The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, Volume 13: July 1828 to June 1832

The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, Volume 13 contains authoritative and fully annotated texts of all known and publishable letters sent both to and from Bentham between 1 July 1828 and his death on 6 June 1832. In addition to 474 letters, the volume contains three memorandums concerning Bentham’s health shortly before his death, his Last Will and Testament, and extracts from both the Autobiography and the manuscript diaries of Bentham’s nephew George. Of the letters that have been previously published, most are drawn from the edition of The Works of Jeremy Bentham, prepared under the superintendence of Bentham’s literary executor John Bowring. A small number of letters have been reproduced from newspapers and periodicals.

This volume publishes for the first time all the extant correspondence between Bentham and Daniel O’Connell, the Irish Liberator. Other new acquaintances included Charles Sinclair Cullen, barrister and law reformer, and John Tyrrell, the Real Property Commissioner. Throughout the period, Bentham maintained regular contact with old friends and connections, but he also entered into sporadic correspondence with such leading figures in government as the Duke of Wellington, Robert Peel and Henry Brougham. Further afield, Bentham corresponded, amongst others, with the Marquis de La Fayette in France, Edward Livingston in the United States of America and José del Valle in Guatemala.

• Language: English
• Publisher: UCL Press
• Release date: Apr 11, 2024
• ISBN: 9781800086135

Book preview

THE COLLECTED

WORKS OF

JEREMY BENTHAM

General Editor

Philip Schofield

Correspondence

Volume 13

The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham

The new critical edition of the works and correspondence of Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) is being prepared and published under the supervision of the Bentham Committee of University College London. In spite of his importance as a jurist, philosopher, and social scientist, and leader of the utilitarian reformers, the only previous edition of his works was a poorly edited and incomplete one brought out within a decade or so of his death. The overall plan and principles of the present edition are set out in the preface to The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, vol. I (Athlone Press, 1968; reissued by UCL Press, 2017), which was the first volume of the Collected Works to be published.

Volumes published by the Athlone Press

An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, edited by J.H. Burns and H.L.A. Hart A Comment on the Commentaries and A Fragment on Government, edited by J.H. Burns and H.L.A. Hart

Correspondence, volumes I–V: 1752 to 1797, edited by T.L.S. Sprigge, I.R. Christie, and A.T. Milne

Volumes published by Oxford University Press

Constitutional Code, volume I, edited by F. Rosen

Deontology, together with A Table of the Springs of Action and Article on Utilitarianism, edited by A. Goldworth

Chrestomathia, edited by M.J. Smith and

W.H. Burston

First Principles preparatory to Constitutional Code, edited by P. Schofield

Securities against Misrule and other Constitutional Writings for Tripoli and Greece, edited by P. Schofield

Official Aptitude Maximized; Expense Minimized, edited by P. Schofield

Colonies, Commerce, and Constitutional Law: Rid Yourselves of Ultramaria and other writings on Spain and Spanish America, edited by P. Schofield ‘Legislator of the World’: Writings on Codification, Law, and Education, edited by P. Schofield and J. Harris

Political Tactics, edited by M. James, C. Blamires, and C. Pease-Watkin

Rights, Representation, and Reform: Nonsense upon Stilts and other writings on the French Revolution, edited by P. Schofield, C. Pease-Watkin, and C. Blamires

Writings on the Poor Laws, volumes I & II, edited by M. Quinn

A Comment on the Commentaries and A Fragment on Government (reissue), edited by J.H. Burns and H.L.A. Hart

Of the Limits of the Penal Branch of Jurisprudence (superseding Of Laws in General), edited by P. Schofield

Church-of-Englandism and its Catechism Examined, edited by J.E. Crimmins and C. Fuller On the Liberty of the Press, and Public Discussion and Other Legal and Political Writings for Spain and Portugal, edited by C. Pease-Watkin and P. Schofield

Of Sexual Irregularities, and other writings on Sexual Morality, edited by P. Schofield, C. Pease-Watkin, and M. Quinn

The Book of Fallacies, edited by P. Schofield Writings on Political Economy, volumes I & II, edited by M. Quinn

Preparatory Principles, edited by D.G. Long and P. Schofield

Correspondence, volumes VI–XII: 1798 to June 1828, edited by J.R. Dinwiddy, S. Conway, C. Fuller, and L. O’Sullivan

