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The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham: Volume 3 January 1781 to October 1788
By Ian R. Christie UCL Press
Copyright © 2017 The Bentham Committee, UCL
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-911576-11-2
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1. The Letters
About three-quarters of the letters included in this volume have not been published before. The place of first publication of all but a few of the remainder was Sir John Bowring's Memoirs of Bentham, in volume x of his edition of The Works of Jeremy Bentham. Wherever possible the present text has been taken from original manuscripts, and at times the inadequacy of Bowring's editing stands clearly revealed — a fact which renders the more unhappy the circumstance that the originals of a few of the letters he printed have disappeared, leaving his text as the only source.
The main manuscript sources for the letters in this volume are the two great collections of Bentham's papers, in the library of University College London, and in the manuscript department of the British Museum. Since the relationship between their contents is not altogether clear, some recapitulation is given here of explanations made in the Introduction to volume i. The first of these collections came into the hands of Bowring as Bentham's literary executor, and was deposited by him at the College in 1849. Although the main bulk of this collection is made up of Bentham's works, it contains a substantial number of letters written to Bentham during the period covered by this volume, and also some of his drafts — in a few cases it has been proved, by the discovery of the originals elsewhere or of replies to them, that these represent letters actually sent.
The second collection, now in the British Museum, was not known to Bowring when he edited Bentham's papers. This collection contains the main mass of the family correspondence — for this period Bentham's letters to his father and those received by him from his brother which he regularly forwarded on to his father. Bentham himself believed this correspondence had been destroyed by his stepmother before her death in 1809. However, at some time presumably after his death it passed into the hands of his nephew George or sister-in-law Mary Bentham — possibly after lying forgotten in a lawyer's vault — and Mary Bentham, when writing her sketch of her husband's life, probably incorporated with it a mass of Samuel Bentham's correspondence which it now contains. After the death of her son George Bentham, the collection passed to Joseph Dalton Hooker, and from Hooker by purchase to the British Museum.
There are problems relating to the contents of this collection, to Bowring's possible indirect connection with it, and to its connection through him with the papers now in University College. There are two apparent intrusions. One consists of a number of Bentham's letters to George Wilson, to the Davieses, to James Anderson and to one or two other addressees. The other is made up of letters to him from such correspondents as Lord Lansdowne, Baron von Raigersfeld, Reginald Pole Carew, François Xavier Schwediauer and Jacques Pierre Brissot de Warville.
How did these letters reach their present location? It seems certain that at some point Bowring was involved. The letters written by Bentham must have been assembled by him as an artificial collection to assist him with the Memoirs; and in some cases where only his printed text is now known, presumably he either returned the manuscripts to the addressees or their heirs, or else disposed of them in some other way. The letters to Bentham, of which he printed only a selection, can only have been extracted from the papers which passed into his keeping in 1832 and which still contain other letters from some of these correspondents. There is later evidence, referred to below, that a private Bowring collection was formed out of these papers; but there is no information as to how this group of letters, or most of it, came to be amalgamated with the papers now in the British Museum.
A small proportion of the letters in this volume are printed from originals in private collections: among these are to be noted especially the Lansdowne Mss. at Bowood and the Pole Carew Mss. at Antony, Cornwall. Bowring's handling of the correspondence between Bentham and Lansdowne merits comment. It is evident that he did not obtain access to the Lansdowne archives, for in cases where a manuscript is known to exist, his texts of Bentham's letters to Lansdowne are derived from drafts or copies in what is now the University College collection. There is also evidence that he abstracted a personal collection of the more interesting of Lansdowne's letters to Bentham from the papers under his control: his grandson Wilfred Joseph Bowring sent one of these to the 5th Marquess in 1910 and mentioned his possession of many others.
All known letters of Bentham's belonging to the period covered by this volume have been printed in full; so have practically all letters to him, save for those from his brother.
In one respect this volume contrasts markedly with its predecessor. Bentham's side of the voluminous correspondence which was being carried on with Samuel Bentham in Russia has disappeared — clearly through some artificial division of the papers, since the break comes at the beginning of the calendar year 1781. In Samuel's replies, and occasionally in Bentham's letters to his father, and elsewhere, there are specific references to some thirty-eight of Bentham's letters to Samuel, but there is sufficient indication that the number missing is far greater than this. In the year 1780, the last for which the archive seems complete, Bentham wrote nineteen letters to his brother. Fourteen are known by reference for the first ten months of 1781. One he wrote in September 1783 was numbered 'XXV' in a sequence relating to that year (only this one and five of its predecessors of that year are known by specific reference). He sent at least thirteen in the first seven months of 1784. To judge by these figures an average of twenty letters a year seems a conservative estimate. On this basis at least ninety letters are missing for the period from January 1781 till Bentham's departure from England for Russia in August 1785, plus two sent to Samuel from Constantinople at the end of 1785 and at least another two written towards the end of 1787. The possibility that these exist in some portion of Samuel Bentham's papers left behind him in Russia cannot be excluded, although the Institute of History of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, which has kindly provided information on surviving letters of Bentham in Russia, has not found trace of them. Of this great series there survive only three incomplete drafts and also one long letter which may have been preserved in special circumstances because of its particularly intimate personal character.
