as well as duty and gratitude to the much injured freeholders of Middlefex, are the powerful motives of my again troubling the House with a question fo frequently agitated within thefe walls, fo fully difcuffed even the last sesfion, although not hitherto followed with the fuccefs, which I hope on the prefent occafion.

The profligacy, venality, and open attempts against liberty by the last House of Commons, have made their memory odious to the people. The annals of our country are difgraced with their various violations of the rights of the subject. I shall now confine myself to a fingle cafe, but it was of the blackest nature, of the deepest dye, and branched out into many enormities, which ftill demand ample attonement. I allude to the iniquitous and daring refolutions

The Speech of the Speaker, Sir Fletcher Norton, when he reprimanded the Returning Officer of Shoreham, Hugh Roberts, on his knees.

In vain have our ancestors been anxiously careful to fecure the freedom of elections, by all the means human wisdom and forefight could fuggeft; in vain have they particularly guarded againft the partiality of the Returning Officer, and obliged him, by every tie, to a faithful difcharge of that truft, which the Conftitution hath repofed in his hands, if men are to be found DARING enough to fend members to this House, WHO

WERE NEVER CHOSEN BY THE LEGAL ELECTORS.

Journals. Feb. 14, 1771, vol. 33, p. 162.

tions refpecting the elections for the county of Middlesex, and the feating Mr. Luttrell in the Houfe, although he had confeffedly only a mincrity of the fuffrages of the freeholders, in whom the conftitution has placed the right of election. While thefe refolutions, fir, remain among our records, I confider a precedent established under the fanction of this Houfe to rob not only a whole county, but the entire collective body of electors of this kingdom, of their birthright, and moft vaJuable inheritance. It is a precedent, which may be brought home to every borough, city, and county, to every freeholder, every clear

in the island.

The facts were fully stated to the House in the debate on this fubject the last year, and I am perfuaded they live in the memory of every gentleman. I fhall defire the Clerk to read only one refolution. It is that of February 17, 1769, "That John Wilkes, Efq; having

been, in this feffion of Parliament, expelled "this House, was, and is, incapable of being elected a member to ferve in this prefent Parliament." This declaration, in my opinior, transfers from the people to this Houfe the VOL. I. right

I

right of election, and by an unbounded, uncontrouled exercise of the negative power, the House in effect affume the pofitive right of making whom they please the reprefentatives of the people in Parliament. I am very ready to admit that there are various natural and legal incapacities, and when the party is subject to any one of them, he is not eligible. Aliens, minors, bishops, are incapable of being elected into a House of Commons. Befides thefe, there are other incapacities arifing from the peculiar circumstances of the cafe, and some created by particular ftatutes. Where however there is no natural or legal disability, the capacity of being elected is the inherent right of every freeman of the realm. He cannot be divefted of it without an equal injury to the party, and to the conftituent, in whom the power is conftitutionally lodged of determining whom he thinks the most fit and proper person to act for him in the great coun The declaration of the cil of the nation. House therefore, that any man, duly qualified by law, fhall not be allowed to fit in Parlia ment as a reprefentative of the Commons of the realm, was affuming to themfelves the

making

making a new law, to which only the three eftates are adequate. It was disfranchising a whole county, and confequently in effect the united kingdom.

The public attention has been fo long fixed on this important bufinefs, that it would be the weakest and vaineft prefumption in me to attempt any new arguments in fupport of a right acknowledged by every man, who is not in a detestable league for the fubverfion of all our rights, liberties, and franchifes. I fhall not enter on a dull repetition of the debates, which for the last feven years have come on every feffion, nor repeat a multitude of cafes and precedents; but while I have a feat in this House, I pledge myself to my country, that I will be firm and unwearied in my endeavours, till every fyllable on our Journals, which marks the injuftice done to the freeholders of Middlefex, and to every elector in the island, be fully erased or obliterated.

Since the debate, however, on this quef tion in the last feffion, almoft within a fortnight after, a cafe refpecting the election at Abingdon was determined here in a manner diametrically oppofite to one part of this pretend

ed law of Parliament, which has been folemn

.

ly laid down by all the advocates of the miniftry in the affair of Mr. Luttrell. They argued, that all the votes given to Mr. Wilkes were thrown away, because they were given, as they afferted, to a perfon labouring under a legal incapacity, and confequently Mr. Luttrell, with only 296 freeholders, was entitled to his feat in preference to the other candidate with 1143. The majority of the electors of Middlesex, fir, fully anfwered this argument in that remarkable petition prefented to the House by the worthy *baronet near me, on the 29th of April, 1769, in which they afferted, "that "Mr. Luttrell had not the majority of legal

66

votes; nor did they, when they voted for "Mr. Wilkes, mean thereby to throw away "their votes, or to wave their right of repre"fentation, nor would they, by any means, "have chofen to be reprefented by Mr. Luttrell." Notwithstanding this petition, the Houle, on the 8th of May following, declared

Sir George Savile,

Mr.

Than whom a better fenator ne'er held The helm of Rome, when gowns not arms repell'₫ The fierce Epirct, and the African bold.

MILTON.