Volumes published by UCL Press

Correspondence, volumes I–V, edited by T.L.S. Sprigge, I.R. Christie, and A.T. Milne (reissue)

Panopticon versus New South Wales and other writings on Australia, edited by T. Causer and P. Schofield

This thirteenth volume of Correspondence contains authoritative and fully annotated texts of all known letters sent both to and from Bentham between 1 July 1828 and his death on 6 June 1832, with the exception of several items that are known to exist but for which no permission to publish has been obtainable. In addition to 474 letters, the volume contains three memorandums concerning Bentham’s health shortly before his death and his Last Will and Testament, which deals with the disposal of both his estate and his body. A large proportion of the letters come from the collections of Bentham Papers held by University College London Library and the British Library. The remainder have been reproduced from manuscripts in public and private collections in Britain, Colombia, France, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, Switzerland, and the United States of America. Of the letters that have already been published, most are drawn from the edition of The Works of Jeremy Bentham, prepared under the superintendence of Bentham’s literary executor John Bowring. A small number of letters have been reproduced from newspapers and periodicals.

A particularly notable feature of the present volume is that it publishes for the first time all of the extant correspondence between Bentham and Daniel O’Connell, the Irish Liberator. Other new acquaintances included Charles Sinclair Cullen, barrister and law reformer (who died suddenly at the end of 1830), and John Tyrrell, the Real Property Commissioner. Throughout the period Bentham maintained regular contact with old friends and connections such as John Bowring, Sir Francis Burdett, Joseph Hume, Francis Place, Thomas Southwood Smith, and Leicester Stanhope, but he also entered into sporadic correspondence with such leading figures in government as the Duke of Wellington, Robert Peel, and Henry Brougham. Further afield, Bentham corresponded, amongst others, with the Marquis de La Fayette in France, Edward Livingston in the United States of America, and José Del Valle in Guatemala. The volume is interspersed with extracts from both the Autobiography and the manuscript diaries of Bentham’s nephew George, whose father Samuel died in April 1831. Another significant death was that of Bentham’s Genevan friend and editor Étienne Dumont in September 1829.

Bentham’s literary output was extraordinary during these years. In terms of major works, one of his main endeavours remained ‘Constitutional Code’, on which he had begun work in 1822 and of which the first of three projected volumes had been printed in 1827 and would be published in 1830. During 1828–9 he was particularly concerned with Chapter X on ‘Defensive Force’, which he printed in 1830. The related ‘pasticcio’ Official Aptitude Maximized; Expense Minimized was also published in 1830. Bentham’s other major concern during these years was with codification generally and law reform, which gave rise to a series of works. The July Revolution of 1830 in France prompted Bentham to write Jeremy Bentham to his Fellow Citizens of France, on Houses of Peers and Senates (1830) and Jeremy Bentham to his Fellow Citizens of France, on Death Punishment (1831). A number of reissues and numerous foreign-language translations of various of his works appeared during these years, including a complete new Brussels edition of the five recensions produced by Dumont. Bentham was at the height of his fame and remained active in both writing and pursuing his schemes of reform until within a few weeks of his death.

Henry Pickersgill, Jeremy Bentham, c. 1829, oil on canvas, University College London Art Museum, LDUCS–5589.

First published in 2024 by

UCL Press

University College London

Gower Street

London WC1E 6BT

Available to download free: www.uclpress.co.uk

Collection © Editors, 2024

Text © The Bentham Committee, UCL

Images © Copyright holders named in captions

The authors have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of this work.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library.

Any third-party material in this book is not covered by the book’s Creative Commons licence. Details of the copyright ownership and permitted use of third-party material is given in the image (or extract) credit lines. If you would like to reuse any third-party material not covered by the book’s Creative Commons licence, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright owner.

This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.This licence allows you to share and adapt the work for non-commercial use providing attribution is made to the author and publisher (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work) and any changes are indicated. Attribution should include the following information:

Schofield, P., Causer, T. and Riley, C. (eds). 2024. The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, Volume 13: July 1828 to June 1832. London: UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.14324/9781800086104

Further details about Creative Commons licences are available at

https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/

ISBN: 978-1-80008-612-8 (Hbk.)

ISBN: 978-1-80008-611-1 (Pbk.)

ISBN: 978-1-80008-610-4 (PDF)

ISBN: 978-1-80008-613-5 (epub)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/9781800086104

PREFACE

The Bentham Committee wishes to thank Dr Li Qing, whose generous gift to the Bentham Project made possible the preparation of this volume. The Bentham Committee is also grateful to University College London, the British Academy, but particularly UCL Faculty of Laws, for their continuing support of The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham.

