says he talked of Ministers and not of me. I must only take care of my own character, and let others take care of theirs. I will go on a little farther. The Hon. Baronet talks so much of the Independence of the Freeholders who voted for him. It is unjust in the Hon. Baronet-If he was not a Candidate, he would not talk so he would not say his voters were more independent than mine---(Yes he would, said Sir Francis and his Friends). It is only an electioneering trick to make you believe what he does not believe himself, and I am sure, if the Hon. Baronet should be so fortunate as to get to the head of the Poll, he will also exclaim---" Look to the Poll."

EIGHTH DAY.

Tuesday, November 18.

At the close of the poll, the numbers were, for

Mr. BYNG bowed to the multitude and withdrew. Sir FRANCIS BURDETT.-" Gentlemen; I cannot but confider the poll of to-day as rather encouraging to my hopes, and to the independent intereft of this County.-Gentlemen; I fhall beg leave before I depart to make one or two observations to you, which I

think well worthy the confideration of the Freeholders of Middlesex before the poll closes, or their confideration may perhaps come too late.-Gentle

I do not at all regret, though it certainly renders me liable to some sort of disadvantage, the plain and open way in which I have thought fit to ftate to you the grounds upon which I offer myself to your notice, the principles upon which I intend to act, and therefore the expectations you would be intitled to form of my conduct had I met with your support.-Gentlemen; It is well worth the attention of the Freeholders of Middlesex to consider the sentiments which have been expressed by Candidates in other places of popular Election; because they will see the different tone taken by those persons as soon as they have ceased to be Candidates and have obtained their seats. Gentlemen, only to mention one inftance, the Borough. I would direct your attention to the sentiments expressed by Mr. Henry Thornton to the Electors of the Borough, immediately after he had secured his seat. You will there find, that he takes the first opportunity of telling the Electors the great and monftrous sacrifices they are now to be called upon to make,—which, I believe, you will not find him ever to have hinted at previous to that day.-Gentlemen; in another great County,--in Yorkshire,--Mr. Wilberforce I see follows also the same track, and as soon as his seat is secured, he then talks of the enormous sacrifices the people are to be called upon to make.-Gentlemen; this is indeed curious language, to be expected perhaps from the quarter from whence it comes, but it

would

would have been as well I think to have thrown out those subjects for the confideration of their Conftituents previous to their having attained their return.-Gentlemen; as to sacrifices-are all the sacrifices that have hitherto been made to count for nothing? Have we not been making sacrifice upon sacrifice? and would it not have been important to have shewn, at least, what had been the result of the sacrifices hitherto made, and to have held out at leaft some hope for the future, some benefit to be derived from those unheard of sacrifices which they now fay the people are to make?-Gentlemen; it is as if after having supported a syftem which has divided great portions of the population of the Country, one part into paupers and the other into taxgatherers, it would seem as if a system leading to the erection of poor-houses for the reception of the industrious, and palaces for the reception of taxgatherers, as if a system of that kind had not caused sufficient sacrifices on the part of the people.-Gentlemen; another Right Hon. Gentleman, whom I have frequently had occasion to allude to in the course of this Election, the Right Hon. the Manager and Treasurer, talks very pleasantly of the chearful sacrifices the people are to make-that Gentleman who has sacrificed nothing else that I know of except his confiftency and public character, but who, while you are making sacrifices, is putting into his own pocket many thousands a year of the public money. Why, Gentlemen, these persons may speak with great composure, and perhaps with great pleasure, of the sacrifices which others are to make for 3 D their

their emolument. That person, too, Mr. Sheridan, is as unfortunate in many others respects in his attempts to acquire some little popular applause, by means which I fhould think hardly any man would descend to; he is as unfortunate in public concerns, for it never happens that he is able to put forward any claim to the protection and support of the Electors of Westminster, that it is not done by exhibiting to a disadvantage some parts of the conduct or character of the supporters of himself and his friends. Mr. Sheridan puts forth a claim to support as having been the only person who on a great and interesting occasion had afforded me any support. If that had been the case, what became of the claims of all the rest of the beft of patriots who acted with that Gentleman? Is he better than the beft? Is his claim founded on their demerits? On the present occasion, we see Mr. Sheridan coming forward and ftating, that the magistracy have been solicited by numbers, as he says, of his respectable friends, to proflitute their authority, in order to revenge some conduct not agreeable to him and his friends, from a publican during the Weftminster Election (see p. 226).-Gentlemen; Is it not too much that he should pique himself on the generofity of his conduct; that he should ftate it is owing to his interference that the moft scandalous abuse of the magisterial authority is not resorted to, and that he should claim as a merit with the Country, that he, a placeman, is ftanding forward to withhold the arm of the magiftracy from scandalously exerting itself on the occasion of an Election? Why, Gentlemen, it is a

little

little unfortunate, but the merits and virtues of Mr. Sheridan cannot be exhibited by himself to the public without this ftrong disadvantage to his friends: according to him and to his representations, all of them appear like so many golden two-pences to the pure and fterling ore of his virtue.-Gentlemen; I should hope on many accounts, and at a time like this, that still late as it is, the Gentleman near me would be kind enough to favour you with some opinion of his upon public men and public transactions. -Gentlemen; if it is not so, you may perhaps find yourselves in the unfortunate predicament of the Electors of Southwark, and the Electors of the County of York; you may find your Candidate entertain sentiments you were not aware of, and which if you had been aware of, you would not have given him your support.-Gentlemen; with respect to the general state of this country---with respect to the coalition of parties, which I have drawn great opposition upon myself by having done the beft in my power to expose, it appears to me the nation is a good deal in the fituation of that unfortunate person represented in the New Teftament, where it is said, "that a man having been long distressed, and suffered much by being poffeffed of a devil, had the good fortune at laft to get this devil out." But, Gentlemen, like the case of that man, Lord Grenville came back with many more worse than himself, and it is no wonder if the laft state of that man was infinitely worse than the firft.-Gentlemen; I shall take leave of you this day, with returning my warmeft thanks to those Freeholders who have come