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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Bentham to W. Morton Pitt. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 10 (Memoirs Part I and Correspondence) [1843]

Edition used:

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

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

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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:—