you pack of worthless fellows! you have no votes-you "are ufurpers! you are intruders on the rights of real "freemen! I will have nothing to do with you! you ought "never to have been produced at this election, and the she"riffs ought not to have admitted you to poll."

Gentlemen, I fhould make a ftrange figure, if my conduct had been of this fort. I am not fo old an acquaintance of yours as the worthy gentleman. Indeed I could not have ventured on fuch kind of freedoms with you. But I am bound, and I will endeavour, to have juftice done to the rights of freemen; even though I should, at the fame time, be obliged to vindicate the former part of my antagonist's conduct against his own prefent inclinations.

*

I owe myself, in all things, to all the freemen of this city. My particular friends have a demand on me, that I should not deceive their expectations. Never was cause or man fupported with more conftancy, more activity, more spirit. I have been fupported with a zeal indeed and heartiness in my friends, which (if their object had been at all proportioned to their endeavours) could never be sufficiently commended. They fupported me upon the most liberal principles. They wished that the members for Bristol fhould be chofen for the city, and for their country at large, and not for themselves.

So far they are not disappointed. If I poffefs nothing else, I am fure I poffefs the temper that is fit for your fervice. I know nothing of Bristol, but by the favours I have received, and the virtues I have feen exerted in it.

I shall ever retain, what I now feel, the most perfect and grateful attachment to my friends—and I have no enmities; no refentment. I never can confider fidelity to engage

* Mr. Brickdale opened his poll, it feems, with a tally of thofe very kind of freemen, and voted many hundreds of them.

ments,

ments, and conftancy in friendships, but with the highest approbation; even when thofe noble qualities are employed against my own pretenfions. The gentleman, who is not fortunate as I have been in this conteft, enjoys, in this respect, a confolation full of honour both to himself and to his friends. They have certainly left nothing undone for his fervice.

As for the trifling petulance, which the rage of party stirs up in little minds, though it should fhew itself even in this court, it has not made the flightest impreffion on me. The highest flight of fuch clamorous birds is winged in an inferior region of the air. We hear them, and we look upon them, just as you, gentlemen, when you enjoy the ferene air on your lofty rocks, look down upon the gulls, that skim the mud of your river, when it is exhaufted of its tide.

I am forry I cannot conclude, without faying a word on a topick touched upon by my worthy colleague. I wish that topick had been paffed by; at a time when I have fo little leisure to difcufs it. But fince he has thought proper to throw it out, I owe you a clear explanation of my poor fentiments on that fubject.

He tells you, that " the topick of inftructions has occa"fioned much altercation and uneafinefs in this city;" and he expresses himself (if I understand him rightly) in favour of the coercive authority of fuch instructions.

Certainly, gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative, to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his conftituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion high respect; their bufinefs unremitted attention. It is his duty to facrifice his repose, his pleasures, his fatisfactions, to theirs; and, above all, ever, and in all cafes, to prefer their intereft to his own. § But,

But, his unbiaffed opinion, his mature judgement, his enlightened confcience, he ought not to facrifice to you; to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply anfwerable. Your reprefentative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he facrifices it to your opinion.

My worthy colleague fays, his will ought to be fubfervient to yours. If that be all, the thing is innocent. If government were a matter of will upon any fide, yours, without question, ought to be fuperior. But government and legiflation are matters of reafon and judgement, and not of inclination; and, what fort of reason is that, in which the determination precedes the difcuffion; in which one set of men deliberate, and another decide; and where thofe who form the conclufion are perhaps three hundred miles distant from those who hear the arguments?

To deliver an opinion, is the right of all men; that of constituents is a weighty and refpectable opinion, which a representative ought always to rejoice to hear; and which he ought always moft seriously to confider. But authori tative inftructions; mandates iffued, which the member is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgement and confcience; these are things utterly unknown to the laws of this land, and which arife from a fundamental mistake of the whole order and tenour of our conftitution.

Parliament is not a congress of ambaffadors from different and hoftile interefts; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative affembly of one

nation,

nation, with one intereft, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, refulting from the general reason of the whole. You chufe a member indeed; but when you have chofen him, he is not member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament. If the local constituent should have an interest, or should form an hasty opinion, evidently oppofite to the real good of the rest of the community, the member for that place ought to be as far, as any other, from any endeavour to give it effect. I beg pardon for faying fo much on this fubject. I have been unwillingly drawn into it; but I fhall ever use a respectful frankness of communication with you. Your faithful friend, your devoted fervant, I fhall be to the end of my life: A flatterer you do not wish for. On this point of instructions, however, I think it scarcely poffible, we ever can have any fort of difference. Perhaps I may give you too much, rather than too little trouble.

From the first hour I was encouraged to court your favour to this happy day of obtaining it, I have never promised you any thing, but humble and perfevering endeavours to do my duty. The weight of that duty, I confefs, makes me tremble; and whoever well confiders what it is, of all things in the world will fly from what has the least likeness to a pofitive and precipitate engagement. To be a good member of parliament, is, let me tell you, no easy task ; especially at this time, when there is fo ftrong a difpofition to run into the perilous extremes of fervile compliance, or wild popularity. To unite circumfpection with vigour, is abfolutely neceffary; but it is extremely difficult. We are now members for a rich commercial city; this city, however, is but a part of a rich commercial nation, the interests of which are various, multiform, and intricate. We are

members

.

members for that great nation, which however is itself but part of a great empire, extended by our virtue and our fortune to the fartheft limits of the east and of the weft. All thefe wide-fpread interefts must be confidered; must be compared; must be reconciled if poffible. We are mem

bers for a free country; and furely we all know, that the machine of a free conftitution is no fimple thing; but as intricate and as delicate, as it is valuable. We are members in a great and antient monarchy; and we must preserve religiously, the true legal rights of the fovereign, which form the key-stone that binds together the noble and well-conftructed arch of our empire and our constitution. A conftitution made up of balanced powers must ever be a critical thing. As fuch I mean to touch that part of it which comes within my reach. I know my inability, and I wish for fupport from every quarter. In particular I fhall aim at the friendship, and shall cultivate the best correspondence, of the worthy colleague you have given me.

I trouble you no farther than once more to thank you all; you, gentlemen, for your favours; the candidates for their temperate and polite behaviour; and the fheriffs, for a conduct which may give a model for all who are in public stations.

VOL. II.

D

MR.