The late Catherine Fuller and Dr Luke O’Sullivan carried out preliminary work on the transcription of letters and the identification of points of annotation for this volume. Several scholars have generously provided advice in the elucidation of references. We would like to place on record our thanks to Dr Danae Azaria, Professor Roger Bartlett, Professor Malik Bozzo-Rey, Professor Emmanuelle de Champs, Dr Francesco Ferraro, Professor Margot Finn, Dr David Foster, Professor Jean-Louis Halpérin, Professor Eileen M. Hunt, Professor George Letsas, Dr Cheng Li, Professor Peter Niesen, Professor Quentin Skinner, Professor Guillaume Tusseau, Dr Tim Underhill, and Dr Andrew Watson.

The Bentham Project is grateful to the following owners and custodians of manuscripts included in this volume for their co-operation and assistance: Archivo General De La Nación, Bogotá; Balliol College Archives, Oxford; Bancroft Library, University of California and Los Angeles, Berkeley; Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, and Yale University Library, New Haven, Connecticut; the late Mr Denis Roy Bentham; Bernard Quaritch Limited; Bibliothèque de Genève; Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris; Bodleian Library, Oxford; Boston Public Library; British Library, London; British Library of Political and Economic Science, London School of Economics; Brotherton Library, University of Leeds; Chuo University Library, Hachioji; the late Mr George Clive; Princeton University Library, New Jersey; Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell University, and Cornell University Library, Ithaca, New York; Rubinstein Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina; Dunedin Public Library and its Reed Rare Books and Special Collections Librarian Julian Smith; Milton S. Eisenhower Library, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland; Free Library of Philadelphia; Hartley Library, University of Southampton; Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Huntington Library, San Marino, California; King’s College Library, Cambridge; Kwansei Gakuin University Library, Nishinomiya; Library of Congress, Washington D.C.; Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, New York; Lancashire Archives, Preston; Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Massachusetts; Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson; Morgan Library and Museum, New York; National Library of Ireland, Dublin; National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh; New York Public Library; Professor G.N. Ray; the late Mr R.E.D. Rawlins; Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew; Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester, New York; Russian State Historical Archive, St Petersburg; Mr T. Satoh; State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison; The National Archives of the United Kingdom, Kew; Trinity College Library, Cambridge; University College Dublin Archives; University College London Archives; University College London Library; University of California and Los Angeles Library, Los Angeles; University of Hull Archives; University of Illinois, Chicago; University of Kentucky Library, Lexington; Wellcome Collection, London.

Grateful acknowledgment is also made to the authors, editors, and translators of standard reference works such as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, the History of Parliament, the Loeb Classical Library, the Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674–1913, and the Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, 1824–1900, without whose scholarship the annotation of a volume such as this would hardly be feasible.

P.S., T.C.

CONTENTS

LIST OF LETTERS IN VOLUME 13

INTRODUCTION

1. THE LETTERS

2. OUTLINE OF BENTHAM’S LIFE JULY 1828 TO JUNE 1832

SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS

CORRESPONDENCE JULY 1828 TO JUNE 1832

INDEX

LIST OF LETTERS IN VOLUME 13

Letter

INTRODUCTION

1. THE LETTERS

The present volume contains 474 letters written from and to Jeremy Bentham between 1 July 1828 and his death on 6 June 1832, three notes concerning his health written towards the end of his life by Edwin Chadwick and Arthur Moore, and his Last Will and Testament. The vast majority of the letters reproduced here, whether the original, a draft, or a copy, and whether reproduced from a manuscript or a printed source, are known to have been sent. Several draft letters have also been included, for the sake of their intrinsic interest, even though it is not known whether any version of them was ever sent. Several letters known to the Bentham Project through their being advertised at public auction have not been reproduced as the relevant permissions could not be obtained from the respective purchasers.

A large proportion of the letters come from the collections of Bentham Papers held by the British Library and University College London Library. The remainder have been reproduced from manuscripts in public and private collections in Britain, Colombia, France, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, Switzerland, and the United States of America. Of the letters that have already been published, most are drawn from the edition of The Works of Jeremy Bentham, prepared under the superintendence of Bentham’s literary executor John Bowring. A small number of letters have been reproduced from newspapers and periodicals. A distinction has been made between those items that would now be considered to be ‘articles’, albeit written in the form of a letter, which will appear in the Collected Works in a volume of newspaper writings, and correspondence to individuals written either with or without a view to publication, and which the recipient then chose to publish. These latter items have been included in the present volume.

