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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

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

Edition used:

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

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

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


Lord Holland to Bentham.

“Holland House, 6th Sept., 1809.

“Don Gaspar M. Jovellanos was so delighted with your letter, and so anxious to give you every assistance and advice, that, though worn out with business, he preferred dictating a letter to you (which I enclose, and which will be a good Spanish lesson to you) to intrusting any verbal message to me—his signature, he said, would sufficiently account for his employing an amanuensis, as he was provided with that assistance, and it was not equally certain that you had a decipherer.

“You might visit Seville, any time after this month, with perfect security from agues; but whether that circumstance does not render a visit from the French more probable also, you will be able to determine for yourself better than I can advise you. You would, if at Seville, find them, I hope, in the midst of the work of legislation and reform, to the object of establishing, or restoring a free constitution, to which your correspondent, Jovellanos, dedicates all his time, and directs all his zeal and eloquence.

“P.S. Did you get my letter from Seville?”

Bentham made to Cobbett (April 8, 1809) the following anonymous communication, to which I do not find any written reply in his papers:—

“A writer, who is preparing for the press, to be published with his name, a work on the subject of Libel Law, in which great use will be made of the cases of the King against Cobbett, and Do. against Johnston,* finds himself in great need of the information which the attorney’s bill in the former case would afford, and this partly in respect of the sum total of the pecuniary burthen—partly in respect of the items of which it was composed. The mode of communication by which the purpose would, beyond comparison, be best answered, is, the printing an exact copy in Mr Cobbett’s Register; because, by this means, the text being in everybody’s hands, the comments that would be made upon it would find, readily laid down for them, an authenticated basis, universally intelligible. But lest the publication of a document of this nature should not be found suitable to the plan of the Register, the writer finds it necessary to indicate a private mode of correspondence for this purpose.

“A Mr Davies, as it may happen to Mr Cobbett to know, has, during Mr Cochrane Johnson’s absence on his expedition to Seville and Mexico for dollars, the direction of the repairs and alterations that are going forward at the house he has lately taken in Queen Square Place, Westminster. To him Mr Cobbett is desired to have the goodness to direct any private communication which, on this occasion, he may be disposed to make. The writer is not personally known to Mr Cobbett; and as Mr Cobbett will understand in the sequel, it may be material to a purpose which Mr Cobbett cannot but approve, that he may have to say, and that with truth, that there has not been any personal intercourse, nor exists any connexion between them. But for a token that the degree of confidence necessary to the purpose in question is not likely to be abused, nor the trouble, that on Mr Cobbett’s part may be necessary, altogether thrown away, he thinks it may be of use to mention that not long ago he partook of a brace of partridges at No. 13, Alsop’s Buildings.

“Other articles of information wanted, are—

“1st. Defendant’s sentence in King v. Cobbett.—Imprisonment, if any.—If fine, amount of the fine.

“2d. Bill of costs in King v. Johnson; but as to this, there does not seem any probability of its lying within Mr Cobbett’s reach.

“The writer wishes, if possible, to get out his work before any of the twenty-six prosecutions on the ground of Major Hogan’s pamphlet* come on for trial; or will before Lord Ellenborough’s death, which, he understands from good authority, is expected to be not far distant. Should the information in question, viz. the bill of costs, be destined for a place in the Register, the earlier the better,—in the next number if possible; meantime, should my notice of this be destined for a place in the Register, the writer may be designated by the letters A Z.”

In sending to Bentham the Annual Review, Dumont writes:—

(Translation.)

“This is excellent—I like the man. He speaks boldly, loudly, intelligibly. He is not like some of the lukewarm whom I know—shamefaced admirers—who will say twenty pretty things in a chamber, but not one—no, not one in writing.”

Bentham writes to Mr Mulford:—

“I am hard at work, trying whether I cannot get the public, or some part of it, to turn its attention to the corruptions in the law department; in comparison of which, the commander-in-chief’s office, make the worst of it, was purity itself. It is perfectly astonishing to see how, by comparatively trifling instances of misgovernment, the current of public opinion has been turned against the Ministry, or rather against all Ministries, and in favour of Parliamentary Reform as the only remedy.”

At this period of Bentham’s life, his intimacy with James Mill was great; and intercourse, both epistolary and personal, was constant. Next to Dumont, he must be considered as the most influential of Bentham’s followers and admirers. He brought a vigorous intellect to grasp and to develop the doctrines of his master. To a great extent he popularized them. He has been reproached with having habitually neglected to acknowledge the source from whence he derived his inspirations, and to have given to the world as his own, the valuable matter which he drew from his great instructor. But the accusation has been exaggerated—for, though the “Utilitarian Philosophy” is the ground-work of all the writings of Mill—these writings are full of original views, and occupy many portions of the field of thought which had not so specially engaged the attention of Bentham.

Of Mill, Bentham used to say:—

“Mill will be the living executive—I shall be the dead legislative of British India. Twenty years after I am dead, I shall be a despot, sitting in my chair with Dapple in my hand, and wearing one of the coats I wear now. It was Mill who induced Ricardo to get into Parliament, and I took some trouble to get him a seat.”

Mill, however, had his heresies—among others—what Bentham called “an abominable opinion” with respect to the inaptitude of women, and one “scarcely less abominable,” that men should not hold office till they are forty years of age.

Though an exceedingly able, Mill was by no means an amiable man. Bentham said of him that his willingness to do good to others depended too much on his power of making the good done to them subservient to good done to himself. “His creed of politics results less from love for the many, than from hatred of the few. It is too much under the influence of selfish and dissocial affection.

“He will never willingly enter into discourse with me. When he differs, he is silent. He is a character. He expects to subdue everybody by his domineering tone—to convince everybody by his positiveness. His manner of speaking is oppressive and overbearing. He comes to me as if he wore a mask upon his face. His interests he deems to be closely connected with mine, as he has a prospect of introducing a better system of judicial procedure in British India. His book on British India abounds with bad English, which made it to me a disagreeable book. His account of the superstitions of the Hindoos made me melancholy.”

Mill writes (Sept. 27, 1809):—

[* ] In the art of Packing Special Juries, (Works, vol. v.,) these cases are frequently alluded to. In that work (p. 65) the author mentions his having projected a work on the special subject of Libel Law; but he does not appear to have followed up the design.

[* ] On the State of the Army, under the Duke of York.