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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Bentham to Dumont. - 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 Dumont.

“The Woronzoffs being now omnipotent at Petersburg, and my brother being in good odour with them, the occasion seems not altogether an unfavourable one for Dumont Principes. The misfortune is, that, (as I understood at the time,) from the time of the appearance of ‘Judicial Establishment,’ I have been looked upon as a Jacobin by the Woronzoff here, through the good offices of my dear friend, Lord Grenville. The occasion was,—the adoption I then looked upon as necessary to make (though even against the grain, and even declaredly so, as you may recollect) of the principle of popular election as applied to Judges. Never having thought it worth while to commission my brother to remove that prejudice, the matter has rested. Four times (I understand) has our Woronzoff refused being principal minister there; but his brother, Alexander, (I see by the papers) is minister there for foreign affairs; three or four times a-week he has been dining at the Emperor’s. Lord St Helens, you know, is returned; I have not seen him, because now, as before, I see nobody; but my brother has, and he talked much about wishes to see me. Two copies of ‘Dumont Principes,’ unfortunately enough, did not reach Petersburg till he had left it.

“You may dismiss your apprehensions about Sir Fred. Eden. He did not really mean what I had suspected; and by another letter, he has entered into a long and confidential discussion of the circumstances that would prevent his finding time for it. Garnier,—did he receive my Colony Emancipation pamphlet, that I sent him by Romilly?—you never mentioned anything about it, in what you reported of your conversations. I am inclined to suspect he shies the subject; either on account of Buonaparte’s passion for colonies, or because he does not want to be known to have borrowed from it.

“If you happen to meet Cuvier, dun him, pray, for two sorts of seeds he spontaneously undertook to get for me.

“My ear-ache left me at Liancourt; my deafness, I don’t know where it left me, or whether it has quite left me.

This is the 19th October, and no tidings yet of the Romillys,—I wrote to them from Dover. I read through Morellet’s observations on the journey: poor Morellet! how easy to answer, but to what use?”

The pamphlet which Bentham had prepared on the subject of the injustice done him by the Duke of Portland’s ministry, in the matter of Panopticon, he sent to Romilly for his opinion, which elicited this letter:—