also, permit me to add, affords the best possible answer to the call, which, during the Election, Sir F. Burdett has almost daily made upon me, for a declaration of my principles. Nay, it goes further; for it pronounces, in language which cannot be misunderstood, your judgment upon his principles, as well as upon mine.-In congratulating you, Gentlemen, upon a victory which is the fruit of so much exertion, and which, considering the nature of the conteft, affords just cause for triumph to the kingdom at large, and, indeed, to the friends of order throughout the civilized world, my duty to you compels me moft earnestly to intrcat a continuance of that vigilance and firmness which, in such a cause, can alone secure the inestimable advantage we have gained.— Having hitherto refrained from profeffions, well knowing them to be a moft fallacious teft of conduct, I fhall now content myself with assuring you, that by promoting, to the beft of my abilities, the prosperity of the British Empire, the security of the British Conftitution, and the honour and welfare of the County of Middlesex, I shall endeavour to justify your choice, and to evince the gratitude with which I am, &c.

Bufb-bill Park, Nov. 27.

WILLIAM MELLISH.

Mr. Byng's Address to the Freeholders of Middlesex after the Election.

Gentlemen; The high trust which you have again been pleased to repose in me, is the best proof that my condu& in your service has met with your ap

probation;

probation; for I will take upon myself to say, that never did any individual receive more conspicuous marks of the unbiassed suffrages of his conftituents than I have been honoured with on the present occasion. Amidft the torrent of personal invective and violence with which the present conteft for your favour has been conducted, I have felt it due both to your underflanding and to my own character, to abstain from all profeffions as to my future conduct, as well as from all retrospect of the past. What I have been, is in your recollection; and I can truly say, without presuming to arrogate to myself any other merit than that of confiftency, that even with the light which time and experience have thrown on the measures in which I took a part, I do not remember a single instance in which I have to regret the vote I gave, as one of your Representatives, or which I should change if it were again to be given. This may be ascribed to the advantage of my having uniformly maintained and acted on those rational principles of pure Whiggism, which with a constant but liberal jealousy of the exercise of power, has for its sole object the preservation of our invaluable Constitution in all its branches, and the happiness of the people from whom it sprung.

I have the honour to be, &c.

St. James's-Square, Nov. 27.

GEORGE BYNG.

Sir Francis Burdett's Address to the Freeholders of Middlesex after the Election.

GENTLEMEN;-The moment before the commencement of the late Election for Middlesex, Mr.

Whitbread, in a manner most unbecoming his station, connections, and character, inserted in the public Newspapers the following passage, signed with his name: addressed indeed nominally, with dissembled respect, to me; but intended as a political Electioneering Manoeuvre against you.

"I do not perceive in your present Address (says Mr. Whitbread) any allusion to an opinion promulgated by you on the late Election for Westminster, "which is That a person holding an Office under "the Crown, however otherwise eftimable, cannot at

any time become the fit Representative of a free, uncorrupt, and independent People."---If such opinion be "founded in truth, which (continues Mr. Whitbread) "I utterly deny, a law ought to be passed to exclude "all the executive servants of Government from seats "in either House of Parliament. I have not heard, "that it was in the contemplation of any one to

propose such a measure: and, if proposed, I am "sure it would meet with resistance from all descrip"tions of persons, who have the power or the will to "reason upon its consequences. The people, by "the acceptance of your doctrine, would reduce "themselves to the hard neceflity of being governed

by the worst of mankind."-These, Mr. Whitbread's sentiments, have likewise been recently paraded by Mr. Windham, Secretary of State; by Mr. Tierney, Chairman of the Board of Controul; by Mr. Sheridan, Treasurer of the Navy; and are now held, I presume, as the political creed of the whole party.-Gentlemen; In that act of parliament

(12 and

(12 and 13 Will. 3.) which gave the throne of these kingdoms to his present Majefty, and his family, intitled-" An Act for the further limitation of the "Crown, and better securing the Rights and Liber"ties of the Subject,"-it was wisely and honestly thus enacted-" That no person, who has an "office or place of profit under the King, or receives a pension from the Crown, shall be capable of serving as a Member of the House of Commons." But Mr. Whitbread, it seems, never heard of this provision" for better securing the Rights and "Liberties of the Subject." And because, after a melancholy experience of the neceffity of such a provision, which our honeft ancestors only foresaw, I maintain the opinion of those from whom his Majefty holds his Crown, I am represented, by these beft of Patriots, as an enemy to the Conftitution, and by some of their place-holding and place-hunting Party, as a traitor to my country. The worst of traitors to their country are those who eat up its resources. Mr. Whitbread's judgment upon us who hold this opinion, is indeed something milder: he only concludes us to be either fools or rogues,— "either we have not the power or the will to reason upon its consequences."-I have reason to believe, that Mr. Whitbread himself possesses both the will and the power to obtain speedily a lucrative office under the crown, without much embarraffing himself with its consequences to the Public.-Genlemen; When the last additional Taxes for the present year were lately imposed upon the People by these beft of Patriots, it was undisguisedly and tran

quilly acknowledged by them, without the leaft compunction, or commiseration of the People, that the necessary effect of these taxes would be, to drive the inhabitants of a house into lodgings, and the lodgers of the first floor into the second. Here indeed they ftopped; leaving us to complete the miserable picture of national calamity; viz. that the lodgers of the second floor muft mount up into the garret, the garreteer descend into the cellar; whose former wretched inhabitant must be thruft out upon the pavement, and from thence transferred to the workhouse or the grave. And this process is to be repeated toties quoties;-so that the beft provided amongst us cannot tell where himself and his family may be found at last. This is a hard le son for Englishmen to hear: It is harder fill to hear it enforced from the mouths of those, who themselves are all the while creeping forward from their original garrets into palace. Such unfeeling insult as this would never have taken place but amidst placemen and penfioners. Had they been really the Representatives of the People, they would have felt something for the People; and, inftead of incessantly calling for fresh sacrifices, and telling us gaily that we must "retrench even part of our necessaries," they would surely now at laft have held out to us some prospect of consolation and redress; they would no longer continue to gorge upon the vitals of their country, but would think themselves too well off, if they were not justly compelled to disgorge their past infamous swallowings.

Gentlemen;-In becoming a Candidate at the

late