseer having accounts to take, and answer to make to six questions, some of them of no small degree of intricacy; while all that the Clerk of the Peace had to do with them was, to suffer his servant to open the door to receive them as they dropped in, put them together into a drawer, make them up in a parcel, and send off the parcel to London by the coach. It is as if the book-keeper at an inn where the wagon puts up, were to have as much for booking a wagon-load of cloth or silk, as the manufacturer for making it. If these fees, such as they are, were the whole expense attending the execution of the act, (I speak of the existing act,) the expense would come under calculation; and, considering the magnitude of the object, would not be immoderate. The whole number of parishes and quasi-parochial places was, according to the returns made in pursuance of the act, between 14,000 and 18,000; say, for shortness, 15,000; 6s. 6d. multiplied by this number, gives £4875. But the riding about to deliver copies of the act itself to the several acting justices in each country, &c., and copies of the schedule containing the questions, to a person in each of the several parishes and quasi-parochial places, 288 per county upon an average, must (I think) have been a separate expense from the receiving returns, and transmitting them in the lump, as above; and it should seem a much more considerable one. This is the expense I would wish, if possible, to save.

Having proceeded thus far, an idea occurs to me which promises to present, at one and the same time, a recompense for labour, and a security for accuracy; the recompense better proportioned, and the security more efficient, than could perhaps be afforded by any other means. The minister, or other officer, to receive so much a-head (a farthing suppose) for every person comprised in his returns; penalty, on the other hand, for the omission of any person; greater penalty (say five times as great) for the omission of any house; much greater penalty for the insertion of any person or house not in existence. Call the number of persons twelve millions; this, at a farthing a-head, as above proposed, would give for the total expense on this head £12,500. Even this, considering the importance of the business, the labour imposed, and the security given for accuracy, does not seem excessive. But if it were, it would be easy to require two names to be returned for the farthing, and thus reduce the expense to one-half, viz. £6250: a parish contains inhabitants in all numbers; from fewer than 10, to more than 10,000: but, on an average, upon the above supposition of twelve million inhabitants, and 15,000 parishes, &c., there will be 800 inhabitants in each parish: 800 farthings, at a farthing a-head, gives for the average amount of such returning officer’s fees, 16s. 8d. 800 half-farthings, 8s. 4d. Where the number of inhabitants was so small as ten, ten farthings, or ten half-farthings, would be sufficient; because the trouble not being worth regarding, nothing at all would be sufficient; where the inhabitants amounted to 10,000, and thereby the fee to £10, 8s. 4d. or £5, 4s. 2d. the trouble rising in proportion, the expense of it need not be grudged. The quantum of the fee being thus in each case matter of simple numeration, the amount of it might, upon proper authorization, be paid out of the parish fund; a fund which, in proportion to the magnitude of the fee, would be the larger, and better able to bear the expense. To render the proportionality as between labour and recompense absolutely perfect, the calculation, I am sensible, would require another clement to be added to it; I mean that of local extent. Hard (it may be said) it would be, that the officer, whose field of inquiry extended over a vast and thinly peopled country parish, requiring journeys to explore it, and, as it were, hunt out its scattered cottages and inhabitants, should receive no higher recompense than he, the subject-matters of whose observations are collected together within the comparatively narrow circuit of a populous town-parish. But, (besides that, in country places, parishioners, from causes which it is not necessary here to insist upon, are better known to one another, and to the parochial officers, than in towns) the adoption of this ingredient into the calculation would require certain data, which as yet neither exist with sufficient uniformity, nor could be employed for this purpose without more trouble than would be paid for by the advantage: I mean a set of parechial maps. To combine for this purpose the considerations of extent and population, and establish in each case a temperament (to use a musical expression) composed out of the two, would be an operation analagous to that which found employment, for so many months, to a committee of the first National Assembly of France. Having carried the idea of proportionality on this ground to a pitch so much beyond anything which the statute book affords us any example of, the interval by which it still falls short of the mark of ideal perfection, will not afford room for much regret.

A map of this kind, for every parish, &c., would be useful even to the present purpose (to say nothing of so many other purposes) in another point of view: I mean the marking down the situations of the several new built houses as they come into existence. But plans of this sort require deep consideration, and belong to other times.

The task, notwithstanding everything that can be done to simplify it, requiring, after all, an understanding not altogether devoid of culture, why not commit it at once, and that exclusively, to the officiating minister of each parish or place? Where there is a curate as well as a rector or vicar, to the curate, to the exclusion of such his principal: where there is no curate, then to the rector or vicar, only because there is no curate. This duty, like every other duty imposed by law, must have a certain mark to rest upon: it must not, by being left to float between two stools, be exposed (according to the proverb) to fall to the ground. In such minister we have an officer, who for every parish, &c., though not in every parish, &c., is sure to be found; for although it is not every parish, &c., that has a curate resident within its precincts, yet there is not any parish which has not either a rector, vicar, or curate, resident at such moderate distance as admits (what duty requires) his paying frequent visits to it. Who the individual is that fills the office in question, in each respective parish, &c., is a point, the ascertaining of which cannot present much difficulty to the local post-master of the town from which the place of such individual’s residence receives its letters.

In naming the curate I have named a character, which, while it gives the result of the required communication a claim to confidence, commands our respect, as well as engages our sympathy, for the person on whom the duty is to be imposed. If, in these times of unexampled pressure, the rate of recompense should, in some instances, appear such as might otherwise be thought too high, the slight addition that might thus accrue to an income in the most plenteous times but too scanty, and otherwise unsusceptible of increase, might well be matter rather of satisfaction than regret; and I should hope that, in this case, the entire farthing would not be grudged. In such a station we may look with confidence for a person qualified to correspond with effect, with any central office or offices, civil or ecclesiastical: the post-office, for example, for some purposes; the office of the Bishop’s Secretary, upon occasion, for other purposes; points might thus upon occasion be discussed, and doubts cleared up, and the letters being left open for the purpose, the corresponding parties might thus, without danger of abuse, receive that exemption which on such an occasion they ought to enjoy, from the expense of postage; and the ecclesiastical superior, the bishop, coöperating in his sphere with the intentions of the legislature, might, by the influence of his general authority, supply without difficulty any little defects that might be found to present themselves in the instructions or powers afforded by the letter of the law.

Were this choice to be approved, a variety of movements which at present figure in the mechanism of the proposed act, (as they did in the existing act above alluded to,) might be discarded without much regret: justices’ clerks, overseers, high-constables, clerks of the peace: perhaps even justices themselves.

Aided by this amendment, might we not carry our views a little further into the expanse of time? Population of the country for the first year of the century—so far so good: but if for that first year population be an interesting object, is there any other year in which it will cease to be so? Is not comparison, as between year and year, the main, if not the only, use of this and other such statistical accounts? Is the providence of the legislature to acknowledge itself exhausted, as it were, by a single and comparatively fruitless effort? The precedents afforded by other nations, the precedents you allude to, the domestic precedent, you not unwisely pursue, though without alluding to it (I mean Mr Gilbert’s Poor’s Rate Return Act as above mentioned) do not (it must be confessed) go any such length: they do not bear the marks of any such consistency or perseverance. But, however precedent may stop short, do not reason and utility point onwards. Nor has even precedent been at all times, and everywhere, thus lame. In Naples, I remember it well, (you will find it in an anonymous book by Pilate, intituled, Voyages en divers Pays de l’ Europe, 2 vol., 12mo,) accounts of the population of the country were taken by authority for at least twenty years together; since, for a period of that length, the author gives it to us. Accounts for twenty years! twenty years’ perseverance, in a line of communication which ought never to be interrupted! and what was the result? that in that small space of time, even in that immoral and ill-governed country, the population was more than doubled.

The exercise being thus repeated year after year, the task will, from year to year, grow easier. Points of doubt and difficulty (for of such it must be confessed the ground will not be altogether unproductive) will be cleared up. The mine of new cases will, by degrees, be worked out; experience will everywhere diffuse its lights; and the work will hereafter approach nearer and nearer to the perfection of accuracy.

The more I think of the two cases (that of the Poor’s Rate Return Act, and the proposed Population Return Act) the stronger is the light in which the dissimilarity presents itself to me; and the stronger the reason for substituting the above proposed simplicity to the complication with which the mechanism of that act was (though then, as to a great part at least, not unnecessarily) encumbered. In that act, overseers of the poor were employed; why? because the information to be given was matter of account—pecuniary account; and the overseers were the accountants. With those accounts the minister of the parish had no more concern than any other parishioner. Among those accounts were many disbursements, the particulars of which it was natural to suspect, (and it was undoubtedly suspected,) that the accountants would be more or less unwilling to disclose; hence the provisions for meetings of justices to examine them upon oath; hence again the necessity of notices and journeys, attended with no small degree of trouble and expense. But how do these provisions apply to the present case? Examinations to be taken upon oath, for the purpose of obtaining at second hand evidence given in the first instance without oath? If an oath is necessary, why not impose it upon the persons, the only persons, from whom the information it aims at is to come? If not necessary, why bestow so much trouble and expense on the imposing it upon a set of officers, who, but from hearsay, know nothing about the matter?

Here again comes an additional reason for committing the duty and power of collecting the evidence at first hand, the power of examining inhabitants in regard to the state of their families, to a permanent ordained minister; to the exclusion of all such miscellaneous and shifting characters as churchwardens and overseers. To the minister of religion the power of administering an oath may surely be intrusted without much scruple; especially where the object of inquiry and the field of power are included within such narrow limits. The beneficed clergyman, be he rector or vicar, (in many instances already a magistrate,) will in those instances be found in possession of ample powers of this sort; and, where education is the same, the want of the adventitious endowment of a benefice, will hardly, in the instance of a curate, be regarded as being to this purpose a serious ground of difference. On the other hand, in the case of the churchwarden or overseer, frequently an illiterate, or almost illiterate, farmer or mechanic, a power of administering an oath, and then of grounding examination on that oath, would be an instrument of too much potency and delicacy to be trusted to such hands.

Extra parochial places present a difficulty, (I am aware,) the removal of which is among the purposes for which the bill makes use of justice; but for this case provision might easily be made, by giving to the bishop the power of pitching for this purpose upon the curate (or if no curate, the beneficed minister) of any one of the contiguous or adjacent parishes.

