you know well that we have no carcase, that we have nothing to afford; that we hold forth nothing to the Independent Freeholders of Middlesex buf public constitutional principles; upon those grounds I have asked their support, and therefore I retort upon those persons the aspersions they are willing to caft upon me, and I declare that I do hold them in the light in which they wish to uphold me, and consider them as the most dangerous as well as the most interested Faction in this Country. The same Gentleman says, "That the principles I have professed, if principles they may be called"---Now, if they would but be explicit---if they would but let us understand what they mean by principle--if they themselves understand what they mean, I trust they will be kind enough to explain to me how they can entertain any doubt as to what I have laid before you as my principles, and not only principles professed, but principles upon which I have uniformly acted.---Gentlemen; In the same advertisement, it is said, that Mr. Mellish, too, must learn, that unless his conduct fhall correspond with his profeffions, he must never more hope to be Member for Middlesex. Now, this is also very curious, because we have not had the good fortune yet to hear any professions from Mr. Mellish, and why those friends of his should talk of that on which he holds his tongue, is for him and not for me to explain.---Gentlemen; with the same degree of candour and truth this advertisement concludes with ftating, that I have ftrained every nerve to swell my poll. Now, Gentlemen, I fhould guess at least from some of the votes that were taken yesterday, that the Candidate near me had certainly ftrained every nerve to swell his poll, because I did observe polling yesterday Mr. Mainwaring, the Juftice, and Mr. Daniel Hindley, the Clerk, and I did expect to see as a proper accompaniment to the other two, Mr. Aris, the Gaoler; probably you may have the satisfaction to see him poll to-morrow.---Gentlemen; I have only further to observe to the Independent Freeholders, that there are still abundantly sufficient voters unpolled to carry the Election upon the principles, and for the intereft on which I ftand ;-whether they shall be pleased so to exert themselves is for their consideration, and it interests them to the full as much as it can me." Mr. MELLISH.---" Gentlemen; I return you my best thanks for the honour you have done me." Mr. Bowles's Letter to Sir Francis Burdett. SIR, In several of your speeches from the Huftings, during this Election, you have thought proper to allude to me, personally, and you have twice applied to me the odious term of "libeller." As far as these allufions affect myself, I can have no inducement to notice them; for they cannot injure me in the opinion of those on whose approbation I set any value; but, as they may seem to imply a contradiction of what I have published respecting you, public confiderations forbid me to pass them over in filence: and, as the Sheriff of Middlesex has judiciously re3 H 2 solved solved to confine the privilege of addreffing the Freeholders to the Candidates, I have no other opportunity of noticing them, than through the medium of the Press.--I am aware, that the term libeller is equivocal, and I am anxious to know in what sense you have applied it to me.--It is well known, that, according to the law of England, truth may be a libel; and, if your charge be intended merely to impute to me what is libellous in point of law, I beg you to remember, that the conduct of some men is of such a nature, that it is impoffible to comment freely upon it, without being chargeable with a libel, in the legal sense of the term. But the expreffion, libellous, frequently involves a charge of calumny; and it is an apprehenfion that you may have used it in this sense, which induces me, for the reason above ftated, now to address you.-It has fallen to my lot, Sir, to have animadverted, more perhaps than any other individual, on your public conduct; and particularly on your calumnies, with regard to the Prison in Cold-Bath-Fields; and on the atrocious proceedings which were resorted to at the Elections in 1802 and 1804, to procure your return as a Representative for the County of Middlesex; and befides what I have thus published with my name, candour requires me, on this occafion, to avow the anonymous Pamphlet, which appeared soon after the laft Middlesex Election, under the title of "An Address to the Freeholders of Middlesex, by an attentive Observer, &c." But in this, as well as my other publications on the above subjects, I took the the utmost pains to avoid the flightest inaccuracy; and had I been capable of wilful misrepresentation, I should have pursued the same course; for the truth did not want, and indeed could not receive, any higher colouring, than belonged to it in its native garb. But as you, Sir, have thought proper publicly to represent me as a libeller, I am impelled, in juftice to the cause of loyalty and order, which I have endeavoured, to the utmoft of my ability, to defend, to challenge you to disprove any of the charges which I have advanced against you. I am, Sir, &c. JOHN BOWLES. Bloomsbury-square, Nov. 26. 1806. A Freeholder's Letter to the Freeholders of Gentlemen; Sir F. Burdett, in his speech of yesterday, began with observing, that the displeasure expressed by certain persons, at some parts of his speech of the day before, proved that he had touched those persons in a sore place. He immediately afterwards proceeded to comment upon an advertisement which appeared this morning in the public Papers; and by the displeasure which he expressed at that advertisement, he proved, according to the rule he had just before laid down, that it touched him in a sore place. The part which seemed chiefly to make him writhe, was that which contained the expreffion "Jacobin Faction;" on which he expatiated with much warmth, and with personal abuse of some Gentlemen, who doubtless think it an honour to be abused by him. If he had not professed to be ignorant of the meaning of the term, "Jacobin Faction," the anger which it seemed to excite in his breaft would have led any one to believe, that his conscience had made a moft feeling application of that term. To enlighten him however, upon so important a subject, it may not be amis to inform him, that the term in queftion implies a Faction, which endangers the very existence of Government, and of social order, by inflaming the paffions of the multitude, by promoting a spirit of insubordination, by ftimulating the lower orders against the higher, the poor against the rich, and the profligate against the law, the magiftrates and the prisons; a faction which, if it fhould succeed, by such means, to acquire an ascendancy, would tyrannise, with despotic sway, over those deluded mortals whom it had made the stalking-horse of its ambition; and which has, therefore, moft juftly been described "as a desperate faction, not less hostile to the people whom it flatters, than to the throne which it seeks to subvert." Such a faction lately succeeded, by such means, in overthrowing the monarchy of France, and in establishing, upon its ruins, a despotism more galling than the world had ever before known. Such a faction lately attempted to overthrow the monarchy of England; and, by the means of Corresponding Societies, and Jacobin Clubs, was in a fair way of effecting its purpose, until its real designs were unmasked and frustrated by the |