8 SPEECH AT HIS ARRIVAL AT BRISTOL. rendered infignificant in the eyes of a great trading city; or whether you chuse to give a weight to humble abilities, for the fake of the honeft exertions with which they are accompanied. This is my trial to-day. My industry is not on trial. Of my industry I am fure, as far as my conftitution of mind and body admitted.

When I was invited by many refpectable merchants, freeholders, and freemen of this city, to offer them my fervices, I had juft received the honour of an election at another place, at a very great distance from this. I immediately opened the matter to those of my worthy constituents who were with me, and they unanimously advised me not to decline it. They told me, that they had elected me with a view to the publick fervice; and as great questions relative to our commerce and colonies were imminent, that in fuch matters I might derive authority and support from the representation of this great commercial city; they defired me therefore to fet off without delay, very well persuaded that I never could forget my obligations to them, or to my friends, for the choice they had made of me. From that time to this instant I have not flept; and if I should have the honour of being freely chofen by you, I hope I shall be as far from flumbering or fleeping when your service requires me to be awake, as I have been in coming to offer myself a candidate for your favour.

MR.

MR. BURKE'S

SPEECH

TO THE

ELECTORS OF

BRISTOL,

ON HIS BEING DECLARED BY THE SHERIFFS, DULY ELECTED ONE OF THE REPRESENTATIVES IN PARLIAMENT FOR THAT CITY,

On THURSDAY the 3d of NOVEMBER, 1774.

GENTLEMEN,

I

Cannot avoid fympathizing strongly with the feelings of the gentleman who has received the fame honour that you have conferred on me. If he, who was bred and paffed his whole life amongst you; if he, who, through the easy gradations of acquaintance, friendship, and esteem, has obtained the honour, which feems of itself, naturally and almost infenfibly, to meet with thofe, who, by the even tenour of pleasing manners and focial virtues, flide into the love and confidence of their fellow-citizens;-if he cannot fpeak but with great emotion on this fubject, furrounded as he is on all fides with his old friends; you will have the goodness to excufe me, if my real, unaffected embarraffment prevents me from expreffing my gratitude to you as I ought.

I was brought hither under the disadvantage of being unknown, even by fight, to any of you. No previous canvass was made for me. I was put in nomination after the poll VOL. II.

C

was

was opened. I did not appear until it was far advanced. If, under all these accumulated difadvantages, your good opinion has carried me to this happy point of success; you will pardon me, if I can only fay to you collectively, as I faid to you individually, fimply and plainly, I thank you—I am obliged to you-I am not infenfible of your kindness. This is all that I am able to say for the inestimable favour you have conferred upon me. But I cannot be fatisfied, without faying a little more in defence of the right you have to confer fuch a favour. The perfon that appeared here as counfel for the candidate, who fo long and fo earneftly folicited your votes, thinks proper to deny, that a very great part of you have any votes to give. He fixes a ftandard period of time in his own imagination, not what the aw defines, but merely what the convenience of his client fuggefts, by which he would cut off, at one stroke, all those freedoms, which are the deareft privileges of your corpora➡ tion; which the common law authorizes: which your magiftrates are compelled to grant; which come duly authenticated into this court; and are faved in the cleareft words, and with the most religious care and tenderness, in that very act of parliament, which was made to regulate the elections by freemen, and to prevent all poffible abuses in making them.

I do not intend to argue the matter here. My learned counsel has fupported your cause with his usual ability; the worthy sheriffs have acted with their usual equity, and I have no doubt, that the fame equity, which dictates the return, will guide the final determination. I had the honour, in conjunction with many far wifer men, to contribute a very small affistance, but however fome affistance, to the forming the judicature which is to try fuch questions. It would be unnatural in me, to doubt the justice of that court,

in

in the trial of my own caufe, to which I have been so active to give jurisdiction over every other.

I affure the worthy freemen, and this corporation, that, if the gentleman perfeveres in the intentions, which his prefent warmth dictates to him, I will attend their caufe with diligence, and I hope with effect. For, if I know any thing of myself, it is not my own interest in it, but my full conviction, that induces me to tell you-I think there is not a Shadow of doubt in the cafe.

I do not imagine that you find me rash in declaring myself, or very forward in troubling you. From the beginning to the end of the election, I have kept filence in all matters of difcuffion. I have never afked a question of a voter on the other fide, or fupported a doubtful vote on my own. I refpected the abilities of my managers; I relied on the candour of the court. I think the worthy sheriffs will bear me witness, that I have never once made an attempt to impofe upon their reason, to furprize their justice, or to ruffle their temper. I ftood on the huftings (except when I gave my thanks to those who favoured me with their votes) less like a candidate, than an unconcerned spectator of a public proceeding. But here the face of things is altered. Here is an attempt for a general massacre of fuffrages; an attempt, by a promiscuous carnage of friends and foes, to exterminate above two thousand votes, including seven hundred polled for the gentleman bimfelf, who now complains, and who would destroy the friends whom he has obtained, only because he cannot obtain as many of them as he wishes.

How he will be permitted, in another place, to stultify and difable himself, and to plead against his own acts, is another question. The law will decide it. I fhall only speak of it as it concerns the propriety of public conduct in this city. I do not pretend to lay down rules of decorum for

other gentlemen. They are beft judges of the mode of proceeding that will recommend them to the favour of their fellow-citizens. But I confefs, I fhould look rather awkward, if I had been the very first to produce the new copies of freedom, if I had perfifted in producing them to the last; if I had ranfacked, with the most unremitting, industry, and the most penetrating research, the remoteft corners of the kingdom to discover them; if I were then, all at once, to turn fhort, and declare, that I had been fporting all this while with the right of election: and that I had been drawing out a poll, upon no fort of rational grounds, which difturbed the peace of my fellow-citizens for a month together—I really, for my part, fhould appear awkward under fuch circumstances.

It would be still more awkward in me, if I were gravely to look the sheriffs in the face, and to tell them, they were not to determine my caufe on my own principles; nor to make the return upon those votes, upon which I had rested my election. Such would be my appearance to the court and magistrates.

But how should I appear to the voters themselves? If I had gone round to the citizens intitled to freedom, and fqueezed them by the hand-" Sir, I humbly beg your "vote-I fhall be eternally thankful-may I hope for the "honour of your fupport?-Well!-come-we fhall fee 66 you at the council-house."-If I were then to deliver them to my managers, pack them into tallies, vote them off in court, and when I heard from the bar-" Such a one only! "and fuch a one for ever!-he's my man!"-" Thank you, "good fir-Hah! my worthy friend! thank you kindly— "that's an honeft fellow-how is your good family?”—Whilst thefe words were hardly out of my mouth, if I should have wheeled round at once, and told them-" Get you gone,