“Occupation what?—Agriculture?—Trade or manufactures?—Other laborious occupations?—Occupations not comprised in the three preceding classes?” Questions highly interesting, no doubt, and to which the cultivated mind of a clergyman would be able to furnish you (I should expect) with a satisfactory set of answers. But what sort of work would your churchwarden or mechanic make of them, especially when not called upon (for the bill does not call upon him) to apply them to each person, or to any person individually, but to fill up the heads with so many abstract numbers? What will he do in the case (and that by no means an uncommon one) where the same individual is, at the same time, or at different times, employed in two or three, or all four of these ways? In such a case, will the individual be ranked in all these classes, or in none of them, or in any and which of them? Difficulties like these, require for their solution faculties which, on the part of any clergyman, I should look for with some degree of confidence; but which, in the case of your farmer or country mechanic, I should have little hope of seeing generally surmounted. My clergyman might, upon occasion, help you out with an additional column of his own contrivance, make use of your general columns as far as they were applicable, and where a particularity occurred, make a special case of it; but, of this logic, or, if you please, this metaphysics, (for really it is what the function requires,) what could you expect to receive from John Ironsides the blacksmith, or from Farmer Hodges?

A population table being once made—made for one year, made by hands of this description, and confided to their care, as in the case of the register of the baptisms and burials—might, with a degree of trouble comparatively minute, be continued through every succeeding year: comers-in by birth; comers-in by migration; goers-out by death; goers-out by emigration: added to the original stock, as exhibited by the table of the first year, the number under these four heads would carry on the account. Would you have change of occupation noted likewise?—It is a matter, I trust you agree with me, not without its difficulties, but by degrees, and from a fixed set of instruments, and these qualified and sifted, by an interchange of instructions and applications for further instructions and explanations on both sides, it might doubtless in time be brought about; and a satisfactory and improving mass of information might be thus collected from all quarters relative to all these points, and continued in an unbroken chain from year to year. But your farmers! your mechanics; and without a clue to guide them? But, forgive me, I have done.

A word or two only about collateral uses. All births are not followed by baptism. Hence a variety of gaps, such as a resident hand, guided by a cultivated mind, and directed by a competent authority, in a central situation, might have it in charge to fill up. To the eye of a persecuting Legislature, the wish of humanity would be, that the distinctions I allude to should be invisible; but I trust we have seen the last of persecuting legislatures.

In the clergyman of the parish we behold—we wish at least to behold, the pastor: in the parishioners, his flock. It will not surely be deemed a result altogether uninteresting or indifferent, if, in virtue of the exclusive choice I have ventured to propose, the pastor should, throughout England, be as universally well acquainted, as throughout Scotland, with his flock.

Censor.

Bentham employed much of his time in the year 1800 in endeavouring to establish precautionary arrangements for the prevention of forgery. He wrote a pamphlet on the subject, which he sent to the Governor of the Bank of England, from whom I have a written acknowledgment of its having been received; but no evidence that any of the suggestions had been adopted, or seriously considered. The papers were sent to Dumont with this note:—

“15th May, 1800.

“My dear Dumont,—

The accompanying forgery papers I send you for a stay-stomach, to keep you in good humour. Take care of the newspaper, as well as of the letters. B. is said by C. to be the managing man at the bank, and the only man almost among them who is not below par. In a few days I will return you your papers, and you will return me these. The Ordinary of Newgate told me the other day of his having been at a deal of pains to pump a man who was hanged for forgery, and from whom he got and sent to the bank a plan for the prevention of forgery in the way of alteration; but the bank took no notice, not so much as acknowledged the receipt of his letter.”

One cannot wonder that Bentham’s humane feeling was greatly excited on this subject. He collected all the facts he could gather together relating to the forgery of bank notes. Among them I find a memorandum that, from February, 1800, to April, 1801, more than a hundred persons were executed in this country for forgery alone. Another note mentions that the Bank of England was at one time engaged in forty-five indictments at the different assizes, (January, 1802.) Bentham communicated his views to the Bank of Ireland through Lord Sheffield. I insert a letter from Bentham to Mr Colquhoun, and his answer thereto, on forgery, and the correspondence with the Bank on the subject.

Bentham to Patrick Colquhoun.

“Q. S. P. 18th May, 1800.

“My dear Sir,—

Having a real and prompt occasion for the paper in question, I trouble you with an ostensible letter for that purpose.

“I do not expect them to do anything in consequence, nor does it seem at all to be wondered at that they should not. The mischief does not come home to them in any shape. At one time they thought it necessary to take upon themselves (that is their ćonstituents) all losses from that source—the credit of their paper, they feared might suffer by them, if left to be borne by the individual. They have tried the experiment, and the credit of their paper is not affected by it.

“Nicholson, in his advertisement, speaks of thirty instances of conviction, or, at least, prosecution for Bank forgery. It may be believed (I suppose) when speaking of a matter of fact in its own nature so notorious.

“Dr Forde the ordinary of Newgate, to whose share it happened to fall to attend one of the convicts in question in his last moments, drew from him a confession of his plan of operations, with an indication of a plan for frustrating them. He drew up a paper, and sent it to the gentlemen in the Direction. They did not so much as acknowledge the receipt of it. I had this t’other day from the Doctor himself, who (making use of Mr Baldwin’s name) came to canvass me for the clerical situation in my disposal, preferring it to his own, the irksomeness of which is not diminished by habit (he says) as he had expected. He mentioned this plan of his in the course of conversation, little suspecting the labour that had been bestowed in the same vineyard by the person he was speaking to. Forgery, in the way of alteration, was the subject of his plan.

“In one or more of your Monthly Magazines, there are letters by, or on the part of, somebody, who had addressed to the same quarter a plan on the same subject, and which had experienced, it seems, a similar reception. He writes in a great rage, and knows not (it seems) how to account for the neglect.

“Meantime individuals are plundered, and every now and then a caitiff swings. But what is that to the gentlemen of the Bank? They are never the poorer, and their friend, the solicitor, is the richer.

“As to your friend, Mr B., he may be a very excellent Bank Director, but it is plain he is not of the Colquhoun breed. Where is the wonder? How few age!

“Having been at the trouble of writing a paper, it will be very little addition to that trouble to send it to some of the periodical publications, which, one of these days, I think to do. Two good purposes may be answered by it: one is, that, by this means, it may one time or other draw the attention of some leading man, with whom the prevention of crimes may chance to be an object; the other is, that it may save a good deal of what would be otherwise lost labour on the part of ingenious men, and prevent their tantalizing themselves with golden dreams.

“Golden dreams, by the by, puts me in mind that I have a crow to pick with you: What devil could have put it into your head that I was to ‘reap any profit by my suggestions?’ I had laid up a volley of scoldings to let fly at you; but, when you called upon me, we got talking of other things, and I forgot it. I am, my dear Sir, yours ever.”

Patrick Colquhoun to Bentham.

“21st May, 1800.

“I mean to go to the Bank on purpose to-day, to see Mr Bosanquet on the subject of your paper on forgery, &c. The conduct of the gentlemen appears to me to be very strange. They are morally bound to protect individuals against frauds, and they ought to be roundly told of it.

“I really want to converse with them on the subject, particularly with Mr Bosanquet. I am very much hurt; and were I not accustomed to neglect of this sort, I should be in a considerable degree enraged; but this answers no purpose.

“I am confident you accuse me wrongfully, in conceiving I ever allowed any person to believe that you looked for profit. Be assured, I am too tenacious of your dignity of character, to let it down in the opinion of any man. I certainly never wrote or said anything that could admit of such a construction—namely, ‘that you looked for money, or wished to make your suggestions a matter of profit.’ It ought to be so: but what ought to be, ought not in point of prudence always to be mentioned.

“I was with Mr Dundas yesterday about the bill. He has spoken strong language to the General on account of the delay. I am authorized to see him and the Solicitor-general, and to get the matter brought forward immediately. Mr Dundas has read the bill. Mr Pitt has perused your abstract, and told Mr Dundas that from it he had a perfect conception of the measure. The Attorney-general who has now read it, only objects to the detail about Lumpers, &c. being more fit to make a part of the bylaws than to remain in the bill. I hope to see him and the Solicitor-general to-morrow. Mr Dundas said he must trust much to Mr Abbot, whose assistance he meant to solicit, and the merchants will do the same.—I am,” &c.

In the year 1800, Bentham conducted a correspondence with the Emperor of Russia and divers authorities in Warsaw, on behalf of the widow of his friend, Lind,—to whom Stanislaus, the last King of Poland, had granted a yearly pension of 1000 ducats. Stanislaus had made his personal property responsible for the amount. Strongly and eloquently and successfully did Bentham urge the claims of Lind upon the justice of the Tzar. Lind had been for many years a privy-councillor, the tutor of Prince Stanislaus Poniatowsky the king’s nephew,* and, also, the director of the Cadet Establishment, a corps of 400 young men. Five hundred ducats were granted in 1779 to the widow, yearly, if her husband died before her. He died in 1784. Up to 1794, the pension was regularly paid. Then came difficulties and delays,—and bargainings and deductions, and consequent embarrassments and sufferings. But Bentham not only made direct application to the Emperor Paul, but called in the services of Lord St Helens, and other influential friends, and obtained a final and honourable settlement, in spite of a thousand difficulties and resistances. The correspondence is too long for insertion.

The parties originally consulted had been endeavouring to involve the widow in law proceedings—had incurred expenses—and had been intriguing to get money for law charges, and for compliments, and for secret management. To all this Bentham would not listen. “Not a doit shall they have,” he writes; “but what they shall have is a letter declining their plans of management, with all possible civility. Poland, unfortunately for the poor lady, is in the moon; so his majesty has no representative at Warsaw: but from Berlin, perhaps, a neighbouring eye might look, and from an exalted station, and, peradventure, keep or bring Messieurs the Secretaries and Lawyers within the pale of honesty.” And so it was. As a specimen of Bentham’s epistolary Latinity, I give his letter to the Polish lawyer:—

“Londini, 23d Dec^ris. 1800.

“Clarissimo Viro Domino Kliëger apud Varsoviam Juris-perito, Jeremias Bentham Anglus, Salutem.

“Initium circiter mensis Septembris, Dominus Baro de Vincke, sub Rege vestro Officium quod vocatur Landrath apud Minden gerens, cùm apud nostrates versaretur, in epistolâ ejus ad Dominum Comitem de Dohna apud Berolinenses, percontationes quasdam, me rogante, inseruit, quarum finis erat, gratiâ Dominæ de Lynd (Domini de Lynd Stanisläo Poloniae Regi olim ab intimis consiliis viduae) ut sciretur ecqua spes ipsi maneret, pensionem (sive stipendium) dictae Viduae ad vitae terminum, a Rege praedicto sub hypothecae obligatione concessam, et per multos annos fideliter solutam, in futurum rehabendi.