Something of the contents of Bentham's missing letters to his brother can occasionally be deduced from Samuel's replies. Judging by their number Samuel's letters to Bentham have survived almost completely and their bulk has presented a considerable problem of selection. In order not to destroy the balance and proper emphasis of this volume it has seemed advisable rigorously to exclude material dealing with Samuel's own activities in Russia, and to print only those letters or parts of letters which yield information about Bentham by reference to what he himself had written or to activities in which he was involved on Samuel's behalf.
Bentham's surviving correspondence with his father during this period is irregular but not unsubstantial. In the main it falls into three periods; 1783, when the chief topics were Samuel Bentham's love affair with the Countess Sof'ya Dmitriyevna Matyushkina and the momentary prospect that Samuel might become temporary British chargé d'affaires at St Petersburg; 1786–7, when Bentham was writing to his father from Russia; and 1788, when they were both avidly following the naval war news from the Black Sea. As might be expected from the relations between father and son, there is little evidence in this run about Bentham's intellectual pursuits. But a rich vein of description and narrative characterizes the second group, and this is also a notable feature of the long journal-letters which Bentham wrote about his stay at Bowood in 1781 and again, between August 1785 and February 1786, about his journey to Russia. Throughout this period it was George Wilson who, more than anyone save his brother, shared his confidence and his intellectual interests. This stands out both in the striking run of the letters to Wilson from Bowood in 1781 and in those exchanged between them while Bentham was in Russia.
The remainder of the letters printed in this volume reflect the growing range of Bentham's contacts. For the most part these are letters to Bentham. Practically all such known letters have been included, as they yield information about his activities and his intellectual interests not otherwise available, and sometimes, as in the case of Brissot de Warville, provide the only evidence for the widening of his circle which was taking place at this time. Some of them have a biographical interest, not least one or two which show him at work as the business assistant of his brother at Krichëv. Two long and difficult drafts to Lord Ashburton in 1782 provide the fullest information available on the development of his writings on jurisprudence at this time. Every item relating to Bentham's contact with Lord Lansdowne has been included, however slight, on the ground that for both men it has a cumulatively important biographical significance. Unfortunately Bentham's own letters to a number of these correspondents remain undiscovered (if they still survive) notably those to Prince Grigoriy Aleksandrovich Potëmkin, Count Sergey Ivanovich Pleshcheyev, François Xavier Schwediauer, James Trail and Brissot de Warville.
For notes on details of editorial practice, see the Introduction to volume i at pages xxi–xxii. In transliterating Russian names the Russian modified 'e' (= 'yo', or 'o' after 'ch' and 'sh') has been rendered as 'ë' in preference to the also frequently-used 'yo' or 'o'.
2. Outline of Bentham's life, January 1781 to October 1788
1781 The beginning of this year was marked by the break-down, for reasons not disclosed in the correspondence, of Bentham's plans for a German translation of the Introduction of his Plan of a Penal Code (later published as An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation). The English text had now been set in type, but he proceeded no further with this, being hard at work on part of what he regarded as the main body of his future publication, his Plan of a Penal Code itself, which is referred to for short as 'Code' in the Correspondence of this and the following years. In February some light relief was afforded by his cousin Gregory Bentham's discovery of a graft being carried on over the sale of admiralty appointments, which Bentham took upon himself to report to the First Lord of the Admiralty. There is some indication of continued contact with Shelburne House, for about the end of April a correspondence with the earl's librarian seems to show that Bentham had agreed to look out for copies of Prynne's tracts and in exchange he was offered duplicates from Shelburne's collection. It was possibly this matter that gave Shelburne the opening at the beginning of July for his descent upon Bentham's chambers at Lincoln's Inn. Shelburne seems there to have enjoyed a lively and critical discussion of Bentham's work. He was sufficiently impressed to borrow a copy of the Fragment on Government for perusal at leisure, and to follow up his visit with a pressing invitation to Bentham to spend part of the summer at Bowood and bring his work so that it might be submitted to the judgment of Shelburne's legal friends, Lord Camden and John Dunning.
