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of party

"As for the trifling petulance, which the rage stirs up in little minds, though it should shew itself even in this court, it has not made the slightest impression on me. The highest flight of such 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 your serene air on your lofty rocks, look down upon the gulls, that skim the mud off your river, when it is exhausted of its tide.

"I am sorry I cannot conclude, without saying a word on a topic touched upon by my worthy colleague. I wish that topic had been passed by, at a time when I have so little leisure to discuss it. But since he has thought proper to throw it out, I owe you a clear explanation of my poor sentiments on that subject.

"He tells you, "that the topic of instructions has occasioned much altercation and uneasiness in this city;" and he expresses himself (if I understand him rightly) in favor of the coërcive authority of such 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 constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion high respect; their business unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs ; and, above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But, his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice 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 answerable. Your representative owes you, not his indus

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try only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

"My worthy colleague says, his will ought to be subservient to yours. If that be all, the thing is innocent. If government were a matter of will upon any side, yours, without question, ought to be superior. But government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination; and, what sort of reason is that, in which the determination precedes the discussion; in which one set of men deliberate, and another decide; and where those, who from the conclusion 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 respectable opinion, which a representative ought always to rejoice to hear; and which he ought always most seriously to consider. But authoritative instructions, mandates issued, which the member is bound blindly, and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgment and conscience, these are things utterly unknown to the laws of this land, and which arise from a fundamental mistake of the whole order and tenor of our constitution.

"Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests, which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against the other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You chuse a member indeed; but when you have chosen 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 a hasty opinion, evidently opposite 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 saying so much on this subject. I have been unwillingly drawn into it; but I shall ever use a respectful frankness of communication with you. Your faithful friend, your devoted servant, I shall be to the end of my life: a flatterer you do not wish for. On this point of instructions, however, I think it scarcely possible we ever can have any sort of difference. Perhaps I may give you too much, rather than too little trouble.

"From the first hour I was encouraged to court your favor 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 confess, makes me tremble; and whoever well considers what it is, of all things in the world will fly from what has the least likeness to a positive 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 so strong a disposition to run into the perilous extremes of servile compliance or wild popularity. To unite circumspection with vigor is absolutely necessary; 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 for that great nation, which however is itself but part of a great empire, extended by our virtue and our fortune to the farthest limits of the east and of the All these wide-spread interests must be considered; must be compared; must be reconciled if possible. We are members for a free country; and surely we all know, that the machine of a free constitution is no simple

west.

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thing; but as intricate, and as delicate, as it is valuable. We are members in a great and ancient monarchy; and we must preserve religiously the true legal rights of the sovereign, which form the key-stone that binds together the noble and well-constructed arch of our empire and our constitution. A constitution made up of balanced powers must ever be a critical thing. As such I mean to touch that part of it which comes within my reach. I know my inability, and I wish for support from every quarter. In particular I shall 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 favors; the candie dates, for their temperate and polite behaviour; and the sheriffs for a conduct which may give a model for all who are in public stations."

MR. BURKE'S SPEECHES

TO THE

ELECTORS OF BRISTOL

IN 1780.

HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS.

In the course of Mr. BURKE's parliamentary exertions for the six years that he represented Bristol, he had the misfortune to shock in many instances the political and commercial, as well as the religious prejudices of his constituents, particularly by his support of certain resolutions favorable to the trade of Ireland; by his mode of proceed

ing

ing on Lord BEAUCHAMP's bill for reforming the law process concerning imprisonment; and by his votes on the popery acts. It is probable that his written and printed defences of those measures would have softened the asperity of some of the prejudices; but the frantic tumults about popery, in the year 1780, kindled a blaze which it was not in the power of his eloquence to extinguish. A proclamation for dissolving the parliament, and for calling a new one, having been issued on the first of September, Mr. BURKE repaired to Bristol with all possible dispatch; but previously to his making any trial of his strength against three candidates who had started before him, he entered into the following justification of his public conduct in a speech addressed to a numerous meeting of the freemen, convened by the Mayor at the Guildhall on the sixth of September:

"MR. MAYOR AND GENTLEMEN,

"I am extremely pleased at the appearance of this large and respectable meeting. The steps I may be obliged to take will want the sanction of a considerable authority; and in explaining any thing which may appear doubtful in my public conduct, I must naturally desire a very full audience,

I have been backward to begin my canvass.-The dissolution of the parliament was uncertain; and it did not become me, by an unseasonable importunity, to appear diffident of the fact of my six years' endeavour to please you. I had served the city of Bristol honorably; and the city of Bristol had no reason to think, that the means of honorable service to the public were become indifferent to

me.

"I found, on my arrival here, that three gentlemen had been long in eager pursuit of an object, which but

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