“Initium circiter mensis novissimi Novembris, venit inde ad me a Comite praedicto urbanissima epistola, ad percontationes quidem ne verbum continens, sed epistolam includens a te, Domine, ad ipsum Germanico sermone scriptam; cujus interpretatio est, ni fallor, te jamjam, eo nomine, bona aliqua, id est, eorum possessorem vel possessores, in jus quodammodo vocasse. Quo magis id praeter spem acciderit, eo magis nos tuae, Domine, vel ejus, humanitati, vel utriusque devinctossentio, quae, justitiæ ergo et temporis praeripiendi studio, (mandatum enim omnino nullum, a meâ saltem parte, percontationes comitatum est) formas juris quasi per saltum praetergressa est. Jam vero, rebus plane in incerto, sicut ante epistolam Domini de Vincke, manentibus, viduâque a litigatione abhorrente, ut ne tibi plus quam fas est molesti simus, visum est, per Legatum Regis nostri apud vestri Regis curiam, percontationes easdem iterare; eo magis quod hîc fama est non levís, bona patronymica Regis infelicis penitus esse absumpta.

“Interea, siqua in contrarium notitia, vicinitatis vel professionis beneficio, tibi acciderit illuxisse (verbi gratiâ—tale aut tale praedium, cujus proventus annuus est talis aut talis summa, in manibus talis aut talis possessoris nominatim restare, de quo constaret id sub obligationis de quâ agitur vinculo manere,) idque tibi placuerit, mihi, vel per occasionem ordinariam vel per Legationis praedictae beneficium, litterismandare,—in tali casu persuasum habeas rogo, quod ad nos attinet, neque ad justitiam obtinendam, neque ad justitiae ministros laborum et peritiae prœmiis uti par est, prosequendos, debitam solertiam defuturam esse.

“P.S.—Epistolae ad me ventitant sic inscriptae: “To Jeremy Bentham, Esquire, Queen’s Square Place, Westminster.”

There is in a letter to Mr Mulford,* —(24th Dec., 1800,) who was accustomed to address Bentham as “Dear Councillor,” while Bentham invariably dubbed him with the title of “Dear Doctor,”—this passage:—

“I have no precise recollection of my ever having informed you of my being an honest fellow, though I do not mean to deny but that it is possible I may have said so before now; or at least, something like it, the rather as I am sometimes inclined myself to suppose I may perhaps be nearly as honest as other rogues,—one thing I am altogether clear about, which is, that I am a very poor one. However, such as I am, you have an undoubted right to command my best professions.

“So much for badinage,—the language of which is as ready to my pen and my lips as any other, though my heart be ever so heavy, and sure enough it is, that since I last had you by the hand, any more than for a good while before, it has never been otherwise. And now, my dear Doctor, permit me to assure you, in sober sadness and sincerity, that I am tenderly and gratefully affected by so serious and convincing a testimony of your regard and confidence. Were the trouble ever so much greater than it is likely to be, or you suppose in such a case, I should not grudge it.

“Remember, at any rate, our Barking pilgrimage for the spring. Being of a melancholy cast, a melancholy mood is favourable to the remembrance of it; and to fix it the better in your memory, I thus put it in black and white.”

A correspondence took place between Bentham and George Rose, on the Annuity-Note scheme,† to this effect:—

Bentham to George Rose.

“Q. S. P.,Westminster,
3d January, 1801.

“Of the plan of which the accompanying MS. contains the two last chapters, the three sheets that have been printed, together with the two tables, have been recommended to your notice, (I understand,) by Mr Nepean. These two last chapters being so short, I could not resist the temptation of adding them in this way to such part of the work as I have been able to submit to you in a more commodious form. Any other part might be brought forward in the same way; and had it not been for the apprehension of overloading you, I should have added, even now, another chapter, (Ch. xx.,) in which is displayed the peculiar facility afforded by the proposed plan for the performance of that operation, (the reduction of interest,) which, in some way or other—at some time or other—will be to be performed at any rate; a facility which, I think, would be found to amount in value to some millions.

“There are some documents which, perhaps, you might have no objection to my being furnished with, and which would enable me to carry on the investigation in some points with increased advantage.

“The quantity of letter-press that has been kept standing is so great,—a considerable part of it for these five or six months,—that I am under continual apprehension of being obliged to break it up;—at the same time, how many copies to print,—or whether to go on with the impression at all,—are points, in relation to which I should be extremely sorry to come to a determination, while thus in the dark as to all particulars I stand in need of for my guidance.

“Under these circumstances, if your time admitted of your obliging me with some general communication of your sentiments, from which I might judge whether any further labours of mine on this ground presented any chance of being of use, it would be no inconsiderable addition to those testimonies of your regard with which I have been honoured in former days.

“Decision on the affirmative side, at least, is, in the present stage of the business, altogether out of the question; but if I were fortunate enough to know that the plan were so far thought deserving of attention, as to be set down for serious consideration, no exertions, past or future, on my part, would be grudged, whatsoever might be the result.

“I cannot help thinking but that, if taken up with spirit, it might, by the prospect it would bring to view, have some influence, perhaps, on the terms even of the next loan; at least, if the proposed paper were, from the outset, made receivable all over the country in payment of taxes. As to the quantum of the profit, it were too much to regard it otherwise than as uncertain in the extreme; on the other hand, it requires neither sacrifice nor risk to purchase it. At the present price of stocks, if you sold but £100,000 of the proposed paper the first year, you would gain between £37,000 and £38,000 by it.”

George Rose to Bentham.

“January 5, 1801.

“Mr Nepean put into my hands, some time ago, the proofs and some MS. notes of your intended publications, which I really had no leisure to look at while I was in town, owing to a more than usual pressure of business upon me, from the circumstances arising from our present difficulties in various respects; I really intended to have brought the whole with me here, in order to have bestowed the attention upon them which the importance of the subject, and the application of your talents and labour, entitle them to; but, unfortunately, in the hurry in which I left London, I left them there secured, where no one could find them in my absence. I will, however, on my return, before the meeting of Parliament, look carefully through what you have written, and endeavour to get Mr Pitt’s attention to it, which would be a thousandfold more useful than mine.

“I should be unpardonable if I were to allow you to lay aside any publication by a judgment of mine.”

Bentham to George Rose.

“Q. S. P., January 10, 1801.

“Foreseeing, as not altogether improbable, the accident which in the letter I was honoured with, dated the 5th instant, you speak of as having actually taken place, Mr Nepean, I understand from him, had addressed to you (on what precise day I know not) another copy, which, from your silence in relation to it, he supposes to have been prevented by some accident from reaching your hands. It is on this account that, at his suggestion, I take the liberty of troubling you with the enclosed. In consequence of some typographical arrangements that have intervened, this third copy has the advantage of carrying the thread of the argument a little further than either of the two preceding ones; and comprising an account, by which it is shown how much more eligible a property the proposed Note Annuities would be to the holder in comparison of the existing Stock Annuities, for the investment of even large sums, if for a short or uncertain length of time, or of small sums for any length of time, though the burthen to Government would be less than 3 per cent., by which, at this time, little less than 3 per cent. would be saved. The intention you have the goodness to express, of recommending the plan to the notice of Mr Pitt, cannot but be highly flattering to me. In the same state in which you receive this, I could, to save time, send him one before your return; but this will be as you think best.”

On the Banking question, Bentham was induced to correspond with Laureate Pye.

Bentham to Henry James Pye.

“Q. S. P., February 25th, 1801.

“Frustrated for the moment in the object of my call, by the unwelcome intelligence of an indisposition confining you to your room, I take the liberty of addressing you this way on the subject of it, instead of waiting for an opportunity of addressing you in a way which, perhaps, circumstanced as your health is, may be more troublesome to you.

“I met you not long since at Mr Wright’s; your visits at that emporium of politics are, I understand, not unfrequent. Mr Boyd’s pamphlet* on the affairs of the Bank appears to have drawn considerable attention; a second edition, with replies to his answerers, I see advertised for Friday.

“A field of inquiry, a corner of which only is touched upon by his pamphlet, has occupied a considerable share of my attention for some time. Where he sees danger, I see none: from his remedy it seems to me as if something (though, I believe, not much) might be hazarded, at the same time that there is absolutely nothing to be gained.

“On the other hand, where he sees no danger, I see much, accompanied at the same time with vast benefit, and I think I see a set of expedients whereby the danger might be removed—at least, in a great degree—and, at the same time, the benefit preserved entire. This may one day, perhaps, form part of a regular work, not dependent on times or persons; but en attendant the occasion presents one with a few observations grounded on Mr Boyd’s pamphlet, and the controversy to which it has given rise. My inclination that way is strong enough to dispose me to bestow a few days of my time upon the occasion, but not to hazard any money upon it.

“To return, then, to Mr Wright and his laurel’d visiter. If the one personage, at the recommendation of the other, were disposed to usher my feeble production into the world, the whole of the profit, if any, should go in recompense for the risk, deducting some such matter as a couple dozen copies to give away.

“According to the known law of nature, applicable to these cases, the weight of recommendation is as the height it falls from. I have taken my altitudes—and the result is, the trouble I am thus giving you. Believe me to be, with all respect, &c.

“P.S.—The pamphlet in question being as yet unwritten, (which follows, of course, from its being an intended examination of an augmented edition not yet published,) a bookseller might perhaps think it necessary to prescribe a maximum in regard to time. If so, the greater the latitude, the better for author and work.”

In this year, (1801,) I find a series of letters in French, addressed to Mrs Romilly, in a female hand, entreating her husband’s interference to obtain from Bentham his project of a Civil Code. The name of the lady was not communicated to Bentham: but she says, 25th March:—

“I am required to write, again and again, to subject myself to the charge of importunity; but we are occupied with the great work ourselves, and want the aid of Bentham. The extracts published in the Bibliotheque Britannique have excited the liveliest curiosity. Bentham cannot refuse his aid, when our object is so meritorious. There is really here, at this moment, an eager desire to do good,—nay, I may say, a benevolent fermentation,—which is very impressive. Will it lead to practical consequences? You will doubt: but you will not doubt that such a tendency is wise and praiseworthy, and that it ought to be encouraged. Improvements in our hospitals and poor-houses are really in demand; and my eldest brother, who is one of the administrators named for this object, is so zealous, that I expect we shall call on you soon to aid us in this particular.”

Again, 30th March,—“Don’t be surprised if I write again, though I wrote on the 20th and the 25th; and I ought to be discreet, remembering that we are inhabitants of two countries, which horrid politics have made enemies; but we want Bentham’s Civil Code. Mr Romilly will not fancy we shall turn it to a good account. Those who are charged with the preparation of our Code are infinitely desirous of having it.”

