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Subject Area: Law

Bentham to Major Cartwright. - 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 Major Cartwright.

“Oxstead,Surrey, 30th August, 1811.

“My dear Sir,—

I have to acknowledge the favour of yours of yesterday’s date. Thanks in abundance for your kind remembrance of me. The business is interesting, and in altogether competent hands. Mine could not better it. But hands there are by which it might be bettered, viz., a Member of Parliament’s; for example, (and if he could but bring himself to take the trouble of it, whose could be better?) Sir Francis Burdett’s. Such and such are the facts which the persons in question were willing to depose to, and offered to such and such official persons (naming them) to give an account of; but those official persons would not hear them. At great expense and inconvenience to themselves they left the colony on such a day, staid till such a day; but finding that any further stay would be to no purpose, embarked on such a day on their return. This is what, according to your letter, a member of Parliament, who should have seen and examined them, would be able to say in his place.

“In default of Sir Francis, who very probably is not within reach—viz., between Piccadilly and Wimbledon—but at some distant watering place, if this were a time in which any person were in town I might possibly have got some M.P. to see the men in question and act accordingly. This being hopeless, remains for consideration the next best thing to be done.

“Objects two:—1. To collect the facts and preserve them from deperition; 2. To fix the ministry with notice, prove that the not proving the abuses and bringing them before Parliament and the public in the regular and usual manner is their fault—their wilful fault—and thus prove them guilty of connivance.

“For the accomplishment of these objects, supposing motives on your part adequate, and the requisite means in your power, i. e. the persons in question ready to do their part, the following is the course that occurs to me:—

“1. You to see them, (the sooner the better, since their departure is so near,) and to get out of them, and commit to paper, as particularly as may be, all the relevant facts within their knowledge. For this purpose, by way of memento, the titles of the sections in that pamphlet of mine which you have, together with the running titles with which the pages are headed, might perhaps be found of some use.

“2. When the facts are before you, then to state them, or such parts of them as seem most material, in form of a letter, to be signed by the men in question, and addressed to Mr Secretary Ryder, within whose department it is, observation being made of the person to whom at his office it is delivered: the persons to mention the day fixed for their departure, i. e. for the departure of the ship in which they are to go, and their inability to retard it: likewise to state the preceding manifestations they had afforded of their readiness to give the information, and what steps, if any, were taken by the official persons in question (naming them) in consequence.

“As to the once-intended inquiry, what I heard about the matter is as follows:—About the beginning of last session, I think it was, or earlier, an intimate friend of mine, M.P. (you may guess who: I don’t like mentioning names in black and white, without leave* ) informed me, that some flagrant abuses in New South Wales had transpired, and that some members of Opposition had thoughts of trying to obtain a committee, for the purpose of bringing them to light. Some time afterwards, he informed me that the project was abandoned; for the person on whose evidence the principal reliance was placed, had, by means of a place, been satisfied and bought off by the Ministry,—under which circumstances, the prospect of his giving, before a committee, the same account that he had given of the matter, or any other account that would afford a justification for the inquiry, appearing hopeless, the design was given up. In answer to a question of mine, his name was mentioned; but I do not to any certainty recollect it. I have some notion that it was Fowel, or some other name beginning with an F. I am certain of its not containing more than one or two syllables. I don’t know whether it is not agent for the colony that he is made. Your settlers might perhaps ascertain this.

“A friend of mine, whom you once saw at my house, but without speaking, and whom Mr Holt White saw and spoke with, has mentioned to me a Mr Brown,* as having passed some years in the colony in quality of botanist, and living now in Gerard Street, where he is librarian to the Linnæan Society, and, moreover, librarian to Sir Joseph Banks. He is mentioned as an honest, quiet man, but probably not very observant of anything but Natural History; and finding on his own personal account no grounds for complaint, not likely to have been very sharp in looking out for them.

“By mentioning this Mr B. to your men, you might hear of some facts, in relation to which their testimony, when they are gone, would, upon occasion, receive confirmation from his. Mr MacArthur you must have heard mentioned as one of the most eminent and respectable of the free settlers. In May or June, he was examined, on the trial of Lieut.-colonel Johnstone, by a Courtmartial, at the instance of Governor Bligh. Mention was made of it about that time in ‘The British Press.’ Whether he is now in England, I have not heard. He has a brother, a mercer, in Plymouth, with whom, on occasion, communication might possibly be obtained.

“Being in the office of the Secretary of State, the proposed letter might be called for in Parliament; and, against the connivers, the facts would be to be taken for true, since, if incorrect, it was their fault that the incorrectnesses were not ascertained and corrected. A copy should be preserved, that, without a committee, (which would not be granted,) any member having it in his hand might be enabled to speak to the facts with confidence.

“Suggestion by Mr K.—Possibly these men, having heard how (Fowel?) was bought off, came hither on the like errand; but found the connivers tired of buying quiet at that rate. But this hypothesis depends upon there having been time for them to have heard of it, and come hither afterwards.

“I take this only vacant place for assuring you, that I am, my dear Sir, ever most truly yours.”

[* ] Probably Romilly. There is an allusion to the circumstance in his Parliamentary Diary for 1810. Life, vol. ii. p. 319.

[* ] Robert Brown, the distinguished Botanist.