intentions until the very morning of the poll, when the following hand-bill made its appearance :

"To

these elections murder was committed: That for these past outrages, as if there were no Attorney General, no government, and no legislature in the land, not the least redress has been obtained, nor the least punishment, nor even the least censure, inflicted; nor has any remedy whatever been appointed, or attempted, to prevent a repetition of similar outrages in future. That at the election for Westminster a scrutiny was demanded in behalf of Sir Cecil Wray, which was granted on the 17th of May 1784, and, with the approbation or direction of the then House of Commons, was continued till the 3d of March 1785, when a very small comparative progress having been made (viz. through the small parish of St. Anne, and not entirely through St. Martin's, leaving totally untouched the parishes of St. George's, St. James's, St. Margaret, St. John, St. Paul Covent Garden, St. Mary le Strand, St. Clement, and St. Martin le Grand), the said scrutiny was, by the direction or approbation of the House of Commons, relinquished without effect, after having lasted ten months, and with an expence to SIR CECIL WRAY of many thousand pounds more than appears, by some late proceedings in Chancery, to be the allowed average price of a perpetual seat in the House of Commons, where seats for legislation are as notoriously, &c. &c.

"That, on the election for Westminster in 1788, there being an absolute and experienced impossibility of determining the choice of the electors by a scrutiny before the returning officer, a petition against the return was presented to the then House of Commons by Lord Hood, and another petition also against the return was presented by certain electors of Westminster; and a committee was consequently appointed, which commenced its proceedings on Friday April the 3d, 1789, and continued till June 18th, 1789, when the committee, as able and respectable as ever were sworn to try and determine the matter of any petition, on their oaths, "Resolved, That, from the progress which the committee have hitherto been able to make since the comencement

1801-2.

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"I THINK it my duty on the present occasion to solicit your votes, to represent you in the ensuing Parliament.

"The

ment of their proceedings, as well as from an attentive consideration of the different circumstances relating to the cause, a final decision of the business before them cannot take place in the course of the present session, and that not improbably the whole of the present Parliament may be consumed in a tedious and expensive litigation.-Resolved, That, from the necessary length of the proceeding, and from the approach of a general election, which must occur not later than spring 1791 (nearly two years more), the prosecution of the cause, on the part of the petitioners, promises to be fruitless, as far as it respects the representation of Westminster in the present Parliament.-Resolved, That it be recommended to the petitioners to withdraw their petitions under the special circumstances of the case." That, notwithstanding this extraordinary, and perhaps unparalleled, application from a court of justice to its suitors, Lord Hood and the other petitioners having refused to withdraw their respective petitions, the proceedings of the committee continued till July the 6th, 1789, when a very sinall comparative progress having been made, the petitioners, from a conviction of the impossibility of any decision by the committee, were compelled to abandon their petitions, without any effect, or tendency towards effect, after a tedious and expensive litigation of three months and three days, and with an expence to the petitioning candidate of more than 14,000 1.

"That, under these circumstances, as the Petitioner declined demanding a scrutiny before the returning officer, so is he compelled to disclaim all scrutiny before a Committee of the House of Commons; for, although the act of the 10th of George II, by which the said committee is appointed, recites, in its preamble, that Whereas the present mode of decision upon `petitions," complaining of undue elections, or returns of members to serve in Parliament, frequently obstructs public business, occasions

...much

"The evident junction of two contending parties, in order to seize, with an irresistible hand, the representation of the city of Westminster, and to deprive you even of that shadow of election to which they have lately reduced you, calls aloud on every independent inind to frustrate such attempts, and makes me, for, the first time in my life, a CANDIDATE.

"I do

much expence, trouble, and delay to the parties, &c. for remedy thereof, &c." yet it would be less expensive and less ruinous to the Petitioner to be impeached, even according to the present mode of conducting impeachments, and to be convicted too of real crimes, than to be guilty of attempting to obtain justice for himself, and the injured electors of Westminster, by the only mode which the new remedial statute of the 10th of George III. has appointed for that purpose, however well adapted that mode of decision may be to settle the disputed claims of the proprietors of small boroughs, for whose usurped and smuggled interests alone the framers of that bill, and of those bills which have since been built upon it, seem to have had any real concern.