Wherever possible, the letters actually sent or received by Bentham are reproduced here, with drafts or copies identified where appropriate in the first editorial footnote to each letter. All spelling, capitalization, and punctuation is reproduced without editorial amendment, except for the occasional addition of full stops, punctuation marks where required by the sense, and accents to French and Spanish words. In Bentham’s Last Will and Testament, for the ease of comprehension, solidi have been added where there is an obvious break in the sense. More substantial editorial amendments are indicated by square brackets (with square brackets in the source documents being replaced by braces). Double inverted commas indicating quotations are replaced with single inverted commas, and consequently quotations within quotations are indicated by double inverted commas.

Letters are arranged chronologically, but where letters are drafted over several days, the letter is usually inserted at the earliest date on which it was written, and where only the month in which the letter was written is recorded, the letter is inserted at the beginning of the month in question. Most letters are clearly dated, but any uncertainty over the dating of a letter is indicated by a question mark following the relevant part or parts of the date. Where an approximate date has been ascertained by internal evidence, this is indicated by the words ‘ante’, ‘post’, or ‘c.’ (i.e. circa) before the date. Where appropriate, the grounds for dating the letter in question are explained in the first editorial footnote. A significant number of Bentham’s letters carry a note of their date or presumed date in the hand of Bowring, and which appears to have been added during his preparation of Bentham’s ‘Memoirs and Correspondence’ (see Bowring, x. passim, xi. 1–95). These dates appear in the form of ‘year–month–day’—for instance ‘28–7–3’ represents 3 July 1828. These dates, and other marks which appear to have been added by archivists or other cataloguers, have not been reproduced. Where dockets are reproduced, unless otherwise noted, they are presumed to have been added by the recipient of the letter in question.

One minor change in editorial policy in this volume is in the presentation of references to letters in the Bentham Papers held by the British Library. If the practice of previous volumes had been followed, the reference to the letter at BL Add. MS 33,546, folio 226 would, for instance, have been rendered as ‘BL X. 226’. In the present volume this reference is presented as ‘BL Add. MS 33,546, fo. 226’. Letters appearing in collections held by the British Library other than the Bentham Papers are referred to by the collection name, for instance ‘Hume Correspondence, BL Add. MS 89,039’. For the style used to refer to manuscripts in the Bentham Papers at University College London see Symbols and Abbreviations, p. xxxviii below. In general, references to manuscripts in other archives appear in the format of institution, library, collection, and catalogue number.

The following policy has been followed in relation to the presentation of the titles of Bentham’s works in editorial footnotes. The titles of published works have been presented in italics, for example Equity Dispatch Court Proposal. The titles of works which were printed but not published (although they may have been published at some later date) have been presented in inverted commas, for example ‘Equity Dispatch Court Bill’. The titles of manuscript versions of texts have also been presented in inverted commas, for example ‘Colonization Company Proposal’.

2 . OUTLINE OF BENTHAM’S LIFE

JULY 1828 TO JUNE 1832

Throughout the final four years of his life, Bentham lived and slept at his home in Queen (or Queen’s) Square Place, Westminster. The front of the house was approached through a narrow passage off Queen Square, while at the rear of the house there was a large garden, which had its own entrance off Bird Cage Walk, St James’s Park. Despite referring to himself as a hermit and his home as a hermitage, Bentham lived with two amanuenses, three female servants, and a boy servant, received a constant succession of visitors, and had guests occasionally staying for extended periods. A typical day saw Bentham rise about 9.00 a.m and drink one or two cups of coffee, before settling down to work. Around 1.00 p.m. he would take a circumgyration or walk round in his garden for half-an-hour or so, when he would often see a friend for a brief conversation. He would return to work and eat breakfast around 3.00 p.m., when his amanuenses would read letters, newspapers, and other documents to him. Following a further period of work, Bentham would receive usually one but very occasionally two dinner guests, who were given instructions to arrive at Queen Square Place in the early evening, usually at 7.15 p.m., with dinner served a quarter-of-an-hour later. They would be joined by one or both of his amanuenses, or perhaps by a guest who might be staying in the house, making a party of four or five. After dinner had been eaten, the amanuenses would be dismissed and the conversation with the guest continued until around 11.00 p.m., when Bentham would begin his preparations for bed. In July 1828 Bentham’s amanuenses were John Flowerdew Colls and Richard Doane, who had entered Bentham’s service in 1816 and 1819 respectively. Colls left Queen Square Place at the end of July 1829 and was replaced by Arthur Moore, while Doane left at the beginning of July 1831, at which point Edwin Chadwick appears to have moved into Queen Square Place. A regular visitor was Bentham’s nephew George, the son of his brother Sir Samuel and wife Lady Mary Sophia Bentham, who, having lived in France since 1814, had returned to London in 1826. George would come at least once a week to Queen Square Place for dinner and then work with his uncle, often adding marginal summaries to his manuscripts or taking down his dictation.

