fome time paft the object of my adverfaries, make it peculiarly incumbent upon the REAL FRIENDS to LIBERTY and the CONSTITUTIOŃ, to diftinguish themfelves by their peaceable and orderly demeanor.

Proud as I am of the repeated teftimonies you have given me of your esteem, your perfeverance in this plan of conduct, will give me more real fatisfaction, and redound more to the honour of the common cause we are engaged in, than any tumultuous demonftrations of triumph.

I have the honour to be,
Gentlemen,

With every fentiment of gratitude and respect,
Your devoted and obedient fervant,

C. J. FOX.

The following is the written Requifition delivered by Sir Cecil Wray to the High Bailiff of Weftminster, at the final clofe of the Poll on Monday laft, April 17, viz.

To Thomas Corbett, Efq. High Bailiff of the City and Liberty of Westminster. "I, Sir CECIL WRAY, Bart. one of the Candidates to ferve in Parliament for "the city and liberty of Westminster, and we the under written Electors of the said city and liberty, do hereby demand of you a fcrutiny of the votes taken at the pre"fent Election of two citizens to ferve in Parliament for the faid city and liberty, as "witnefs our hands this 17th day of May, 1784.

Mountmorres,

R. Butler,

I. Meyer.

D. Mackenzie,

James Croft,

Morris Marfault,

John Robertson,

CECIL WRAY."

Bateman,
Francis Atkinson,
William Adams,

Peter Paul,
John Jackfon,
Rev. John Lloyd.

In confequence of which the faid High Bailiff, to the aftonishment of all mankind, and the hazard of his own dignified perfon, acceded to the demand of a fcrutiny, which he declared fhould commence in the Veftry Room of the parish of St. Ann's, the morning of the 28th inftant, to which declaration, however, was formally entered the following

PRO T E S T.

"WE, Robert Spencer, commonly called Lord Robert Spencer, James Hare, Efq. "and Thomas Stanley, Efq. Electors of the city and liberty of Westminster, do hereby "folemnly and wholly proteft against the fcrutiny now demanded and allowed by the "High Bailiff, to commence after the return of the writ, and against all proceedings "to be had and taken by the faid High Bailiff in confequence thereof, as illegal and "unprecedented, as witness our hands the 17th day of May, 1784.

ROBERT SPENCER,
JAMES HARE,
THOMAS STANLEY."

Witness, JOHN ROBERT COCKER.

E e

Το

St. James's-freet, June 10, 17840

To the Independent Electors of the City of Westminster.

Gentlemen,

The difficulty of alluding with propriety, to a fubject actually in difcuffion before the Houfe of Commons, and the impoffibility of wholly omitting the mention of the late return in any Addrefs to you, have been the motives which have hitherto induced ine to refute myfelf the fatisfaction of expreffing my gratitude to you, for the great honour you have done me, in electing me a fourth time to be your Reprefentative in Parliament.

I do affure you, that I do not feel the obligations you have conferred upon me the Jefs, because they have not yet had their full effect. The plan which appears to have been concerted between his Majefty's Minifters and the High Bailiff, to deprive you of your rights, has been indeed but too fuccefsfully executed. The extreme caution with which the return appears to have been framed, in order ftudiously to avoid all legal examination, either in the common Courts of Justice, or before a Committee under Mr. Grenville's Act, and the art with which the Miniftry have contrived to revive, in this inftance, the judicature of the Houfe of Commons in matters of Election, are circumftances which deferve your most serious attention, and which of themfelves fufficiently evince the opinion entertained of thefe late measures by their authors. No other return could have answered their purpose of avoiding legal examination, and of precluding you from legal redrefs. If the High Bailiff had returned Sir Cecil Wray, a petition against fuch return must have been heard by a Committee upon oath, and a speedy remedy must have been obtained. If a double return had been the measure, your redress would have been still more immediate; the wifdom of our ancestors having given a justpriority to fuch cafes, upon that facred and fundamental principle, never till now vio lated, that the firft bufinefs of a Houfe of Commons upon the meeting of Parliament, is to fee that its numbers are complete. Even if Lord Hood had been returned fingly, fuch a return could not have been explained away, fo as not to fall under the provisions of Mr. Grenville's act. To avoid, therefore, the poffibility of your caufe being referred to any other tribunal than that of the House of Commons at large, a tribunal whofe injuftice and partiality, in matters of Election, have been recognized by the House itself, a mode of return was invented, for which no precedent has been found on the records of Parliament, and the Houfe of Commons have determined that the High Bailiff may go on with the fcrutiny. Refpect to the Houfe of Commons forbids me to make any other obfervation upon their decifion, than that it must make the neceffity of Mr. Grenville's act univerfally acknowledged.

I proteft folemnly against the legality of this fcrutiny; but I will hun no opportunity of vindicating the infulted character of my conftituents. I therefore fubmit to proceed upon it, with this determination, while I am thanking you for paft favours, I must earneftly folicit the continuance of your exertions in your feveral parishes, as well to detect the bad votes of our adverfaries, as to defend. fuch of our own, as may be unjustly at

tacked.

