BENTHAM 53T upon the receipt of a letter importing the president's approbation, and, as far as de- pended upon him, acceptance of his proposi- tion, to forthwith set about drawing up for the use of the United States, or suck of them as might accept it, " a complete body of law ; in one word, a pannomion, or as much of it as the life and health of a man, whose age wanted little of four and sixty, might allow of," asking and expecting no reward beyond the employ- ment and the honor of it. This letter, besides a sketch of his plan, which embraced not mere- ly the text of a code, but a perpetual running commentary of reasons, included also a vig- orous attack upon the existing system of Eng- lish and American jurisprudence, and an answer to certain anticipated objections, both to the plan and to himself as legislator. Mr. Brougham wrote at the same time to some American friends, expressing his opinion that no person in Europe was so capable as Bentham of such a task. No answer had been received to this letter when, in 1814, Mr. Gallatin was a little while in England, in his capacity of commis- sioner, to treat for peace. Not only had Gal- latin received from Dumont, who was his countryman, a presentation copy of the Traites de legislation, but he had, as he told Bentham, who had an interview with him, been his dis- ciple for 25 years, in consequence of having read, soon after its publication, a copy of the " Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation," put into his hands by Col. Burr. We may mention by the way that Burr him- self, when in England six years before, had ob- tained an introduction to Bentham from Du- mont, and had even passed a considerable time under his roof one object of Bentham doubt- less being to avail himself of Burr's knowledge of American affairs. In consequence of this interview with Gallatin, Bentham was led, in a letter to Governor Snyder of Pennsylvania, enclosing a printed copy of his letter to Madi- son and a letter of introduction from Gallatin, to renew his offer of himself as a codifier. At length, in 1816, Madison returned a courteous reply to Bentham's letter of 1811, referring to the intervening war as an apology for his long silence, stating that a compliance with Ben- tham's proposals was "not within the scope of his proper functions," suggesting some ob- stacles to the proposed codification, and ob- jections to it, but fully admitting the desirabil- ity of such a reform. This letter was conveyed to London by J. Q. Adams, appointed American minister to England, and who became during his residence there intimate with Bentham. When Adams returned home in 1817, to assume the office of secretary of state, he became the bearer of a circular letter, addressed by Ben- tham to the governors of the states, accom- panied by copies of the letter to Madison, and a renewal of his offer of himself as legislator. Bentham's proposals, which he followed up by a series of short letters on the same subject, addressed to the people of the states, were laid before the legislatures of Pennsylvania and New- Hampshire. He received appreciative letters from Governors Snyder and Plumer of those states, but nothing further resulted. Several years later, Edward Livingston sent him a copy of his draft of a penal code for Louisiana, with strong expressions of admiration for his genius, and acknowledgments of the instruction re- ceived from the study of his works. Mean- while, in 1814, Bentham had made an offer of his legislative aid to the emperor of Russia, in the language of which country two translations had appeared of the Traites de legislation, one of them, it was said, by the special pro- curement of the government. The emperor replied in a letter written by his own hand, in which he promised to submit Bentham's pro- posal to the commission at work on a code for the empire. He sent at the same time a valu- able ring, which Bentham returned, sending with it a second letter, in which he gave reasons why nothing could be expected to come of the reference of his proposals to a commission which, in one shape or another, had been in session for more than a century without any result. In the expectation that Prince Adam Czartoryski, who was one of his disciples, would be appointed regent of Poland, he had hopes of legislating for that country ; but an- other person was appointed, and this hope failed. The revolutions in 1820, which estab- lished liberal governments in the Spanish pen- insula, gave Bentham new and stronger hopes. Dumont's compilations had been translated in- to Spanish, and were well known to the lead- ing liberals of Spain and Spanish America. The Portuguese cortes caused them to be translated into Portuguese. In 1822 he pub- lished also his "Codification Proposal," ad- dressed to all nations professing liberal opin- ions, tendering his services as legislator, and arguing in favor of a code emanating from a single mind. He was consulted on the Spanish penal code, on which in 1822 he published some letters addressed to the conde de Torefio ; and similar applications were made to him from Spanish America. But the downfall of liberalism in the peninsula, and the protracted civil wars in the late Spanish colonies, disap- pointed his expectations in that quarter. While thus seeking the office of legislator, an- other idea had engrossed much of his atten- tion. He had taken a great interest in the educational system of Bell and Lancaster, and in 1817 he had published, under the title of " Chrestomathia," a proposal to apply this system to the higher branches of education. There was even a scheme for erecting a build- ing in his garden on the panopticon system, in which the experiment was to be tried ; but, like so many other of his plans, it did not go on. Though Bentham had always boasted of being a man of no party, as well as of all countries, he had come at length to occupy at home the position of a party chief. He espoused with characteristic zeal and ea-