Throughout the period Bentham maintained regular contact with old friends and connections such as John Bowring, Sir Francis Burdett, Joseph Hume, Francis Place, Thomas Southwood Smith, and Leicester Stanhope, as well as making new acquaintances, most notably Daniel O’Connell, Charles Sinclair Cullen, and John Tyrrell. Bentham received the Votes and Proceedings and other order papers from the Houses of Parliament, which led to frequent requests to Hume to ask him to move, in his capacity as MP, for the printing of various returns and petitions that were of interest to Bentham, or which he thought might be useful to the radical cause. While there are a significant number of surviving letters with these figures, they tend to be short, perhaps reflecting the fact that news and views were more likely to be exchanged in conversation. The longer letters tend to be to correspondents at a distance, such as the Marquis de La Fayette in France, Edward Livingston in the United States of America, and José del Valle in Guatemala, or to figures in government, such as the Duke of Wellington and Robert Peel, who Bentham hoped to influence.

Bentham’s literary output was extraordinary during these years. In terms of major works, one of his main endeavours remained ‘Constitutional Code’, on which he had begun work in 1822 and of which the first of three projected volumes had been printed in 1827 and would be published in 1830. During 1828–9 he was particularly concerned with Chapter X on ‘Defensive Force’, which he eventually printed in 1830. The ‘Legislator’s Inaugural Declaration’ from the first volume of Constitutional Code was published as Parliamentary Candidate’s Proposed Declaration of Principles (1831) for the use of the Parliamentary Candidate Society. The related ‘pasticcio’ Official Aptitude Maximized; Expense Minimized was also published in 1830. Bentham’s other major concern during these years was with codification generally and law reform, which gave rise to a series of works, namely Justice and Codification Petitions (1829), Equity Dispatch Court Proposal (1830) and the partially printed ‘Equity Dispatch Court Bill’ (1830), ‘Law Reform Association Proposal’ (1830), and Lord Brougham Displayed (1832). Bentham’s comments on land registration were eventually published in the Third Report of the Real Property Commissioners (1832), while George Bentham, who was pursuing a legal career and was called to the bar on 18 November 1831, promoted his uncle’s ideas in Observations on the Registration Bill (1831). The July Revolution of 1830 in France prompted Bentham to write Jeremy Bentham to his Fellow Citizens of France, on Houses of Peers and Senates (1830) and Jeremy Bentham to his Fellow Citizens of France, on Death Punishment (1831). There were also a number of reissues: ‘Jeremy Bentham to the National Convention of France’ was reissued as Emancipate Your Colonies! (1830); ‘Codification Proposal’ was reissued with the addition of a ‘Second Supplement’ (1830); and extracts from Church-of-Englandism, with a new ‘Preface’ and concluding remarks, were reissued as The Book of Church Reform (1831). Bentham’s ‘disciple’ Richard Smith published The Rationale of Punishment (1830) and reissued The Rationale of Reward (1830), while John Neal, Bentham’s American admirer, published Principles of Legislation (1830). Bentham provided material in defence of utilitarianism and for a critique of the law reform measures of Henry Brougham for publication in the Westminster Review as well as contributing letters and other content to newspapers and periodicals. A number of essays remained in manuscript, including a supplement intended for Equity Dispatch Court Proposal, a personal ‘Codification Petition’ addressed to Parliament, letters on codification addressed to the Belgians, a third letter to France on the age of majority in relation to the exercise of political rights, and ‘Colonization Company Proposal’ on the establishment of a free colony on the south coast of Australia. Numerous foreign-language translations of various of his works appeared during these years, including a complete new Brussels edition of the five recensions produced by his Genevan friend Étienne Dumont.

