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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Bentham to Dumont. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 11 (Memoirs of Bentham Part II and Analytical Index) [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. 11.

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

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Bentham to Dumont.

“Now for a bit of an intrigue, worthy of the talents of the omnium intrigantium intrigantissimus, the Genevo-Anglo-Gallico, the Reverend Squire Citizen Montaineer.

“Oh but, my dear Dumont, I had forgot myself. I have need of you: it is, therefore, both a bounden and an incumbent duty of mine, to be very civil to you. Therefore, never you mind the abuse in the first paragraph—regard it as non-avenu.

“The letter in the other column will inform you of the present state of my expectations in regard to Panopticon: taking with it this explanation, that the papers therein spoken of are letters and other papers of mine, which, though addressed partly to Sir C. Bunbury, were written for the edification of his Majesty’s Secretary of State and his colleague, and are as full of fire and flame, and scorn and menace, to Pitt and Portland, &c. &c., Addington himself not excluded, and Lord Pelham half-included, as I could cram them: and then a comment from me on this very letter went immediately after to Sir Charles, with whom it lies as a deposit, ready to be produced and published inter alia, in the character of a prophecy of perfidy, should such be the event.

“You are looked for at Paris, (Romilly tells me,) in September. I am glad of it for divers reasons: this goes by him, and stays with him, till you meet. As everybody is, or will be at Paris, some of the leaders of Opposition will therefore be there: as, for example, your friend, Lord Holland; and, according to the newspapers, even the Coryphæus of the Foxes.

“I have, of late, made a discovery of a piece of villany on the part of Pitt, Portland, and others of the late gang, which, for the sake not only of justice and humanity, (both very pretty things, children of the utility family,) but for the sake of this old constitution of ours, (forgive my weakness, I cannot but confess, that I have a whoreson kind of tenderness that hangs on me,) I should like to see punished.

“Of their multiplied enormities, there are some which are not so completely involved in English grim-gribber, but that you can understand them perfectly.