The Online Library of Liberty

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• The Works of Jeremy Bentham
• Memoirs and Correspondence.
• Chapter XXIII.: 1828—29. Æt. 80—81.
• Bentham to La Fayette. (extract.)
• Bentham to J. B. Say. (extract.)
• La Fayette to Bentham.
• Colonel Young to Bentham.
• Bentham to the Duke of Wellington.
• Bentham to Daniel O’connell.
• Bentham to the Duke of Wellington.
• General Miller to Bentham.
• José Del Valle ( the President of Guatemala ) to Bentham. (translation.)
• Bentham to José Del Valle.
• O’connell to Bentham.
• Bentham to O’connell. (extracts.)
• O’connell to Bentham. (extracts.)
• Edward Livingston to Bentham.
• (translation.)
• (translation.)
• O’ Connell to Bentham.
• Bentham ( Under the Name of Phil-o’connell ) to O’connell.
• Bentham to O’connell.
• O’connell to Bentham.
• Bentham to O’connell.
• Chapter XXIV.: 1829—30. Æt. 81—2.
• Bentham to O’connell.
• Bentham to Admiral Mordvinoff.
• Bentham to Brougham.
• Bentham to Jabez Henry.
• O’connell to C. S. Cullen.
• Bentham to Edward Livingston. * (extracts.)
• Bentham to Brougham.
• Bentham to O’connell.
• Bentham to John Smith, M. P.
• Bentham to President Jackson.
• J. B. to U. S. President, Jackson.
• Bentham to M. Humann (of Brussels.) (extracts.)
• Rev. Humphrey Price to Bentham.
• Bentham to Mr Price.
• Mr Price to Bentham.
• Bentham to Mr Price.
• Mr Price to Bentham.
• Chapter XXV.: 1830—31. Æt. 82—3.
• Del Valle to Bentham. (translation.)
• Bentham to Burdett.
• Sir James Graham to Bentham.
• Edward Livingston to Bentham.
• (translation.)
• General Santander to Bentham. (translated Extract.)
• (translation.)
• The Following Is Titled—“ Note By Jeremy Bentham On One of the Letters of Brissot De Warville to Him, Anno 1784, Or Thereabouts”: —
• Bentham to the Duc De Broglie.
• Bentham to the French People.
• Bentham to La Fayette.
• Bentham to Brougham.
• Brougham to Bentham.
• Bentham to O’connell.
• O’connell to Bentham.
• Bentham to O’connell.
• Pacificus Against the Conquest of Ireland.
• Bentham to W. Tait.
• “1831— June 21— Dicenda to Bowring.
• Bentham to Archibald Prentice.
• José Del Valle to Bentham.
• Chapter XXVI.: 1831. Æt. 83.
• From Bentham’s Memorandum-book, 1831.
• Sir Francis Burdett to Bentham.
• Bentham to Talleyrand. (translation.)
• (translation.)
• J. Be. to J. Bo.
• Appendix. Selections From Bentham’s Narrative Regarding the Panopticon Penitentiary Project, and From the Correspondence On the Subject.
• Bentham to Earl Spencer. (extracts.)
• Bentham to Henry Dundas.
• Bentham to William Wilberforce.
• “18 Th August, 1796.
• Reasons In Favour of the Spot Near Woolwich, As a Site For the Penitentiary House.
• Reasons Alleged Contra With Answers.
• Wilberforce to Bentham.
• Romilly to Bentham.
• Bentham to George Rose.
• George Rose to Bentham.
• Bentham to William Wilberforce.
• Bentham to Lord St Helens.
• Bentham to Sir Charles Bunbury.
• Bentham to William Wilberforce.
• Bentham to Sir William Pulteney.
• Bentham to Sir Charles Bunbury.
• Bentham to Romilly.
• Sir Charles Bunbury to Bentham.
• Bentham to Dumont.
• I.: As to New South Wales.
• Bentham to Charles Abbot.
• Bentham to Charles Abbot.
• Bentham to Dumont.
• The Rev. Brownlow Ford ( Ordinary of Newgate ) to Bentham.
• Romilly to Bentham.
• Joseph Jekyll to Bentham.
• Bentham to Jekyll.
• Bentham to Sir Charles Bunbury.
• Bentham to William Wilberforce.
• William Wilberforce to Bentham.
• William Wilberforce to Bentham.
• Romilly to Bentham.
• [corrected Copy, Received 10th June, 1811.] Dated
• “ Objections to the Making Experiment of Mr Bentham’s Panopticon Plan Obviated—viz., Partly By Answers, Partly By Fresh Offers.
• Bentham to Romilly.
• “ Proposal For a New and Less Expensive Mode For Employing and Reforming Convicts.
• “ Examination of Jeremy Bentham, Esquire.

