I had perfifted in producing them to the laft; if I had ransacked, with the most unremitting induftry, and the most penetrating research, the remoteft corners of the kingdom to discover them; if I were then, all at once, to turn fhort, and declare, that I had been sporting all this while with the right of election: and that I had been drawing out a poll, upon no fort of rational grounds, which difturbed the peace of my fellow-citizens for a month together-I really, for my part, should appear awkward under fuch circumstances.

It would be ftill more awkward in me, if I were gravely to look the sheriffs in the face, and to tell them, they were not to determine my cause on my own principles; nor to make the return upon those votes, upon which I had rested my election. Such would be my appearance to the court and magiftrates.

P

But how fhould I appear to the voters themfelves? if I had gone round to the citizens intitled to freedom, and fqueezed them by the hand"Sir, I humbly beg your vote-I fhall be eternally “thankful-may I hope for the honour of your "fupport?-Well!-come-we fhall fee you at "the council-house."-If I were then to deliver them to my managers, pack them into tallies, vote them off in court, and when I heard from the bar -"Such a one only! and fuch a one for ever!— "he's my man!”—“Thank you, good Sir-Hah!

σε

"my

>

σε my worthy friend! thank you kindly-that's "an honeft fellow-how is your good family?" Whilft these words were hardly out of

my mouth, if I fhould have wheeled round at once, and told them" Get you gone, you pack of worthlefs "fellows! you have no votes-you are ufurpers! << you are intruders on the rights of real freemen! "I will have nothing to do with you! you ought

never to have been produced at this election, and "the fheriffs ought not to have admitted you to poll."

66

Gentlemen, I should make a ftrange figure, if my conduct had been of this fort. I am not fo old an acquaintance of yours as the worthy gentleman. Indeed I could not have ventured on fuch kind of freedoms with you. But I am bound, and I will endeavour, to have juftice done to the rights of freemen; even though I fhould, at the fame time, be obliged to vindicate the former part of my antagonist's conduct against his own prefent înclinations.

*

I owe myself, in all things, to all the freemen of this city. My particular friends have a demand on me, that I fhould not deceive their expectations. Never was cause or man fupported with more conftancy, more activity, more fpirit. I have

* Mr. Brickdale opened his poll, it feems, with a tally of thofe very kind of freemen, and voted many hundreds of them.

been

been fupported with a zeal indeed and heartiness in my friends, which (if their object had been at all proportioned to their endeavours) could never be fufficiently commended. They fupported me upon the most liberal principles. They wished that the members for Briftol fhould be chosen for the city, and for their country at large, and not for themselves.

So far they are not disappointed. If I poffefs nothing else, I am fure I poffefs the temper that is fit for your fervice. I know nothing of Bristol, but by the favours I have received, and the virtues I have feen exerted in it.

I fhall ever retain, what I now feel, the most perfect and grateful attachment to my friends-and and I have no enmities; no refentment. I never can confider fidelity to engagements, and conftancy in friendships, but with the highest approbation; even when thofe noble qualities are employed against my own pretenfions. The gentleman, who is not fortunate as I have been in this contest, enjoys, in this refpect, a confolation full of honour both to himself and to his friends. They have certainly left nothing undone for his fervice.

As for the trifling petulance, which the rage of party ftirs up in little minds, though it fhould shew itself even in this court, it has not made the flighteft impreffion on me. The highest flight of fuch clamorous birds is winged in an inferior reVOL. III

C

gion

gion of the air. We hear them, and we look upon them, just as you, gentlemen, when you enjoy the ferene air on your lofty rocks, look down upon the gulls, that skim the mud of your river, when it is exhausted of its tide.

I am forry I cannot conclude, without faying a word on a topick touched upon by my worthy colleague. I with that topick had been paffed by; at a time when I have fo little leifure to difcufs it. But fince he has thought proper to throw it out, I owe you a clear explanation of my poor fentiments on that fubject.

He tells you, that "the topick of inftructions "has occafioned much altercation and uneafinefs "in this city;" and he expreffes himself (if I underftand him rightly) in favour of the coercive authority of fuch inftructions.

Certainly, gentlemen, it ought to be the happinefs and glory of a representative, to live in the ftricteft union, the closest correspondence, and the moft unreferved communication with his conftituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion high respect; their bufiness unremitted attention. It is his duty to facrifice his repofe, his pleasures, his fatisfactions, to theirs; and, above all, ever, and in all cafes, to prefer their intereft to his own. But, his unbiaffed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened confcience, he ought not to facrifice to you;

to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleafure; no, nor from the law and the conftitution. They are a truft from Providence, for the abufe of which he is deeply anfwerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he facrifices it to your opinion.

My worthy colleague fays, his will ought to be fubfervient to yours. If that be all, the thing is innocent. If government were a matter of will upon any fide, yours, without queftion, ought to be fuperior. But government and legislation are matters of reafon and judgment, and not of inclination; and, what fort of reafon is that, in which the determination precedes the difcuffion ; in which one fet of men deliberate, and another decide; and where those who form the conclufion are perhaps three hundred miles diftant from those who hear the arguments?

To deliver an opinion, is the right of all men ; that of conftituents is a weighty and refpectable opinion, which a reprefentative ought always to rejoice to hear; and which he ought always most seriously to confider. But authoritative inftructions; mandates iffued, which the member is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though contrary to the cleareft conviction of his judgment and confcience; thefe are