On the subject of an appointment to Paris, to negotiate a Peace, which had been talked of as offered to Lord St Helens, Bentham thus writes to him, 4th April, 1801:—

Bentham to Lord St Helens.

“Q. S. P., 4th April, 1801.

“There is something in what you say, my dear Lord, as to the considerations which might have warranted a man in your case in the expectation of being employed for such a purpose: but there is one qualification in which, not ‘setting aside self-partiality,’ but calling in every possible assistance from that quarter, you must acknowledge yourself deficient: and that is the being about to be favoured with the bonny hand of a daughter-in-law of the Earl of Liverpool. It seemed a plump one, as I thought, upon a distant view in my garden—the only one I was ever honoured with—and that a very imperfect one: but my brother, who, I suppose, before now may have had it in his, could give a more correct account of it.”

“19th April.

“Ecce iterum—And now, my dear Lord, in returning the kind token of your remembrance, (Peltier for 30th March,) I send you a still more formidable project than the preceding—with an invitation—a petition—for you to try your hand at ‘ferreting out the fallacies’ of it. Mr Rose promised, three or four months ago—and even in writing—to place it with his own secretarial hands—and that right soon—on that great theatre of oscitancy and procrastination—the table of Mr Pitt. Another copy will be put into the hands of Mr Vansittart, by our Romilly, sooner than I could flatter myself with the hope of receiving the benefit of any scrutiny you might have the goodness to bestow. You would oblige me much, by authorizing me to say, that you neither have communicated, nor will, without my particular consent, communicate anything about the plan to anybody else.

“When the D. of Portland is out of his present office, and Mr Pelham in his room, I have a further plot upon your kindness on the score of Panopticon, in relation to Mr Hatton, with whom, I understand from Wilson, that your lordship is on terms of intimacy. As to his colleague, a better notion of him might be obtained from Nepean than me. Something may be collected from a letter to Mr Addington, which, though too long, I will e’en load you with, along with the rest.

“J. B.”

Romilly says on the 8th April:—

“I put your plan (for the prevention of forgery) into the hands of the Attorney-general, who said he should be glad to read it; but I have no doubt that he will make no use of it—for he seems to care little about his bill. In truth, it is not in his own measure. He has been desired by the Bank to bring it in, and the bill was put into his hands, drawn by the Bank’s solicitor, and perused and settled by their counsel.”

Bentham wrote to Vansittart, (now Lord Bexley,) on the 20th April, respecting his Annuity-Note scheme* :—

Bentham to Nicholas Vansittart.

“Enclosed are a few printed sheets, the impression of which I had brought on thus far, for the purpose of the communication I accordingly made of them to Mr Rose, who, in a letter from the country, dated the 5th of January last, was pleased to say: ‘I will, on my return, before the meeting of parliament, look carefully through what you have written, and endeavour to get Mr Pitt’s attention to it.’ (See above, p. 340.)

“From that time to this, I have neither addressed him by letter, nor made any attempt to obtain an interview—circumstances sufficiently obvious presenting to my mind the requisite share of attention, as altogether hopeless.

“Knowing, as I had occasion to do, how insufficient his time was to the demands continually made upon it—this, added to some other considerations, better omitted than expressed, had concurred (as I had mentioned more than once to several friends) in determining me, in the event of my being favoured with an interview on the subject, to have proposed a request on his part, to the defender of British prosperity, against Jasper Wilson and Mr Morgan, to give the plan a perusal, and report to him how far, if at all, it might be worth his notice.

“At that time I little suspected how near we were to that period (a joyful one to me on more accounts than one,) at which official was about to be added to personal competence. The immediate object of the present address is—to take this chance for learning any wish or opinion which Mr Addington, upon your statement, might possibly entertain in regard to the publication of a plan of the nature of that which is now before you. My reason is—that should it happen to be regarded as possessing any claim to notice with a view to practice, circumstances occur to me, which might perhaps be productive of regret, were it to have been previously divulged in the way of ordinary publication. Some temporary reserve might possibly be deemed advisable, in respect of the particular interests that might be affected, or supposed to be affected.

“The French Government, in the event of their regarding it as beneficial and applicable to the circumstances of that country, (an application to which I see no conclusive obstacle,) might chance to take it up: in which event, at the comparative rate of progress as between the two Administrations, meaning of course the late for one of them, the measure might have produced its fruit in that country some years before a glance had been found for it in this. The surmise about France will already have brought a smile upon your countenance, when, on turning to the name at the end of this paper, you find it too obscure to have ever met your notice; scarce, indeed, would the idea have passed the limits of my own breast, had it not been for some proofs that unexpectedly enough have just fallen into my hands,—of the anxiety with which everything that bears that name is sought after at this moment with a view to immediate practice. Whether to suppress altogether, or, if to print, whether to print for publication, or only for private distribution, (50 or 100 copies, for example;) whether there be any other commands which Mr Addington might be disposed to honour me with on the subject, or assistance to afford me upon occasion in the way of information: such are the points in regard to which I should be glad to be informed.

“The produce of the tax on country bank paper, for example, distinguishing the magnitude of the notes. The returns that have been printed,—such, at least, as have reached me,—go little, if at all, beyond the produce of the first quarter, and without any distinction. You might, perhaps, see no objection to my being furnished with any such information on that head as could be come at without too much trouble. For these six or seven months (I think it is that) the press of all, or most of these pages has been kept standing for the chance of hearing from Mr Rose,—the patience of the printer has been beyond all expectation; but I cannot depend upon the being allowed to trespass upon it much longer. The expense thus far, according to his account, has been uncommonly great, though he has not given me any information of the amount of it. The further expense of completing for publication would, I believe, hardly come within a hundred pounds. The assurance of what, in lawyers’ language is called a fair hearing, would be accepted as a good and valuable consideration for any such expense, whatever might be the result; but without some such consideration, it would be rather too great a sacrifice for a man whose property has already suffered a defalcation to about a hundred times the amount, from the confidence he was unfortunate enough to place on the good faith of some of your predecessors.

“In dismissing the topic of money, allow me, Sir, to add—unknown to you as I am—since it may help to put both of us at our ease,—that there is not trouble on the occasion of this business that I would not gladly take upon me, nor any pecuniary indemnification, not to speak of remuneration, that I would accept for it.

“Anxious to guard, according to the measure of my faculties, against the delusions to which the subject is so particularly exposed, the chief part of my time, for about these two years, has been occupied in an endeavour to sound the depths of it. The result has not been favourable to the country banks; and whatever may be the fate of the proposed government paper, I am preparing a pamphlet, to which I think of giving for a title, The True Alarm, (in contradistinction and reference to Mr Boyd’s, which appears to me to be in great measure, though perhaps not wholly, false,) or Thoughts on Pecuniary Credit,—its advantages, inconveniencies, dangers, and their remedies. By the inconveniences, I mean rise of prices, (allowance made for the still greater, but temporary effects of bad seasons.) By the danger, I mean that of general bankruptcy. By the remedy, I do not mean the suppression of paper money,—a remedy which would at once convert the danger into the height of the disease.

“The second of the two copies is sent under the notion that, in the event of your not having at present any time at command to bestow upon the plan, you might, perhaps, find a relief in consigning it to the scrutiny of so able a pen as that of Dr Beeke,* whose assistance, were he to favour me with it, would eventually be of the greatest use. Any objections or doubts that might occur to him, I should hope to be favoured with the communication of, and in a form specific enough to admit of discussion.”

Vansittart’s objections to the plan were answered by Bentham in the communication which follows:—

Bentham to Nicholas Vansittart.

“Queen Square Place,
Westminster, 24th April, 1801.

“Sir,—

I was not more flattered than surprised by the attention you have in so very short a space of time found means to bestow upon my plan, amidst occupations so urgent as yours must be: and in the account of ‘confidence,’ I must acknowledge myself richly overpaid by receiving so much from an office from which so little was to be expected: I mean by the communication made of the first runnings of your mind in black and white, which, as far as time can be afforded for it, is, according to my experience, a much more effectual mode than vivâ voce conversation for the discovery of truth, though, unquestionably, on occasion, both modes may have their use.

“In looking over your extempore list of objections, it was no small satisfaction of find them grounded, as far as appeared to me, on a momentary misconception in regard to the prospect of the plan itself, and so far (whatever further objections may come to be suggested by a closer scrutiny) not indicative of any ultimate difference between us. Misconceptions of this kind, I, in whose brain the plan originated, have too frequently caught myself falling into, not to regard them as more or less inevitable on the part of anybody else.

“Not to overload this letter, I dismiss my answers to a separate paper, in which form you may either throw them aside definitively, or postpone them for future consideration; and, in the meantime, hand them over to any third person—for example, Dr Beeke.

“I will not attempt to nail your attention any closer to a subject which has no necessary claim to it, and may never pay for it; but, in case the Doctor should amuse himself with it, I should hope to find, that any objections he may think worth communicating, had been minuted down opposite the particular articles to which they respectively applied; and that, if, in any note, or any explanatory chapter, he found an answer which appeared to him insufficient, he had expressly referred to it as such, rather than pass it by without reference—not forgetting, that out of seventeen chapters you have yet but three, with the commencement of the fourth.

“For the statesman, it was necessary to present the plan under all its possible extensions and modifications, for the purpose of enabling him to take a view of whatever effects might follow, or be derivable from it. But to suppose that, in any such complicated form, it is proposed to be presented to the uninformed minds of the experimental set of expected customers, is a supposition on which the most express negative is put at the very outset of the Introduction, besides other places.—I am, &c.

“P.S.—The day before yesterday, while the House was already sitting, I took the liberty of sending in to you a short paper on the subject of the Bank Forgery Bill, under the impression that you were to sit upon the Bill that very day as Chairman. It was written in extreme haste, (without any copy kept of it,) and without any better evidence of the contents of the Bill, than what was to be collected from two newspapers.

“All paper money being, equally in proportion to the amount of it, the current money of the country, should not every one of the self-erected mints in which it is allowed to be coined, be possessed of the best security that can be given to it against forgery, and in that respect the same security?

“The idea had occurred to me of extending to all emitting banks the sort of appropriate paper proposed by me for the Bank of England, to be devised and prescribed by Government: with the collateral view of deriving from the appropriation an assistance to the Revenue. With or without design, the stamp prescribed, with a direct view to revenue, has had the collateral effect of affording something towards the species of security above proposed; to wit, by the complication to which it has subjected the process of forgery. But is the degree of security thus afforded anything to compare to what might be afforded on the same principle?”

