Page:A Few Plain Observations Upon the End and Means of Political Reform.djvu/34

 a prostitution of public character, a perversion of talent, and a degree of venal profligacy, which inflict deep and lasting wounds upon the frame of the constitutionConstitution [sic].

Allowing, however, that a considerable proportion of political good may result, nay in many instances has actually resulted, from the elevation of men of the former description, and feeling persuaded that the scale of effects has upon the whole inclined to the favourable side—yet when I reflect upon the enormous extent and variety of those means which the government possesses (and must necessarily continue to possess in the present complicated state of the revenue and under the existing accumulation of the funded and other public debts) to influence so large a portion of the community by the dispensation of beneficial employments, I confess that