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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

William Wilberforce to Bentham. - 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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William Wilberforce to Bentham.

My dear Sir,

I am very sorry that our friend Sir Charles Bunbury, by reporting to you, (I am sure through mistake,) not very correctly, a few words which I uttered to him very hastily, when my mind was full of other business, on our accidentally meeting in a shop, has occasioned in you any uneasiness, or any misconception of my sentiments and feelings towards you. These are the same which they have long been: such as proceed from a perfect conviction of the great advantages which would result from the carrying into execution of your valuable plan; from a persuasion that you have been most hardly used, from various circumstances, which I need not particularize; and lastly, from an earnest desire that you may at length overcome all obstructions, and see your ingenious theory realized, and your long labours crowned with success. I shall ever be ready to lend my best efforts, so far as they can properly be exerted, for the accomplishment of this end: you may reckon upon me as steadily possessing these dispositions, and as being always desirous of acting upon them.

“I will also, at any time, see you and confer with you on the business, and with any friends of yours. My being occupied beyond my constitution, and my having been ill, has alone prevented my anticipating your application, and attending to your affairs in the early part of the present Session.

“I scribble at a crowded Committee, amid interruption and bustle: you must allow, therefore, for this hasty scrawl; and believe me, always with esteem and regard, dear Sir, your faithful, &c.”

There is an hiatus in the documentary history of the Panopticon controversy, from the date of the above till the year 1809, when I find Wilberforce writing as follows:—