Again:—

“Dear Sir,—

I have to thank you for the favour of your obliging letter of yesterday.

“If it would in any degree facilitate a decision on the subject, to place it in the clearer point of view, or lessen the labour of taking a survey of it, I could, and very readily would, give an abridged sketch of the argument contained in the long paper, leaving out what I look upon, and from the first did, in this as in all other cases, look upon as a surplusage, viz., everything that savours of personality. By confining one’s self to a bare indication of the topics, it might be brought perhaps into the compass of a single sheet, written on one side. But as there might be a great deal of it lost labour, proving what was already clear and settled, if it were agreeable to you to send it me back with short marginal notes, just to say, relative to each point, whether you agreed with me—whether you definitively and positively disagreed with me; or whether the question appeared at the moment remaining in doubt, and requiring further elucidation. In short, where the shoe pinched, and where it did not pinch.

“If, in a subject so involved in obscurity, and, consequently exposed to error, you will repose so much confidence in me, as to trust me with the first runnings of your thoughts, at the hazard of their appearing erroneous to your own maturer consideration, you may depend on my not making any ill use of your confidence; or, if you lay your injunction on me to that effect, so far as trusting your memoranda to any other eye. The idea may strike you as a presumptuous one. Of all the persons whose opinions on the subject have passed under my review, I know not of one to whom errors may not in any view of the matter be imputed; and there is scarce any erroneous opinion, which, when the erroneousness of it comes to be pointed out, and placed in a clear light, may not appear absurd to a degree of ridicule. In my own instance, this has happened to me many and many times. Yes—many times have I caught myself in harbouring ideas—in making suppositions, which, when compared with one another, turned out to be repugnant to one another, and incompatible. At this moment, I have before me a point on which Mr Pitt, Mr Fox, and Mr Boyd, present themselves in my view, as concurring in one error, such as, when once pointed out, appears so palpable, that a man would wonder how anybody could have fallen into it.

“On every new point, what errors remain to be discovered, the event only can show; but with very moderate and inferior faculties, there will be nothing wonderful, if a man, who for these two and a half years has thought of scarce anything else, should not have hit upon some truths which have escaped the notice of those who have not had leisure to bestow upon this subject, amidst the crowd of so many other more pressing ones, more than here and there a momentary glance.”

The letter from Vansittart, alluded to in Bentham’s of 24th April, follows, with the detailed answers to the objections implied in it.

Nicholas Vansittart to Bentham.

“Thursday morning.

“Sir,—

I feel very sensibly the mark of confidence and esteem which you have offered me in the communication of your unpublished work. I have not yet had time to give it the attention which everything which comes from your pen must merit, and therefore can give no opinion as to the plan itself. Dr Beeke, I have no doubt, will be happy to contribute his assistance in any way which can be useful; and you will find that he has paid much attention to such subjects.

“I cannot help thinking (at first sight at least) that any subdivision of the unit or standard note would be unadvisable. In the first place, any interest note seems to me ill calculated to supply the place of metallic money in small payments, as the variation of value would render it perplexing and unintelligible to the common people, and expose them to imposition, notwithstanding any contrivance of tables, &c. In the next, I am afraid we have already a larger proportion of paper circulation than is consistent with our security in times of public alarm; and in the third, it would be very difficult at any office to make an actual payment of interest on the small notes on account of their dispersion and multiplicity. But these, and any other observations which may occur to me, I shall be glad to talk over with you, when I have better considered the subject.—I am, Sir.”

April 21, 1801.

Objections to the Annuity-Note Plan, with Answers.

Objection 1st,—We have already a larger proportion of paper circulation than is consistent with our security in times of public alarm.

Answer,—What the objection assumes is, that the object of the plan was to make an addition to the mass of paper in circulation, or, at least, that such would necessarily be the effect. But this was certainly not the object of the plan, nor, if my views of the matter be correct, would it be comprised in the number of its effects; and if I were mistaken in this point, the excess might be, and ought to be, repressed by measures which, in my view of the matter, will be necessary, although no such measure as that proposed should be adopted. In the first page of the Introduction, I state myself as aware of the superabundance of paper in circulation; and as relying upon the plan as a remedy, and such a remedy as cannot be matched by any other for efficacy and security, to the superabundance.

Since then, my suspicions of the existence of a superabundance have every day received stronger and stronger confirmation from subsequent investigation, and the danger resulting from it, has presented itself to me as so serious, that sooner or later, something, in my view of the matter, must be done to repress the growth of the excess, under pain of a most grievous and certain rise of prices, (over and above the amount of any casual rise from bad seasons,) with the addition, sooner or later, of general bankruptcy.

By measures operating in a direct and clear way, in repression of the excess in the mass of existing paper, I do not doubt but that the repression might be effected; all I contend for, under this head, is, that the repression cannot be effected in so smooth and convenient a way, without the proposed Government paper, as with the help of it. The repression of the excess is a point of some delicacy; since bankruptcy might equally ensue from a sudden diminution, as from too sudden an augmentation of the quantity. Among the properties I ascribe to the proposed paper, is that of possessing a sort of amphibious nature, in virtue of which it will, of itself, and without any regulation on purpose, be added to the mass of the circulating medium, or withdrawn from it from time to time as the circumstances of the time may happen to require. This is argued in several passages not yet printed—I believe in the unprinted part of Ch. iv. [vol. iii. p. 118.]

My notion is, moreover, that as this paper advances in the circulation, at the same par, and no greater, will the other papers recede, and withdraw themselves out of it; that this effect is no more than what is likely to take place of itself, without any positive regulation for the purpose; but that if it should fail of taking place in a sufficient degree, measures, operating in a direct way in that view, may be taken with greater safety, after the institution of the proposed paper than without it. These points, too, I have argued at large.

It is among the properties of the proposed paper, to be essentially incapable of excess;—and that as well with reference to rise of prices, as with reference to bankruptcy; it is of the essence of the existing paper, (legislative repression apart,) to be perpetually running on in the career of excess, with reference to both those evils.

True it is, that, according to the proposed plan, the amount of the proposed paper is proposed and expected to swell in time, so as to be equal to, and give its form to, the whole amount of the national debt; but were it, for argument’s sake, to swell to that amount in the compass of the first month, it would not, on that account, contribute anything considerable to rise of prices, much less to the approach of bankruptcy. True it is, again, that at any given point of time, it is, in every part of it, equally capable of being kept in hand like Stock Annuities, in the quality of a permanent source of income, or passed, from hand to hand, like bank paper in exchange for goods or estates; and, accordingly, so far as concerns its exchange for goods, of being employed in such manner, as to contribute to the rise of prices, but it cannot, any part of it, officiate in both these capacities together; it cannot, any part of it, be, at the same time, kept in hand and parted with by the same person. After the conversion of the whole mass of Stock Annuities, into the proposed form of Note Annuities, men will not spend more of their capital in the way of current expenditure—in other words, in the purchase of goods for consumption and other uses, than they do now; but it is only in proportion as the proposed Note Annuities are employed for the purpose of current expenditure that they can add anything to the rise of prices.

As to the existing paper,—one of the properties it may have in common is, that taken in the aggregate, the performance of the engagements entered into by them (viz. for the delivery of so much cash) is physically and constantly impossible.

Another is, that in proportion as the amount of them swells, the amount of the cash so undertaken for swells likewise; and that, whether the amount of the cash capable of being delivered in pursuance of such undertakings increases, remains the same, or decreases.

On the other hand, it is among the properties of the proposed paper to make no addition whatever to (but on the contrary a defalcation from) the aggregate mass of the cash, the delivery of which is undertaken for, by the party from whence it issues; at present the money that Government stands bound for the delivery of, on the score of the national debt, is,—the amount of the interest of it, and that payable in certain fixed proportions, at certain fixed times of the year; and this is all it would stand bound for the delivery of, were the mass of the proposed paper to be equal to the whole amount of the principal of that same debt.

What the mass of existing papers undertakes for, is, the delivering on any day, if demanded on that day, a certain mass of cash, which, if demanded on any one day, would most certainly not be to be found; what the proposed paper undertakes for, is, the delivery at sundry prefixed and foreknown periods,—two or four of them in a year,—each consisting of a number of days, and as distant from one another as possible, a quantity of cash which cannot be greater, but on the contrary, in proportion to the increase of the proposed paper, cannot but be continually less and less than the quantity which Government is already enabled and accustomed, as above, to deliver on the same account. In a word, what I admit, is,—that the paper in circulation exists already in excess. What I am strongly inclined to think, is, that the insecurity resulting from that excess, is,—not merely contingent,—depending upon accidents of a nature to bring on an alarm, but certain; viz., though not certain of happening at any near point of time, yet certain of happening sooner or later, if not prevented by the application of some proper remedy. What I maintain, is, that the proposed paper is not of a nature to add to the excess. What I am again inclined to think, is, that the proposed paper might of itself, be capable of operating as a sufficient remedy.

What I, moreover, maintain, is, that if other, and more direct remedies should be thought fit to be applied, the proposed paper, so far from affording obstruction to their operation, would be auxiliary to it.

I will conclude this head, with giving an exemplification of its amphibious nature, (as above-mentioned,) from which results that regulating power, in virtue of which it is alike calculated to correct any excess or deficiency in regard to the quantity of money of all sorts in circulation,—observing, however, that this supposes the whole, or a considerable part of the existing mass of Stock Annuities to have been already converted into this shape, as per Art. 20, p. 27.

1st. Let money on a sudden become scarce,—a merchant, besides the capital invested in trade, has Government annuities to the value of £10,000 in this paper; the sum he wants, is £5000 for two months; the scarcity is such that he cannot raise it in the usual way, by putting his name to bills, and getting them discounted. Were his annuities in the form of Stock Annuities, as at present, he would then have to sell them for less, by, perhaps, ten or twenty per cent., than what he gave for them. Being in Note Annuities, which it is shown at chap. 4, can never at the supposed period bear either discount or premium to an amount worth regarding, he simply takes the £5000 from his hoard, and passes them on in payment, as he would so much cash, replacing the amount, and recompleting his £10,000 worth of hoarded capital at the two months’ end. The result will of course be the same in the case where, instead of his having the £5000 of his own, a man meets with a friend who is content to supply him with it on those same terms.

2d. Next, let the stock of money in circulation be swelling to excess: that is, increasing at such a rate as, were it not for the sort of drain afforded by the amphibious nature of this part of the mass would be productive of that inconvenience.