Though Bentham showed some hesitation, it was impossible to refuse. At the beginning of August he stayed for a fortnight with the Davieses at Chatham, where he went sea-bathing on his doctor's instructions. He then travelled down to Bowood where he remained until the middle of October. It was a memorable experience of gracious living in an intellectual household which was also a focus of national politics. During this period, apart from much stimulating conversation he had the diverse pleasures of romping with Shelburne's infant son, performing violin and harpsichord duets with Lady Shelburne, playing chess with the future prime minister, William Pitt, and indulging just a little (but not too much) tendresse towards one of Lady Shelburne's kinswomen. Long afterwards he wrote: 'Those days with the exception of a few months passed in the same company about eight years afterwards, were the happiest of my life'; and his zestful descriptions of the people he met and the gossip he heard in a long series of letters to George Wilson form the major part of his correspondence during this year. During his stay at Bowood, Lord Camden looked through the Fragment and made little of it; but John Dunning was not able to do so, his wife's pregnancy obliging him to leave Bowood almost immediately after he arrived. At parting Shelburne urged Bentham not to let his brother stay too long abroad, and gave advice that he should take in the naval yards of the Scandinavian countries on his way back to England. If he were ever in a position to do so he would bring Samuel forward in public employment; meanwhile he held out the offer to him of a house at Wycombe, where he had an estate, and a retainer of £1000. Puzzled and not wholly convinced of the sincerity of these offers, Bentham duly relayed them to his brother, but with a caution not to take them too seriously. Leaving Bowood in mid-October Bentham travelled via Oxford and Slough to Thorpe, where he stopped briefly — for the last time, for Wilson was abandoning the cottage he had shared with him there — and by the end of the month he was back at Lincoln's Inn.
1782 The scanty information available suggests that during most of this year Bentham presumably remained at Lincoln's Inn at work on his writings. He spent the autumn at Brompton near Chatham, staying with the Davieses, whose home was now to some extent to take the place for him of Wilson's cottage at Thorpe as a retreat from London.
Shelburne kept in touch with him, and in June, on Shelburne's insistence, he sent to Lord Ashburton (as Dunning had now become) the printed sheets of the Introduction and a plan, now some months out of date, of the way he intended to develop his study. According to a later memorandum these were never returned to him. Later on Shelburne seems also to have pressed him to tell his brother to return, holding out the prospect of a commissionership of the Navy Board. Bentham reported this proposal to his brother with strong warnings to treat it with caution; he was anxious that Samuel should not on this ground throw up promising prospects in Russia. In fact, for various reasons, Samuel stayed at St Petersburg after his return (in October) from the long tour of exploration in Siberia which had occupied him since February 1781.
Towards the end of the year Bentham had evidently gone some way towards producing a French version of the general treatise on jurisprudence which, in one form or another, had occupied him since about 1770. In a letter to his brother he referred to this as a 'projet d'un corps de droit' and as being near completion — the latter statement, however, being characteristically over-optimistic. About this time, too, he made a new friend in the person of the French journalist, Jacques Pierre Brissot de Warville, who in November came over to London in connection with various literary ventures.
1783 This year saw the development of an intimate friendship between Bentham and Brissot, marked by several exchanges of letters, of which only Brissot's side appears to survive. Bentham's relationship with Shelburne remained cordial: in February he sought his favour to help in securing French publications on law questions. In the spring of 1783 he found a new friend in the young Cornish member of parliament, Reginald Pole Carew of Antony. Pole Carew had travelled in Russia and had become friendly with Samuel Bentham. After he returned to London it is not clear which sought out the other — possibly the first approach to Carew was taken by Jeremiah Bentham — but a common interest in Samuel's romance with the Countess Sof'ya Dmitriyevna Matyushkina drew them together. Bentham obtained information about the Countess, owing to Carew's friendship with Prince A. V. Vyazemskiy, who was then on a visit to England and who, as a relative of the Countess, was making enquiries about Samuel's family on her behalf.
Bentham's intellectual interests are reflected in correspondence with an old acquaintance, Baron von Raigersfeld, the secretary of the Austrian legation, who tried to get information for him about German law, and also with a new one, David Steuart, recently provost of Edinburgh, who promised to help him on the subject of Scottish criminal law. His old friend, James Anderson, consulted him about the draft of his pamphlet concerning the development of the Scottish fisheries. Out of the blue an obscure Russian army surgeon, whom his brother had met in southern Siberia, sent him a consignment of seeds which had to be acknowledged; and when a proposal came up for Samuel to act as temporary chargé d'affaires at St Petersburg on the retirement of Sir James Harris, he was drawn into a flurry of correspondence and personal consultation with the new ambassador's brother, his old friend, William Fitzherbert.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham: Volume 3 January 1781 to October 1788 by Ian R. Christie. Copyright © 2017 The Bentham Committee, UCL. Excerpted by permission of UCL Press.
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