July to December 1828. One of Bentham’s most notable relationships in the final years of his life was with Daniel O’Connell, the Irish Liberator. O’Connell had been elected MP for County Clare on 5 July 1828, though his right to take his seat in Parliament was disputed because of his refusal to take the Oath of Supremacy. Bentham read (or rather had read to him) a report in the Morning Herald of 15 July 1828 that O’Connell had stated, in a speech in Dublin on 10 July 1828, that, in relation to the admission of parties as witnesses at trial, he was ‘but an humble disciple of the immortal Bentham’. Bentham immediately wrote to O’Connell expressing his delight, promised to send him several of his works, and invited him to stay at Queen Square Place. In a letter of 3 August 1828, O’Connell politely declined Bentham’s offer of accommodation on the grounds that he could not give up the income from his legal practice and that he did not intend to come to London until March 1829. He nevertheless affirmed that he was Bentham’s ‘zealous . . . disciple’ and expressed his support for codification and the ballot, that every week he would make an attempt in Parliament to reform the legal, political, and ecclesiastical systems, and that he would be Bentham’s ‘Mouth piece’ in the House of Commons. Writing on 31 August 1828, Bentham encouraged O’Connell to use his considerable influence in Ireland in order to raise petitions in support of radical political and legal reform, but noted that Henry Hunt had criticized O’Connell for sacrificing radical in favour of constitutional reform, which Bentham equated with Whig reform, and wondered why O’Connell might have done this unless it was to placate the Whigs. Bentham feared that an exchange of acrimonious letters between O’Connell and Hunt, printed in the Morning Herald, would damage the radical cause and so attempted to effect a reconciliation. He believed that, by working together, they could best promote radical reform, with O’Connell bringing in petitions from Ireland and Hunt from the City of London, but at the very least they should abstain from trading insults. On 27 September 1828 Bentham wrote anonymously to Hunt, explaining O’Connell’s conduct and affirming O’Connell’s support for radical reform. Hunt appeared to give Bentham’s appeal short shrift, publishing his letter in the Morning Herald and stating that he did not respond to anonymous communications, whereas O’Connell reaffirmed his wish to be as useful to Bentham as possible. Meanwhile, by early October 1828 Bentham had drafted ‘Petition for Codification’, with a view to having it signed by as many individuals as possible and presenting it to Parliament. He sent a draft for comment to O’Connell, who promised to copy the work and send it back with proposed amendments and reported that he had procured resolutions in favour of codification from meetings at Tralee and Kilkenny. In mid-November 1828 Bentham explained that he was now working on a ‘Petition for Justice’ and was gratified that O’Connell had made friendly overtures towards Hunt.

Bentham was continuing to work on ‘Constitutional Code’. The first nine Chapters, constituting the first of the projected three volumes, had been printed in 1827, and he was now finalizing the tenth Chapter on ‘Defensive Force’ which would form a large portion of the second volume. At the beginning of September 1828 he asked Leicester Stanhope to come to Queen Square Place to review the text. On 20 August 1828 he had written to La Fayette, asking him if he would be prepared to comment on a manuscript copy. La Fayette gently turned down Bentham’s request, but they reminisced about Bentham’s visit to La Fayette’s chateau La Grange in October 1825 and exchanged views about French politics. Bentham continued to have many connections with liberal thinkers in France, receiving letters from Marc-Antoine Jullien and Jean-Baptiste Say, as well as La Fayette. In relation to constitutional reform, in November 1828 Bentham received thanks from Louis I, King of Bavaria, for sending him a copy of ‘Codification Proposal’ and his plan of a constitutional code, which, the King announced, had been conveyed to the Bavarian legislation commission. On 29 November 1828 Bentham wrote to the Duke of Wellington, the leader of the administration, encouraging him to consider the printed ‘Extract from the proposed Constitutional Code, entitled Official Aptitude Maximized, Expense Minimized’, dealing with the remuneration, appointment, and dismissal of ministers. The work contained proposals, Bentham explained, that Wellington might be inclined to adopt for the British government, even though it was designed for a representative democracy. In addition, Bentham offered to send Wellington the section from ‘Constitutional Code’ that dealt with ‘Political Book-keeping’.

In a letter of 30 September 1828, James Young, writing from India, told Bentham that his letter and books had been delivered to Rammohun Roy and explained the difficulties that Roy had faced from both the ruling East India Company and his fellow Hindus in his attempts to introduce liberal ideas into Hindu society.