Now then, as the quantity of money existing in all hands, taken together, swells, so does that part which is in the hands of those who are laying up money—i. e. for the purpose of deriving income from it without bestowing their labour on the management of the fund, whether in the way of trade or otherwise.

In this case, in proportion as a man betakes himself to what is called laying up money, instead of laying it out in the way of his trade, (which deprives him of the interest,) he keeps it in hand for the sake of the interest, which now comes in lieu of profit on stock, and pro tanto, constitutes his income. But so much of the mass of money as is thus kept up, is, for so long as it continues to be so kept up, withdrawn from the aggregate amount of the mass of money in circulation.

At present, Government annuities are said to be converted into ready money—and vice versâ:—but at present, the conversion is true, in a figurative sense only,—and in each instance the operation is liable to be attended with a loss. In the proposed state of the Government annuities, the conversion is literally true in both instances, and is not exposed to loss in either case.

The same double function is performed by Exchequer Bills, though with inferior advantage:—large, even in their smallest sizes, they are incapable of serving for dealings, on any but the largest scale;—limited in their duration, they are incapable of securing a permanent mass of income;—limited in their aggregate amount, they are incapable of carrying this species of accommodation to the extent to which it may sometimes be required.

For illustration, it was necessary to suppose, in the one case, the deficiency,—in the other, the excess already in existence. But the same cause which, according to that supposition, would operate as a corrective, would, in fact, operate as a promotive; deficiency and excess would respectively be corrected, each in its nascent state,—as they doubtless are already in a certain degree, by Exchequer Bills, especially under the late increased amount of that part of the floating debt. In the present state of things each one of the opposite evils receives, it is true—receives, sooner or later, a remedy of the corrective kind. But how? always by the operation of some new force;—in case of deficiency, by a quantity of fresh matter of some kind or other added to the preëxisting mass: as by the increased issues of Bank notes: and before that, by the increased amount of Bills of Exchange, substituted (as according to Mr Henry Thornton’s evidence) for the cash notes drawn out of the circulation by the distress that took place at different periods, in regard to the paper of the country Banks. In the proposed state of things, the corrective would take place of itself, without the aid of human reason, and without the application of any new force. In the present state of things, the evil continues till the correction is applied; and how soon, if at all, it shall have been applied, and have produced a cure, depends upon a variety of contingencies; in the proposed state of things, all delay and uncertainty are wiped away. In the present state of things, in the case of deficiency, during the operation as well as before the application of the remedy, the price of Government annuities, and other sources of permanent income, remain, more or less, in a state of depression, and great losses are thus experienced; in the proposed state of things, this source of loss is absolutely dried up.

Objection 2.—My subdivision of the unit, or standard note, would be unadvisable: for my interest note is ill calculated to supply the place of metallic money in small payments, as the variation of value would render it perplexing and unintelligible to the common people, and expose them to imposition, notwithstanding any contrivance of tables, &c.

Answer.—This seems to suppose that the notes of magnitude inferior to the proposed standard note, are proposed, all, or a great part of them, to be poured in at once. But by art. 10 and 11, [vol. iii. p. 110,] this supposition is expressly negatived. Two, or at most three, magnitudes are proposed to be issued, by way of experiment. If two be deemed too many, then let the experiment be confined to one. Setting aside possible speculation, the papers will be taken out, in the first instance, by the owners of petty hoards, (as per chap. 4, [vol. iii. p. 118,] &c.) for the sake of obtaining an interest for sums, on which at present no interest is obtainable, on anything like terms of equal security and convenience. Taking them, then one magnitude, at a time, I do not see how they are more liable to expose the common people to imposture than bank notes are. A man who cannot read, is liable to take a one-pound note for a two-pound note. Even a man who can read, is exposed to a danger much more difficult to obviate—the danger of taking a two-pound or five-pound note of a hollow or tottering country bank, for a ditto of the Bank of England. The man who cannot read, applies in such cases to some such person as the country shopkeeper, or alehouse-keeper, whom he deals with. Such a person is seldom without a whole-sheet almanac behind his door, which almanac is never without tables, is, I should say, itself composed of tables of a more complex nature than that proposed. If in a proposed note, a man reads the day of the month wrong, or the sum opposite it wrong, (all the error the table is exposed to,) the utmost of the loss is a minute sum on the score of daily interest. If a man receives a bad one-pound note, or a bad guinea, the loss goes to the whole.

To the columns of which an almanac is composed at present, one for the day of the week, another for the day of the month, a natural addition in case of the emission of the proposed paper, would be another column indicative of the interest due on each day on an Annuity Note. Will it seriously be contended, that the additional column will be unintelligible to those by whom the original ones are understood? As to this point, see further in the answer to the next objection.

Objection 3d.—It would be very difficult at any office to make an actual payment of interest on the small notes, on account of their dispersion and multiplicity.

Answer.—This objection, like the preceding one, seems to turn, in part at least, on the supposition of the suddenness of introduction, instead of the graduality expressly recommended.

So much as to multiplicity. As to dispersion, that is provided for by the dispersion of the offices, at which it is proposed that the sale of the notes and payment of the interest shall be made—viz., the existing post-offices. The plan of payment is delineated in the notes to articles 13, 14, and 15, which I am induced to think had not yet met your eye, since, if it had, it would rather have been expressly referred to as insufficient, than passed by without reference.

In a word, wherever preponderating inconvenience presents itself, there of course will extension stop. The proposed paper is not proposed to be forced into the market, like exchequer bills, &c. &c. It will only be issued in proportion as it is demanded; and it will only be demanded, in proportion as all inconveniences attending it are found, by experience, to be outweighed by the convenience. The dilemma seems impregnable: if inconvenience, no demand; if demand, no inconvenience.

I call every commodity forced, of which the quantity offered to sale is proportioned—not to the demand and pleasure of the purchaser, but to the exigency of the seller. All known government annuities, and other government engagements for money payable in future, being of the forced kind, the mind (I am sensible) has no easy task in squaring itself to the conception of a new species, which, being not of the forced kind, is, in its nature, so essentially different from whatever else we have been used to see under the same name.

Applied, indeed, to the small notes, the objection is a perfectly rational one, and prima facie a conclusive one; especially if all the different magnitudes of the small notes are taken into the account.

But the answer is such as, I cannot but flatter myself, will be found ultimately conclusive on the other side. It is referred to, though not given, (for everything could not be given at once,) in [vol. iii. p. 112,] note 14, art. 16.

Supposing the small notes established in the circulation, (casual whims apart, which, as such, can be but rare,) a man will never apply for the interest at the office, because, as in case of exchequer bills, in proportion as he circulates his notes, the interest will be allowed him in the circulation. It is contrary to the nature of man and things, that a man should take the more troublesome course, for what he can obtain by one less troublesome.

Vansittart referred the correspondence to Dr Beeke, whose observations he communicated to Bentham—they are thus conveyed:—

“Dear Vansittart,—

I have read Mr Bentham’s plan with much interest and attention, and am flattered not only by the manner in which he expresses himself respecting me in his letter to you, but also by the very near agreement of his leading proposition with the different projects which I communicated to you some years ago for Interest Notes, and also with the principle of that respecting Provincial Banks which I communicated, two years ago, to you and to Mr Addington.

“Mr Bentham has studied the subject very profoundly and very accurately: but I am sure he will forgive the freedom I take in saying, that I fear the minuteness of detail in the printed sheets with which I have been favoured (though of infinite use to those who might wish to carry his plan into execution) is not altogether well calculated for a first publication, and might even be an impediment to its favourable reception. The impatience of modern readers is so great, and, I may add, the inattention to the minutiæ of all questions of Political Economy is so general, that such propositions as this of Mr Bentham’s have, I think, but little chance of being well received, unless they are, first of all, enunciated in the simplest form of which they are capable, and are, as much as possible, divested of all practical detail.

“With respect to the plan itself, the important circumstance in which it differs from any of mine, and in which it greatly excels them, is in the manner of converting the public debt into circulating annuities. But, in some other respects, I could wish to submit to Mr Bentham’s judgment, whether his plan may not be liable to serious objections. My proposition was made when the funds were at a much lower value than at present, (3 per cents. below 50,) but I still am inclined to think it, in some respects, preferable. I think the standard note should bear a weekly interest. Mine you know was at the rate of 3d. per week for £20, or £3, 5s. per cent. per annum. There are various reasons which induce me to think that too great a facility of circulating wealth is really a very great evil; and, therefore, I should by no means wish that such a plan should at first be recommended on too extensive a scale: and the more so because I think a near approximation to the requisite quantity of circulating money in any country is a problem of no very difficult solution. The more I have considered the subject, the more I have become persuaded that the disadvantages resulting from the use of paper money of so small value as to be commensurate with any convenient metallic coins very greatly preponderate over the advantages. Of course, I am convinced that one pound notes are really much more injurious than useful; and at any rate, in the first publication of such a plan as Mr Bentham’s, I should greatly wish to suppress any mention of silver or copper notes for two reasons:—First, if such notes could be substituted for metallic money, yet the value wanted for circulation would be too inconsiderable to make such a substitution an object of national importance. Of the aliquot parts of any piece of money, for instance of a sixpence, no more can ever be wanted for all the purposes of circulation than at the rate of about fourpence or, at most, fourpence-halfpenny per head for the population, exclusive of infauts. Say at most, in the whole United Kingdom, fourteen or fifteen millions of groats—or about £250,000 sterling. In the same manner, where (as in this country) the policy adopted has been such as to make gold the only species of metallic treasure—if only guineas were coined, I doubt whether even then more circulating silver money would be wanted, than at the rate of at most about 21s. per family, or a little more than three millions sterling. But, with a sufficient supply of seven-shilling pieces, hardly half this value would be wanted in silver money. Now, I think Mr Bentham will agree with me, that the smaller denominations of paper money would never be hoarded in any considerable quantity.

“A second reason why I would avoid any mention of small paper money bearing interest, is from a recollection, that many more really useful plans have been rendered unpopular by the ridicule of ignorance than by grave opposition to them.

“I am most clearly of opinion, that if such a plan should be adopted no aliquot parts of a standard note of £20 ought, on any account, and even at any future time, to be allowed, excepting notes for £10, £5, and perhaps £13, 6s. 8d., and £6, 13s. 4d.—if the interest were taken at £3, 5s. per cent. per annum, which rate, for many reasons, I should at present prefer. I also think that the aliquot parts of the standard note should only bear a monthly interest.

