portions of the people at the discretion of Ministers, liable to be blown away by a breath of their lips. Is this the way to encounter him, who in a few days utterly annihilates immense standing armies famed for tactics and discipline? When landed upon our shores, what has England to oppose to him before whom all despotic nations fall, but her LIBERTY! Despots dare not arm the millions. An enslaved population to a regular army is "an unresisting "medium;" while an English population armed, and organized agreeably to the Constitution, must prove a barrier which the conquerors of the continent could never pass, were every soldier a Napoleon.-If, Sir, you regard the fame of those whom you support, if with humility and true devotion you bow before the shrine of your country, impress upon those ministers the few simple truths of the constitution on which I have touched. Receiving those truths, their situation will no longer be "difficult:" Their course will be straight before them. Their proper line of conduct will be that which he who runs may read. In saving their country they cannot fail.-Shall I be told of unseen difficulties? Have these ministers the confidence of their sovereign? If they have not, if they cannot do that which is necessary to save the state, they have no business where they are; and their continuance in office can only deceive the people, and bring the kingdom to ruin. If they have their sovereign's confidence he will adopt their advice. Firmly supported by their lawful sovereign, ministers are more than a match for the mock sovereignty of our borough potentates, and and may at their pleasure lay it prostrate on the dunghill from whence it sprung. Neither its wealth, nor all its mercenaries, can save it from perdition, when once an honest king and honest ministers shall have determined, that it shall cease to reign. -I shall not at present speak of the part to be taken by the people in this business. If the king and his ministers should be agreed, the part of the people will then be very easy. It is because I do not imagine the people wish for such a state of things, as exposed Italy, Holland, Austria, and Prussia to conquest, that I presume upon their readiness to second their sovereign and his ministers in the natural means of precaution. I have the honour to remain, dear Sir, &c. LETTERS BETWEEN MR. WHITBREAD AND SIR FRANCIS BURDETT SINCE THE ELECTION. To Sir Francis Burdett, Bart. Sir; Ever since my entrance into public life as a Member of Parliament, it has been my earnest wish to divest political differences of all personal animosity, and I have been at all times ready to concede to others, with regard to myself, the liberty I have assumed towards them, of the fullest and freest discuffion of every part of my public conduct. But there are limits, beyond which it is not poffible to step, without injury to the party who may happen to be the subject of animadversions, such as he must 3 N 2 be - be compelled to resent. It is with pain I am forced to say, that I feel myself so injured, by some paffages contained in your Advertisement to the Freeholders of Middlesex, published in an Evening Paper of yesterday. In the face of the people of England, you tell me, that, by the publication of a Letter addreffed to you, in answer to a printed Circular Letter addreffed by you to me, as one of the Electors of Middlesex, "I have acted in a manner most unbe"coming my station, connections, and character."After the account I gave you privately on the Hustings at Brentford, respecting the Letter in question, which was, "That it was written without concert or "consultation with any person whatever, that I be gan it within half an hour after the receipt of your "Circular Letter and Address; that it was out of my "hands before four o'clock on the same day; and "that it was entrusted to the revision of one friend only (and that not till after the copy addreffed to "" you had been sealed and dispatched), in order that "he might see whether, from the haste in which it "was written, it was not too inaccurate in point of language for publication ;"-you say, that " I ad"dressed that Letter nominally, and with diffem"bled respect, to you; but that I intended it as a "political electioneering manoeuvre against the "Freeholders of Middlesex."-I did not diffemble, Sir, in any part of that transaction; and at the time I wrote, I unfeignedly, as I told you, felt respect towards you; and if you poffefs those feelings with which I am still willing and desirous to believe that you are actuated, you feel that it is impossible for me not not to demand reparation for the injury my character must sustain from a patient acquiescence under such imputations as you have most unprovokedly thrown upon me-such reparation I demand at your hands. -Mr. Brand has been so good as to undertake to carry this Letter, and is the only person who is acquainted with the circumstance of its having been written. He will state to you what my demands are. This is not the time to enter into what I conceive to be the fallacy generally, or the injustice personally, pervading the whole of your Advertisement. You are certainly not so much in my confidence as to entitle you to tell the people what my political views are; but I have never yet done any one political act, from the recollection of which I fhrink; nor will I ever do one, without making as well understood, as my faculties will permit, what the grounds are upon which that act was done.-It will be for the public to determine then upon my conduct. I am, Sir, your obedient Servant, SAMUEL WHITBREAD. Southill, Dec. 2, 1806. To Samuel Whitbread, Esq. Sir; Nothing could have been more distant from my intention, than to introduce into the Advertisement, which I thought it neceffary to addrefs to the Freeholders of Middlesex, any expreffion which could be construed into personal disrespect to yourself; and I take this opportunity of affuring you, that every every interpretation of its contents, which may be perverted into a sense personally disrespectful to you, is contrary to my meaning and intention. I remain, Sir, your most obedient humble Servant, FRANCIS BURDETT. Piccadilly, Dec. 3, 1806. P. S.-Mr. Brand thinks it necessary to give publicity to this Correspondence, to which I can have no objection. FINIS. T. C. HANSARD, Printer, |