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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Bentham to Mr Mulford. - 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 Mr Mulford.

“July 9th, 1812.

“Alack-a-day! how long a trial has your talent at deciphering been already put to! The two or three last pages at least might have been spared; but as you grow stronger and younger, your letters lengthen, while your handwriting improves; and although I should never learn to write as well as you do, though I were to keep on writing to the age of Methusalem, yet I have always been your match in length. Moreover, since you have renewed your lease, your hand seems to have become clearer than it was when I had first the honour to become acquainted with it. What say you to the entering in one of the Inns of Court? In five years you might be called to the Bar, and in about fifteen or twenty years more might become Attorney or Solicitor-general, which would oblige you to come into Parliament: whereupon, in a few years more, you might pursue the track marked out by the late Mr Perceval, and become Minister; but, in that case, lest you should share his unhappy fate, let me recommend it to you, to listen to the voice of prudence, and insure your life.

“The member by whom this letter is franked, is the famous Mr Brougham—pronounce Broom—who, by getting the Orders in Council revoked, and peace and trade with America thereby restored, has just filled the whole country with joy, gladness, and returning plenty. He has been dining with me to-day, and has but just gone. This little dinner of mine he has been intriguing for any time these five or six months; and what with one plague and another, never till this day could I find it in my heart to give him one—I mean this year: for the last we were already intimate. He is already one of the first men in the House of Commons, and seems in a fair way of being very soon universally acknowledged to be the very first, even beyond my old and intimate friend, Sir Samuel Romilly: many, indeed, say he is so now.

“Sir Francis Burdett is still upon my hands, for a dinner he has been wanting to give me, any time these six weeks, offering to have anybody I will name to meet me. In real worth he is far below those others: but being the hero of the mob, and having it in his power to do a great deal of harm, as well as a great deal of good, and being rather disposed to do good, and, indeed, having done a good deal already, must not be neglected.

“For society, I have to pick and choose amongst the best and wisest, and most esteemed men in the country, who all look up to me; and yet, having so much to do, and so little time left to do it in, I lead, in this my hermitage, a hermit’s life—not much less hermitish than yours. You sometimes, I believe, read newspapers: which paper is it that forms your channel of communication with this wretched world? It will be some weekly one, I suppose: if any, the Examiner is the one that at present, especially among the high political men, is the most in vogue. It sells already between 7000 and 8000. Cobbett, also, who, though a powerful writer, is almost universally known for a vile rascal—has sunk from between 4000 and 5000, to no more than 2000: in pretty broad terms, he has been vindicating the assassination of poor Perceval, and recommending it for imitation! yet, even he has been, in many respects, the instrument of good; for so, of course, will the vilest rascals be, when they think they see their interest in it.

“The editor of the Examiner—Hunt, has taken me under his protection, and trumpets me every now and then in his paper, along with Romilly. I hear so excellent a character of him, that I have commissioned Brougham to send him to me.

“The Marquis of Lansdowne is going this summer to the family seat at Bowood, in Wiltshire, for the first time since his coming to the title and estate. I am summoned to go and take possession of the apartment there, which, for these thirty years, has gone by my name; but this year I certainly cannot afford time, and others are not likely to be very abundant. Here, my dear Doctor, in hopes of contributing to your amusement, have I been scribbling and scrawling to you as to a father, in confidence that you will not, on any account, let it go out of your hands.

“I mean to send, if I can find it, one of the numbers of the weekly newspaper called The Examiner. In it you will find a letter of which your humble servant is the subject; but which, odd as it may appear to you, your said humble servant never has read, and most probably never will read. He has too much use both for eyes and time, to read half the things that are said of him in books and newspapers.

“But what will interest you more, when you come to know the little circumstances that are connected with it, is the mention made by the editor, in a paragraph marked as written by himself, of my name in conjunction with those of Brougham and Romilly. Brougham is the sole confidential adviser of the Princess of Wales, in her contest with her husband. The Princess takes in The Examiner; and, as being in such pointed hostility against her said husband, reads it with great interest. The Princess Charlotte comes once a-fortnight, on a stated day of the week, I forget which, to dine with her mother, and there she steals a peep at the said Examiner. The Princess Charlotte had been taught by her father to be a great admirer of Charles Fox. Upon her father’s casting off that party without reason assigned, she would not go with him; but, being disgusted with his behaviour towards her mother, and on so many other accounts, adheres to her mother, and retains her original political feelings in great force. Brougham and Romilly are the Princess Charlotte’s two great heroes, whom she is continually trumpeting. If she were on the throne, Romilly would of course be Chancellor, Brougham either Minister, or in some other high office. They are both of them more democratic than the Whigs; and Erskine, having already been Chancellor, would probably have been preferred for that office, to Romilly, by the Whigs, had they come into power when they were so near it. Romilly’s is the only house I go to; and Brougham one of the very few, indeed, that I admit into mine. When the Earl of Dundonald dies, Lord Cochrane, who is his eldest son, will succeed to the peerage; and then it is understood to be certain that Brougham will succeed him as member for Westminster. Lord Dundonald, a few days ago, was supposed to be at the point of death, but is now, they say, a little recovered. It is supposed, however, that he has but a short time to continue in this wicked world. In the same case, would the Prince-Regent, if drinking could kill him; for he is drunk (say the learned) every night, and palsy is hovering over him. Brougham does not seem to have any other more immediate prospect for coming into Parliament, which, of course, I am sorry for. He had a claim for a seat for Scotland, which, on account of the certain expense, and the little chance of success which the bitter hostility of the ministry towards him seemed to leave him, he has determined to give up. Romilly is in Parliament by this time. He went down yesterday, to be elected, to Arundel, which is one of the Duke of Norfolk’s boroughs.”

There is, in a letter of Mill, an interesting reference to his son, whose early promise had excited in Bentham’s mind no small degree of attention, and who corresponded with Bentham, as soon as he was able to write:—