“I had intended to give my reasons for these remarks more at length, and the intrinsic value of Mr Bentham’s plan would require it from me, if I could find time to do it with any convenience: but a detailed explanation of the circumstances which have induced me to adopt the opinions that I have stated, would fill not a letter only, but a volume. If accident or choice should lead, Mr Bentham into Bond Street, I shall be glad if this letter should lead to our better acquaintance.—I am, dear Sir, yours very faithfully,

“H. Beeke.

“No. 19, Old Bond Street,
May 6, 1801.”

Bentham answers the objections in a letter to Vansittart, of 11th May:—

Bentham to Nicholas Vansittart.

“Sir,—

I plume myself not a little at the thought of the two reviewers I have been fortunate enough to obtain for my plan: and the finding in one of them a concurrent,—and such a concurrent,—is a source of the purest satisfaction to me; as, from what I see of the turn of his mind, I am sure the correspondent discovery is to him: for approbation has no evidence comparable to such coincidence.

“At the sight of the observations you had favoured me with, I had ventured to say already, that I saw in them no indications of any ultimate difference between us: at the sight of his, I can venture so much further as to say,—as to everything material, I see very satisfactory indications to the contrary. Whether there would be any difference at all, remains to be ascertained, when the considerations that have respectively operated on our minds come to be displayed on both sides. In the meantime the utmost possible difference is not so great in my eyes, but that I would compound most gladly for the seeing the plan carried into execution, simply and absolutely according to the ideas already manifested by Dr Beeke.

“As to publication, and the mode of it,—close or open,—(as you say of committees,) the first point seems to be to ascertain what the leaning of Mr Addington’s mind is, as to such parts of the plan in respect of which the Doctor’s ideas and mine are found already to coincide: in which description is already included all that presents itself as worth contending about in my eyes: and so far, at least, as the Doctor’s ideas went, at the period he alludes to, Mr Addington is already (I conclude) no stranger to it.

“On the assurance, even in that shape, that his opinion was sufficiently in favour of it to induce a wish on his part to see us set to work upon it in concert: what I should then be disposed to submit in that view would be this:—

“1. That I should go on with the impression of my plan, (for the whole of it is, or at least was, ready for the press,) printing fifty or a hundred copies or so, for the use of any such persons as you might have the goodness to point out as proper to be consulted in relation to it.

“2. That Dr Beeke’s original plans, as alluded to in his letter, should be printed, in the same view,—either in the state in which they were originally communicated, or with such amendments, if any, as he might now see reason to make in them: or if, in the meantime, before the copies were thus multiplied, he were disposed to favour me with the communication of them, I could take the liberty of submitting my observations on them without reserve. The probability appears to me to be much in favour of an exact agreement, as between him and me: but it by no means follows, that that agreement would be adopted by those to whom it belongs to judge. To him, (such is his liberality and strength of mind,) the plan,—that part of it, for instance, that relates to ‘conversion,’—is regarded as an improvement,—and that a considerable one,—upon those parts that belong to us in common: but it does not absolutely follow that it should be regarded in the same light by others.

“3. If, then, the opinion of those to whom it belonged to judge, were found to lean to the adoption of the plan,—either according to the Doctor’s modification of it, or according to mine,—or according to a tertium quid, which should have been pitched upon in preference to both,—then would be the time to decide, whether anything on the subject should be laid before the public at large, and, if anything, what, and by whom: if by me, then again would be the time for the Doctor to use the pruning-knife, which, with respectful gratitude, I would put into his hand,—then, when the prunable matter would be completed, and swelled from the three sheets to, perhaps, eight or ten.

“With such a prospect, as above supposed, of seeing his labours productive of fruit, he, I presume, would have no difficulty in finding any quantity of time requisite for the purpose.

“On the other hand, without some such prospect,—that is, if in the estimation of the competent official judges, the plan were either positively ineligible, or not of sufficient importance to be worth their attention, I, for my part, know of no point of view in which the publication of my papers, contracted or uncontracted, would present any prospect of being of use.

“In the meantime, as little would it be worth attempting to take up either your time, Sir, or the Doctor’s, with the discussion of particular points: and it is on that consideration that I spare both you and him the reading of some pages I had written of that cast.

“It this instant strikes me, that by a ‘first publication’ he, perhaps, means not the open but the close mode of publication above spoken of. If so, it would be necessary that the pruning-knife should be set to work for the purpose of such close publication, and, therefore, previously to it.

“According to his opinion, there is still a description of persons with reference to whom even the parts that would require, as above, to be cut away, would be of use: viz. ‘those who might wish to carry the plan into execution.’ But to supply the demand created by this narrowest class, nothing more would be requisite than to throw off a few copies of the sheets as they stand at present, before the press is broken up.

“I am somewhat alarmed by a hint I have just seen in the debates, about an intention of bringing in a bill for the restraining of country paper; for, though some sort of a restriction on cash paper in general, is a measure I myself have been inclined to look upon as necessary, yet I cannot but consider it as very tender ground to tread upon, and I do not well see how a sufficient stock of data can be obtained for such a purpose, circumstanced as matters are at present, without preparatory inquiries by a select committee.

“And supposing the plan of Government ‘interest paper,’ to obtain a sort of provincial approbation, should not some view be taken of its bearings and relations in reference to any such measure for the regulation of private paper?

“As to £1 notes, the Doctor’s unfavourable opinion of private paper of that size, (if meant to apply to that size in contradistinction to larger sizes to an equal aggregate value,) the reasons that gave it birth are such as I have not been able to anticipate: by which, however, I do not mean that I expect to find them otherwise than satisfactory, were they to be made known to me. Supposing large paper of all sorts, (say £5 and upwards,) to have swelled in its amount so as to bear a certain ratio to cash, the existence of small notes to a proportionable amount (say £2 and £1 notes) presents itself to my view as necessary, on pain of a very formidable danger, at least universal bankruptcy: viz. by such a demand for cash, on the score of change, as would indistinguishably be mistaken for, and at length be productive of, a general distrust of paper: though whether the proportions are as yet, or soon likely to be, at that mark, is among the problems for the solution of which I have all along been looking in my own mind to Dr Beeke.

“The opening given me in the conclusion of his letter, is by much too valuable to remain unimproved by me; and to this you owe the liberty I take in enclosing the note addressed to him.

“I return his letter in obedience to your commands,—and have the honour to be,” &c.

The following correspondence took place between Bentham and Arthur Young on the returns of agricultural capital:—

Bentham to Arthur Young.

“Q. S. P., June 13, 1801.

“Dear Sir,—

Your opinion on the subject of the following queries, on which it is probably given in more places than one of your works, if a man knew but where to lay his finger on it, would much oblige me.

“1. What may be regarded as the average annual value of the gross produce in the form of a per centage for every £100 laid out in the improvement of land not yet in culture, upon an average of articles of culture, soils, situations, &c., and quantities of capital applied per acre, according to the usage of the present time, and in farms of the average size? calculated either for England or Great Britain,—but mention which.

“2. The same question applied to land already in culture, upon an average in respect to the quantity of capital actually employed, and the degree of skill and judgment with which it is employed, and upon farms of an average size?

“3. The same applied as before to land already in culture: but on the supposition of the capitals being employed on the most skilful principles yet known, and on that quantity per acre which is adapted to the production of the greatest quantity of produce per acre?

“N.B. The object is to ascertain, not the profit per cent. to the farmer, not that portion of the produce which, or the price of it, is retained by that one of the parties interested, but the gross produce, or whole amount in each year, including what goes to rent and tithes, poor-rates, and other taxes, and not deducting anything for interest of money.

“The income thus derived to the nation, taken together, is considered as permanent, and even perpetual; and therefore, in each year, that proportion of the produce of the year, the value of which goes for wear and tear of the capital, to keep up the capital always at the same value, without increase or decrease, must all along be deducted.

“Answers to questions of such latitude must, of course, be extremely vague: but a very rough approximation is all that is necessary for my purpose; such a one, for example, as is made when it is said, as it was in Mr Pitt’s estimate, as given in Mr Rose’s pamphlet, for the purpose of the income tax, that 15 per cent. might be reckoned as the average profit of trade; in which interest of money, I take for granted, was meant to be included, and the profit in question was meant to be the profit of the individual master manufacturer, &c. by whom the capital in question is employed.

“If you will give me leave to avail myself of your authority, by giving the questions and answers, and annexing your name to the answers in print, if I should print, as I think to do, you will add much to the obligation conferred on, dear Sir, your faithful friend, &c.

“N.B. I shall take your permission for granted, unless refused. Better the exact purpose of the questions be unknown till the answer is given, to avoid biases on the mind. It will, I presume, be least trouble to you to return this same paper with your answers, which, I should hope, might be reduced to a few figures.”

Answer to Mr Bentham’s Queries for England.

“Query 1. The capital which is necessary for the improvement of waste, including all expenses both of landlord and tenant—that is, building, fencing, and bringing into culture—may, on an average, be reckoned at £10 per acre; but a great part, and in some cases all, is drawn back during the course of the improvement, so that, after four years, the land is in a state to let, without the expense having, in fact, been anything, or very small. The gross produce, if the land lets at 10s., (or is worth that rent,) including tithe and rates as rent, will be, on an average, 30s. an acre: if rent, tithe, and rates are 20s., the produce will be £3.

“2. Upon land already in culture, the capital may be called £5 per acre, and the gross produce vibrating from 50s. to 60s.

“3. The question involves a contradiction—gross produce is never the object in contradistinction to neat profit. With profit the object, capital £6 to £7 an acre, and gross produce £3, 10s. to £4, averaging everything except skill.

“I say nothing of farmers’ profit, as that seems not to be the object of the queries; but compare only the gross produce with the capital employed to raise it, and I suppose common average times and prices.

“Errors excepted.

“A. Y.”

Bentham to Arthur Young.

“Q. S. P, 8th July, 1801.

“Dear Sir,—

Many thanks for your kind remembrance of me. No—you had not answered it, I was thinking of writing to you a second time, in consideration of accidents such as happened.

“I see Bygge’s extract* in the last number of the Annals, but not North. I beg your pardon; I was misinformed. I see it in No. 210.

“I was sorry not to find the note we talked of, in explanation of the difference between large farms in that country and in this. You may have observed, or not observed, in my Principles of Management, as given in my Poor papers in the Annals, the advantages of the large scale principle, as applied to buildings, and vessels, and other implements in manufactories. I should like to see an application of it to agricultural establishments, to which nobody is so competent as yourself.†

“General enclosure. Has anybody ever worked this argument in favour of it? By the common law, where an estate falls from one hand into a few, as where it descends from a man to a family of daughters, his co-heiresses each one has a right to have it divided, by reason of the inconveniences and loss of value that result from joint and promiscuous land ownership. In the case of land common to a whole parish, how much stronger the reason for division.