In financial matters, Bentham continued to receive an income from his share in the New Lanark Mills, of which he had been a partner since 1813. His interest was being managed by Bowring, who had visited the establishment in March 1828. Bentham made efforts to secure articles for the Westminster Review, which had been facing financial difficulties, and had not appeared for several months. In December 1828 Thomas Perronet Thompson signed a draft contract with Bentham in which he agreed to discharge all of the debts of the Westminster Review, becoming joint-proprietor with Bentham and co-editor with Bowring, and thereby securing its future. Regular publication recommenced at the beginning of 1829.

1829. O’Connell arrived in London at the beginning of February 1829, hoping to take his seat in Parliament. It appears that he did not meet Bentham until later in February 1829, and it remains unclear just how much personal contact they had at this time, though George Bentham records that O’Connell visited Bentham on two occasions. In March 1829 O’Connell was due to go to Paris, but was unexpectedly called back to Dublin on a special retainer, promising Bentham that he would get signatures for ‘Petition for Codification’ while there. In the meantime Bentham was distributing copies of ‘Petition for Codification’ and ‘Petition for Justice’, and working on ‘Abridged Petition for Justice’. On 22 April 1829 O’Connell apologised for not calling on Bentham since his return from Ireland, but explained that he had been involved in ministerial intrigue respecting his seat in Parliament. His election for County Clare was eventually ruled invalid by the House of Commons on 21 May 1829. In late May 1829 Bentham was working on ‘Equity Dispatch Court Proposal’, which he sent in manuscript to O’Connell, who returned it with the comment that the experiment must be made and every court be a dispatch court. O’Connell dined with Bentham on 29 May 1829, before returning to Ireland, where he was re-elected for County Clare on 30 July 1829. On the same day he wrote to Bentham to say that, on the hustings, he had avowed himself a Benthamite, that Bentham now had his own MP, and that he intended to get up petitions for codification.

On 22 and again on 23 March 1829 Bentham wrote to Wellington upbraiding him for fighting a duel with the Earl of Winchelsea, pointing out that his death would have thrown the country into confusion. He advised Wellington to go to the House of Lords, admit his mistake, and promise never to duel again, for no one would ever accuse him of lacking courage. He recalled the accounts of duels given to him personally by Aaron Burr and O’Connell, who had both killed their adversaries, as well as reminding Wellington of other notorious duellists, and informed him that he had a plan for the extinction of duelling. In April 1829 Bentham turned his attention to the Home Secretary Robert Peel, suggesting that Peel order the Commissioners of Inquiry into the Common Law Courts to give answers to any queries that Bentham might address to them. He added that he had it in mind to give answers to the queries circulated by the Real Property Commissioners and to send them his own queries. Bentham warned Peel that he would make war on him if he did not accede to his request, but if he did accede to it, he would receive Bentham’s support for any good measures he might propose and that he would be welcome to dine at Queen Square Place. Peel declined Bentham’s request, saying that he would not call on the Commissioners to enter into a controversy with Bentham, which prompted Bentham to explain that neither of the ‘operations’ that he had suggested, namely the Commissioners receiving answers from Bentham to their queries and giving their answers to Bentham’s queries, would involve any controversy.

In April 1829 Colls, who had been in Bentham’s service since 1819, announced his intention to leave him, stating that he admired Bentham’s work on legislation, but not on the Church. Colls left Queen Square Place at the end of July 1829 in order to attend St Bees Theological College in Cumberland with a view to ordination and a career in the Church of England, but within a few days was pleading to be readmitted into Bentham’s service and a little later asking to be allowed to come back to Queen Square Place for the vacations. He must, however, have reconciled himself to his new situation and was eventually ordained in 1831, though he does appear to have returned to Queen Square Place, at least for a short time, in the summer of 1830.

In relation to the Real Property Commission, Bentham wrote to the Secretary Charles James Swann in August 1829 asking for a reassurance, which was duly given, that any comments he might submit in relation to land registration would be published by the Commission. In October 1829 Bentham mentioned to O’Connell that he had received a volume on real property from John Tyrrell, with whom Bentham established contact, probably in November 1829, and found to be a congenial reform-minded lawyer. The two met and corresponded regularly for the remainder of Bentham’s life.