"That by the 9th of Anne, chap. 5th, the right of electors (before unlimited by qualification in the objects of their choice) is restricted, in cities and boroughs, to citizens and burgesses respectively, having an estate, freehold or copyhold, for their own respective lives, of the annual value of three hundred pounds above reprizes. That this very moderate restriction, however vicious in its principle, leaving all citizens and burgesses eligible possessing life estates, freehold or copyhold, of the annual value of three hundred pounds, will henceforth serve only as a snare to the candidate, and a mockery of the electors, if such candidate, possessing a life estate of three hundred pounds a year, must expend fifty thousand pounds (and there is no probable appearance that a hundred thousand pounds would be sufficient) in attempting, by a tedious, expensive, and ineffectual litigation, to sustain the choice of his constituents, and to prove himself duly elected. "That though your Petitioner complains (as he hereby does) of the undue election and return of Lord Hood, and the Right Hon. Charles James Fox, to this present Parliament, for the city and liberty of Westminster, yet is your Petitioner, by a persecution

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I do not solicit your favour, but I invite you, and afford you an opportunity to do yourselves justice, and to give me an example (which was never more necessary) against the prevailing and destructive spirit of personal party, which has nearly extinguished all national and public principle.

"The enormous sums expended, and the infamous practices at the two last elections for Westminster-open bribery, violence, with the scandalous chicane of a tedious, unfinished, and ineffectual scrutiny, and a tedious, unfinished, and ineffectual petition--are too flagrant and notorious to be denied or palliated by either party; and the only refuge of each has been to shift off the criminality upon the other. Upon whom and how will they shift off the common criminality, equally heavy on them both, that neither of them has inade even the smallest attempt, by an easy parliamentary and constitutional method, to prevent the repetition of such practices in future?

"If the revenue is threatened to be defrauded in the smallest

article,

secution and proscription of more than twenty years, disabled from making that pecuniary sacrifice, which by the present new mode of investigation is (and ought not to be) necessary effectu ally to prove such undue return; and yet your Petitioner fully trusts, that, notwithstanding a very great majority of the House of Coinmons (for so it continues to be styled) are not, as they ought to be, elected by the .

have a

and must therefore naturally and necessarily against a fair and real representation of the people, yet your Petitioner fully trusts, that he shall be able to lay before a committee, chosen and sworn to try and determine the matter of this petition, evidence of such a nature as the committee will, on their oaths, think proper to report to the House, some resolution, or resolutions, other than the determination of the return; and that the House will make such order thereon as to them shall seem proper. And your Petitioner doubts not, that, as an elector at least, he shall in consequence receive ruch redress, as will be much more important to him, and to the electors of Westminster, than any determination of the return. "JOHN HORNE TOOKE."

article, law upon law, and statute upon statute, are framed from session to session without delay or intermission. No right of. the subject, however sacred, but must give way to revenue. The country swarms with excisemen and informers to protect it. Conviction is sure-summary, speedy; the punishmentoutlawry and death. Where, amongst all their hideous volumes of taxes and of penalties, can we find one solitary single statute to guard the Right of Representation in the people, upon which all the Right of Taxation depends?

"Your late representatives, and your two present candidates, have, between them, given you a complete demonstration, that the rights of electors (even in those few places where any election yet appears to remain) are left without protection, and their violation without redress. And for a conduct like this, tany who have never concurred in any measure for the public be nefit, they who have never concurred in any means to secure to you a peaceable and fair election, after all their hostilities, come forward hand in hand, with the same general and hacknied professions of devotion to your interest, unblushingly to demand your approbation and support!

1

Gentlemen, throughout the history of the world down to the present moment, all personal parties and factions have always been found dangerous to the liberties of every free people; but THEIR COALITIONS,

unless resisted and punished by the public, certainly fatal. I may be mistaken, but I am firmly persuaded, that there still remains in this country a public both able and willing to teach its government, that it has other more important duties to perform besides the levying of taxes, creation of peerages, compromising of counties, and arrangement of boroughs. With a perfect indifference for my own personal success, I give you this opportunity of commencing that lesson to those in administration, which it is high time they were taught. The fair and honourable expences of an election (and of a petition too, if necessary) I will bear with cheerfulness. And if, by your spirited exertions to do yourselves right, of which I entertain no doubt, I should be seated as your representative, whenever you shall think you have found some other person likely to perform the duties of that station more