The audacious manner in which the High Bailiff justified himself at the bar of the Houfe of Commons, upon these very grounds which he difclaimed with indignation in the Veftry Room---the virulence and party ipirit that appeared in his written defence, which his friends were yet prudent enough to prevent being fubmitted to the perufal of the Members; and above all, the clandeftine intercourfe which appears to have been carried on between him and my opponents, during the whole time of the Election, and the boundless confidence which he feems to have given to all the idle tales of their agents,

yield us no very flattering profpect of equity or fairness in the Court before which this enquiry is to be conducted; but truth and juftice, fupported by perfeverance and refolution, will ultimately be triumphant against the daring confpiracy which has been formed against them.

To raife tumults and riots by the means of Conftables, whofe duty it is to preferve the peace; to make fuch riots the pretence for an unconftitutional introduction of the military during an Election; to attempt, by a moft infamous profecution, to take away the lives of innocent men; and finally, by an unprecedented return, to exclude this city from the benefit of Mr. Grenville's Act, and to deprive you of your right of Reprefentation, fo that your money may be given and granted without your confent; thefe are the arts, by which thofe, who have in vain courted your favour, now hope to intimidate you into fubmiffion. I feel myfelf affured, they will find, that it is as impoffible to terrify you, as to deceive; and that this refpectable city, will, in this feason of popular delufion, ftand a fplendid example of fteadinefs and attachment to thofe principles, to which the King owes his Crown, and Great Britain her liberty. It will be my humble task, both in and out of Parliament, to fecond your efforts, and to do all in my power to justify the partiality you have fhewn me through fuch arduous trials and with fuch unfhaken perfeverance.

I must repeat again, that no words can exprefs thofe fentiments of gratitude with which I have the honour to be,

Gentlemen,
Your most obliged,

and devoted fervant,

C. J. FOX.*

*The above moft fenfible and elegant addrefs needs no comment; yet we cannot in this place forego the pleasure of congratulating our fellow-citizens in Westminster, and the kingdom at large, on the glorious conquest obtained by fo decided a majority over Court influence and minifterial manœuvre. The Scrutiny now carrying on, if ever gone through with by Sir Cecil Wray, will, we doubt not, fill more fplendidly mark the overthrow of venality by the fpirited independence of FREE MEN, who, in the very face of HIGH AUTHORITY unconftitutionally exerted, dared to oppose a noble resistance to arrogant invafion, and return, by legal fuffrages, once more to Parliament, the man who never yet, either in or out of office, loft fight of thofe valuable rights of the people, that can alone preserve to us the true spirit and active principle of our happy Conflitution, handed down to us by our ancestors in those two great Charters of Liberty, Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights, as fettled at the Revolution.

The

The Importance of Newspapers in a free Country (fuch as England) is never forgot by the Public Minifters; and Party Men of all Denominations are truly fenfible of their Utility. At Elections they claim a particular Pre-eminence, and in no Election have they affumed and maintained more Confequence than in that of which we treat. We therefore doubt not of having the Approbation of the Public, in felecting from the Papers of the Day the following Paragraphs and mifcellaneous Matter, which applied particularly to the Westminster Contest. We shall arrange the Paragraphs as we have done the Hand-bills and Advertisements -thofe for Hood and Wray apart, and thofe for Mr. Fox likewife apart, to follow Hood and Wray's, with a running Title to each.

The TRUE MEANING of Mr. FOX's ADVERTISEMENT. To the Worthy and Independent Electors of the City and Liberty of Westminster. His Majefty's Minifters (they ought to have been nine) having thought fit, (without my confent) in contradiction to their own declarations, (which I cannot refer to) in defiance of the fenfe of the House of Commons, (i. e. in defiance of the intereft of a small majority, acting in defiance to the fenfe of the nation, and therefore nothing more than John Roe and Thomas Doe) and without any public pretence whatever, to fubject the nation to all the inconveniences, &c. (this is giving the 1-e direct to the Speech from the Throne, which affigns a specific reafon viz. to take the fenfe of the nation on the late parliamentary ufurpations upon the Crown and the India Company.) I humbly beg leave to folicit (very humble, not to fay beggarly, indeed!) "To fecure to the people of "this country the weight that belongs to them in the fcale of the Conflitution, has ever been "the principle of my political conduct." (Which people does the great patron of the nation's weight in the Conftitution mean? the people without doors, or the people within? This depends upon his being in or out of office, in a majority or a minority. In the former, they are uniformly within doors; if in the latter, the people are without doors, wherever he can find them his friends; and by this poor bare-faced collufion has he kept up the farce of popularity, till now the very butcher's dog fmells the cheat, and lifts the leg of contempt against the Man of the People. How very foolifh are moft cunning men!)

CARLO KHAN's ADDRESS to the ELECTORS of W---------R. Gentlemen,

Our gracious K--- having (unfortunately for me) difcovered the full fcope and defign of my political conduct, from the features of my Eaft India Bill, which would have robbed the first Company of Merchants in the world of their charter; which would. have given me the patronage of two millions fterling a year, and have created a new power in this kingdom, of which I fhould have been the fole Director and Sovereign Protector; knowing too the turbulence of my temper, and the deranged ftate of my finances; for thefe, and fuch other like futile confiderations, thought proper to difmifs me and my noble friend in the blue ribband from his fervice. Determined to resent. this mark of the K---'s difpleafure, and to recover (if poffible) an office which procured me the annual fum of eight thoufand pounds, I immediately exerted all those powers with which I am so happily gifted, to perfuade the Houfe that the Constitution

was