The rivalry between the Whigs and utilitarian radicals was played out in a series of review articles that appeared in the Edinburgh Review and the Westminster Review, begun by Thomas Babington Macaulay’s attack on James Mill’s article on government that had originally appeared in the Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica but had recently been reprinted. An article on the greatest happiness principle that had appeared in response in the Westminster Review was attributed to Bentham, but Bentham disclaimed responsibility for it in a letter printed in The Examiner on 5 July 1829, which led to his being chided by Thomas Perronet Thompson. Bentham later informed O’Connell that he had in fact supplied the ‘matter’ for the article, though the ‘form’ had been given to it by others. Bentham also supplied the ‘meat’ for an article entitled ‘Bentham, Brougham and Law Reform’, which also appeared in the Westminster Review and reflected Bentham’s disappointment with Brougham’s proposals for law reform.

Testimony to Bentham’s international reputation came from Edward Livingston, whose work on codification in Louisiana and the federal United States more generally was greatly inspired by Bentham. Livingston wrote an admiring letter to Bentham, dated 10 August 1829, and sent a packet of books. Bentham reciprocated on 21 October 1829 by sending a packet of books to Livingston through McLane, the American Minister in London. Bentham received a set of Guatemalan coins from his admirer José del Valle, but responded in a letter dated 8–13 September 1829 that Valle should concern himself with more important things than coins, and in particular with the question of how to guarantee the liberty of the press. Meanwhile, at some point before 15 July 1829 the colonial judge Jabez Henry, recounting that Bentham had suggested that he ‘undertake a new Vattel’, explained that he was minded to take on the task, but requested that Bentham inform him of his views and give him ‘something like a Scheme Program or Outline of the Plan for its Execution’. Bentham appears to have responded on 15 July 1829 when he sent, through the medium of Colls, several sheets copied from manuscripts on the subject of international law originally composed in June 1827.

Bentham was informed of the death of Étienne Dumont, which had taken place at Milan on 29 September 1829, by Dumont’s great-nephew Jacob Louis Duval. Bentham contacted Duval to express his condolences and to make one last effort to see if he could recover the manuscripts for ‘Political Tactics’, which had gone missing when Dumont had edited them for Tactiques des assemblées législatives (1816), but to no avail.

Although disagreeing with Bentham over the merits of Símon Bolívar, O’Connell in October 1829 reiterated his promise to prosecute Bentham’s agenda for law reform and codification when he began his Parliamentary career. Another point of disagreement arose, however, when O’Connell, in a letter printed in the Dublin Evening Post of 3 October 1829, while reaffirming his radicalism, attacked the French, Spanish, and Portuguese liberals on account of their anti-Christianity, anti-clericalism, and opposition to civil liberty. Bentham wrote both an ostensible letter and one under the pseudonym of ‘Phil-O’Connell’ in which he pointed out that O’Connell’s true allies were the liberals, namely the Whigs and radicals, and that he should put aside as irrelevant any differences on account of religion. Bentham became concerned that he had not heard from O’Connell and was relieved when he received a letter from O’Connell, dated 13 December 1829, in which he denied that he had taken any offence, though Bentham regretted that O’Connell’s response showed ‘respect’ rather than ‘affection’.

Bentham had been circulating Justice and Codification Petitions since early October 1829, but in early December 1829 had the idea of establishing a Law Reform Association, with a view to generating petitions to Parliament in favour of law reform and providing support for law reform within Parliament. He offered the ‘command’ of the association to Wellington, promising him that he would be greater than Oliver Cromwell, who had failed to simplify the law, if he succeeded in the enterprise. A new ‘disciple’, Charles Sinclair Cullen, who was hoping to be returned to Parliament, was active in promoting the scheme and became a regular visitor to Queen Square Place, while Bentham had hopes that James Silk Buckingham might tour the country giving a series of lectures on and procuring petitions for law reform.

1830. Bentham continued to promote the Law Reform Association. In late January 1830 Buckingham produced his terms for the proposed lectures, but Leicester Stanhope pointed out that Buckingham’s scheme would not only prove too expensive for the Association to support, but failed to focus on a Benthamite agenda. In the meantime Bentham was working on his proposal for an equity dispatch court, with the intention of clearing the backlog of cases in the Court of Chancery. Bentham subscribed to O’Connell’s Parliamentary Intelligence Office, which he had established in Dublin, in order to promote both Parliamentary and law reform. O’Connell arrived in London in time