“Lawyer craft and lawyers’ prejudices have been found by you among the great obstacles to improvement in your own, (have not they?) as well as in so many other lines. Here is an argumentum ad hominem for you to fight them with.

“You got me into a scrape about the population paper: what I wished was, to have talked with you on the subject; but I made you promise it should not, till then, if at all, find its way into the Annals. This promise escaped you, and you printed the paper, taking only the precaution to put initials, instead of the name at length. Another time we must take precautions to prevent misconceptions and slips of memory. I do not know that any ill consequence has actually happened. I will tell you what I was apprehensive of when we meet. When do you think of visiting town again?—Yours most truly,” &c.

Bentham to Nicholas Vansittart.

“Q. S. P. 20th July, 1801.

“Dear Sir,—

Your obliging appointment for to-morrow will not fail of due obedience. You understand, I hope, that on the former occasion I was at the Treasury at the time appointed, (I crossed you in the passage;) and that your seeing me so late was owing to some misconception—of which I know not the canse—on the part of the messengers, I believe.

“Will you pardon my whimsicalness in mentioning it as a maxim of mine, deduced from uniform experience, that, in business, except for particular purposes, every third person is a nuisance—I mean in respect to distraction: for as to secrecy, if there were half-a-dozen short-hand writers, my objection to third persons would be obviated, if they were put behind a screen, with orders not to speak.

“I enclose the promised copy—a sad rough one; but as the revising another would consume a good deal of time, I hope your goodness will excuse it. I am,” &c.

Again:—

“Q. S. P., July 24, 1801.

“Dear Sir,—

I release you from your obliging appointment for this day. You have cut me out work for several days. I return you the paper—having preserved a copy of it. It answers my purpose to admiration: proving, as it does, that where everything was sought for that seemed capable of being made to wear the semblance of an objection—sought for, and with such ability—nothing was to be found. The force of it—at least the force with which it acted upon me—consisted exclusively in the force of the word ‘severity,’ dropped by yourself in speaking of it. Severity there was indeed in that word, and severely will you yourself be punished for it,—punished by the load of paper you will have drawn down upon yourself, and which, but for that word, you would have escaped. Since an answer then is necessary, black and white cannot be answered—not effectually at least—and to any lasting purpose—by anything but black and white: impressions thus made can seldom be wiped away by sounds.

“The judicial was the function I had chosen for the learned baronet, [Sir T. Eden]: that of advocate-counsel, for a rival project, is the character he has taken upon himself in preference. What a Mr Storestreet is to him, he has made himself to me. His adversary, in his model,—beginning—middle—end—he emulates Mr Storestreet. The word, ‘portentous,’ prefixed to the word ‘globe’ in the title-page of the one, is watched by the ‘ewes and lambs’ that garnish the first line of the other. As the one concludes with the grave of property, so does the other with the joke about dying of the Doctor. In what degree that style of discussion is calculated for the conveyance of useful information, may perhaps be seen, when the attention bestowed by it comes to be repaid. The misfortune is—all this makes words: and words take time even to write them: not to speak of thinking, even if, like my commentator, a man wrote from imagination, and without stopping to see what was in the text.

“There are other ways of treating a plan which a man would have been glad to find practicable, but cannot, consistently with what he owes to truth. I enclose a specimen, the rather because it is not altogether foreign to the subject in hand, being referred to—I should have said alluded to—in the Introduction, p. 4. But not having any necessary relation to the question in hand, it is not worth looking at, but at your most perfect leisure. I am,” &c.

Again:—

“August 10th, 1801.

“Dear Sir,—

Before, you had Sir Frederick’s ‘severity,’ now you have it back again with mine. You are our master; we a couple of school-boys making the declamations you were pleased to set us. As to real spite and enmity—whatever you might otherwise be apt to suppose as you read on, (supposing you to have patience to read on,) I assure you most sincerely, I have no more against him, than the school-boy who spouts Ajax has against his chum who spouts Ulysses; or than you yourself may have felt when arguing a settlement case against the learned gentleman on the other side. As to Sir Frederick, he is a good-natured man, (to judge from everything I have seen or heard of him,) and would forgive me, if you gave him the opportunity; but that is a matter for you to judge of. As to this his jeu d’esprit, if I have failed of being severe upon it, it certainly is not for want of trial—the necessity of defending at all points, what seemed to be an object on public ground worth defending, forbade me to give quarter:—but, personally, if he were to have heard all I have said of him, not only before this affair, but since, I think he would not have been dissatisfied with it—excepting always one remark I made t’other day, viz., that for the sake of the public, as well as his own, it would give me more satisfaction to see him at the head of the Government Annuity-Note Office, joining hands with his noble uncle at the Post-office, than at the head of the Globe;* which last, I am inclined to think would, notwithstanding, experience at least as favourable treatment from me, if it depended upon me, as I should expect to see it meet with from the Crown lawyers.

“Tedious as this operation has been, from the labour of making references, together with the toil of revising an incorrect copy, taken from a most exemplarily rough hand, (such as this is, especially when it writes against time to arrest fugitive ideas,) I flatter myself it may not be, altogether, labour lost; since, besides the main object, I should expect to find that other observations, such as might be looked for from Mr Alcock and others, had been found anticipated by it.

“At any rate, any other objections, fresh or stale, that might present themselves from the same, or any other quarter, I should neither think of answering in a similar tone, nor (probably) look upon it as necessary to answer at equal length—simple references being all I should think necessary to give by way of answer to objections already foreseen and answered; and if you would have the goodness to distinguish by some mark, any such observations as, in your view of the matter, called for an answer beyond what has been already given, it would be an act of charity; unless any objection presented itself to you as a fatal one—in which case, you would give judgment accordingly, and I should have my quietus.”

Bentham to Dumont.

“Q. S. P., 11th August, 1801.

“My dear Dumont,—

I was very glad to receive the paper you sent me from Lord Lansdowne—not only as a token of his lordship’s kind recollection, but also on its own account.

“Should the currency I have proposed be adopted by Government, and accepted to a sufficient extent in Ireland, it will be an effectual cure for the evil, and a more simple one than any other which has been or can be proposed. Whether it will be adopted, is more than I can as yet pretend to say; but they pay serious attention to it, and appearances are not unpromising. I need not say to you, I am sure, how sincere a satisfaction it would afford me, to find that, in the general accommodation, Lord Lansdowne’s particular accommodation, in a matter of such importance to him, were particularly included. I should be much obliged to him and you, for any further documents relative to the subject that may come to hand, or be easily procurable.

“The enormity of the discount spoken of, (10 per cent.—is it not? or thereabouts,) altogether passes my comprehension. A priori, I should have thought the impossibility of the fact demonstrable. The money, if it exists in Ireland, might be brought bodily (I should have said,) for a quarter of the money. It costs but £3, 12s. or thereabouts, per £100, to bring money from Hamburgh, including freight, insurance—everything, as per Lords’ stoppage of the Bank Report, March or April, 1797. I say, if it exists in Ireland, and if it does not exist there, I don’t well see how it is ever to get paid in England. Perhaps the case is, that it does not exist there, and so it becomes necessary that the value should be paid in goods; and that this discount is occasioned by the expenses upon the goods. Not having yet turned my thoughts to this particular branch of the subject, I feel myself as yet quite in the dark. You know it is my way, till I fancy myself to know more, I am always perfectly conscious of knowing a great deal less than other people. If the case should be as above, to be sure my currency can do nothing in it. If there is any money in the country, it will bring it free of expense; but if there is none, to be sure it cannot create it. I wonder how it was with Scotland in former days—soon after the Union, for example. Fifteen lords and forty-five commoners, must, though Scotchmen, have spent something. Any documents about the state of the country banks in Ireland would be highly valuable to me. Whether my currency be adopted or no, country bankers’ paper must be stopped from further increase, on pain of certain bankruptcy: though I cannot tell you exactly on what day, and at what o’clock.

“P. S. Your letter did not desire an answer, or I would have written one immediately.”

[* ] Now Dr Roget, the son of Romilly’s brother-in-law. He must have been a young man studying his profession at the date of the letter.

[* ] It will be observed, that many of the improvements here suggested have been adopted in the late census returns.

[* ] See above, p. 56.

[* ] As to whom, see above, p. 22.

[† ] See Works, vol. iii. p. 105 et seq.

[* ] Letter, on the Influence of the Stoppage of Issues in Specie on the Price of Provisions, &c. 1801.

[* ] See Works, vol. iii. p. 117 et seq.

[* ] Dr Henry Beeke, author of Observations on the Produce of the Income Tax.

[* ] Extracts from Bygge’s Travels in the French Republic. Annals, xxxvii. p. 129.

[† ] This is the main feature of the modern Scottish agriculture.

[* ] Viz., “The Globe” Insurance Company.

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CHAPTER XIII.: 1800—1801. Æt. 51—53. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 10 (Memoirs Part I and Correspondence) [1843]

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CHAPTER XIII.

1800—1801. Æt. 51—53.

Peter Roget*to Bentham.

“Sir,—

Bentham to Speaker Addington.

“Sir,—

“To the Right Honourable the Speaker of the House of Commons.”

Charles Abbot to Bentham.

Bentham to Charles Abbot.

Bentham to W. Morton Pitt.

“My dear Sir,—

Bentham to Dr Roget.

“Dear Sir,—

Dr Roget to Bentham.

Bentham to Charles Abbot.

HINTS RELATIVE TO THE POPULATION BILL.*To Charles Abbot, Esq., M.P.

Sir,—

“My dear Dumont,—

Bentham to Patrick Colquhoun.

“My dear Sir,—

Patrick Colquhoun to Bentham.

Bentham to George Rose.

George Rose to Bentham.

Bentham to George Rose.

Bentham to Henry James Pye.

Bentham to Lord St Helens.

Bentham to Nicholas Vansittart.

Bentham to Nicholas Vansittart.

“Sir,—

“Dear Sir,—

Nicholas Vansittart to Bentham.

“Sir,—

Objections to the Annuity-Note Plan, with Answers.

“Dear Vansittart,—

Bentham to Nicholas Vansittart.

“Sir,—

Bentham to Arthur Young.

“Dear Sir,—

Answer to Mr Bentham’s Queries for England.

Bentham to Arthur Young.

“Dear Sir,—

Bentham to Nicholas Vansittart.

“Dear Sir,—

“Dear Sir,—

“Dear Sir,—

Bentham to Dumont.

“My dear Dumont,—

“To the Right Honourable the
Speaker of the House of Commons.”