Bentham to Charles Abbot.

“7th September, 1802.

“I had been used from time to time to send Panopticon progress to Wilberforce. August 27th, I sent him the correspondence with Sir C. Bunbury, and Lord Pelham’s letter, and the marginal contents of Panopticon v. New South Wales: Sir C.’s last letter excepted, which did not come till afterwards. Yesterday he returned my packet with a long letter of four sheets.* The remarkable feature in it, and the cause for which I mention it, is this: the most material and striking article of the packet lying before him, was this letter of Lord Pelham’s, in which his lordship says:—‘At all events . . . I will endeavour to get something settled before the meeting of Parliament.’ Yet with this before his eyes—all his good advice—all his projects, assume that nothing at all will have been settled before the meeting of Parliament. To get it settled, such and such things are to be attempted (though with a chance of success which he scarce ventures to give as more than a faint one) in Parliament. This assumption of his, to what cause can it be imputed? Was it that he thought Lord Pelham would not so much as make any attempt? Was it that he thought it would be unsuccessful? Was it that he knew it would be unsuccessful? viz. by having communicated on the subject with Mr Addington? The latter is a matter of fact which might have been a material object of inquiry, if my time admitted of the making of it. Meantime, of these three interpretations, between which Mr Wilberforce did not look upon it as worth his while to distinguish, one at least supposes that sort of conduct, which, in Sir C. Bunbury’s more frank and open estimate, ‘would disgrace not only a Minister’s secretary but his porter.’

“The uniformly honourable character which, as far as my obscurity would admit of my hearing anything, I had always heard attributed to Lord Pelham—this, added to the marks of candour on his part that seemed to transpire through the debates, would have led me to place as much confidence as my experience of those offices would admit of my placing, in so positive an undertaking on his part as the above, had it not been for his expedition of discovery for ‘finding out what steps had been taken by the Treasury.’ What, if anything, had been done there legally and above board, the Minute-book would have shown him at any time in half an hour, out of the week he took to give his answer. The only possible matter of discovery the case afforded, was, any such clandestine and dishonourable, and unavowable and unavowed assurance or assurances as that which had been given to Lord Belgrave. Far from being matter of triumph, it is matter of most serious concern to me, to find those suspicions of mine receive already so much apparent confirmation.

“There are two things I could not get either Mr Long or Mr Hiley Addington (at the conference they entrapped me into, 9th July, 1801) to speak of, as possessed of any the smallest binding force: Acts of Parliament, and the engagements taken by men in office, in consequence: nothing could equal the scorn with which the idea was received. Wilberforce, notwithstanding the probity of his own conduct, seems to have entertained all along a sort of implied notion to the same effect, derived, doubtless, from that practice, which, on the part of Messrs Rose and Long, (and perhaps Pitt,) he must have had so many occasions to observe. I cannot, antecedently to experience, bring myself to think that these notions will find approbation with the public at large. I am sure they do not among all placemen. Sir Evan Nepean, at any rate, is an example.

“Next to the setting up of Panopticon, which, if I were to live, might enlarge my opportunities of being of use in one way or other, I cannot think of anything by which I could do more substantial service, than by exposing a line of conduct which seems at present to be endemical and habitual, in such manner as to render it if possible no longer tenable.

“Wilberforce, however, amongst other good advice, preaches passive obedience, and non-resistance for this one session, giving me a dispensation for hostility should this prove fruitless: and in the meantime, recommends that Botany Bay should be exposed in a quiet way, and on the ground of immorality only, I mean without blame to anybody: for which he offers aid, which, if I understand him right, is by communication of facts. He, however, knows nothing of the præmunire, and the illegalities and tyrannies connected with it. Not that I shall take his advice: my own experience runs uniformly counter to his theories. I have found the principle of terror operate in several instances, and no other principle in any. He is all in a flutter about his friends: he does not himself think they will do as he is convinced they ought to do, and he dreads the seeing them exposed for it. He shuts his eyes against the facts: and then imagines excuses for them incompatible with the facts, which, from the first, so far as they tend to imputation, he has never been able to bear to look at—or at least to own the looking at them. It is natural enough that he should be for laying law and engagement out of the case, because those topics cannot be handled without imputation to his friends: it is equally natural that I should not part with strong ground, and confine myself to weak ground, for the accommodation of those who have made a point all along of keeping me to that weak ground, that they might crush me at their ease. Not that he is indifferent to Panopticon, for he talks of it all the while like an enthusiast.”

[* ] See Wilberforce’s letter in Ch. xiv. of the Memoirs.