tents of the nation;---military force was deemed neceffary to the support of the laws and government, as well as to the domestic fecurity of the people ;---and the utmost stretch of arbitrary power did not prefent to the imagination evils fo immediately alarming as the fury of an ungoverned rabble. This ftate of things encouraged the ministers to take a step, which they probably would not otherwise have ventured upon; and a proclamation for diffolving the parliament, and for calling a new one, was ifsued on the first of September. Mr. BURKE repaired to Bristol with all poffible dispatch; but it was only to experience the humiliating rebuff, of which he had been for fome time apprehensive. As, however, a very large party of quakers and other diffenters ftill remained firm in his intereft, he was induced to make a short trial of his strength with three candidates who had started before him. His fpeech to the freemen at the Guildhall on the fixth of September met with just applaufe. It foon appeared in print, and contained a defence of his parliamentary conduct in a ftile very different from the little, filly, canvass prattle of implicit obedience to the inftructions of his conftituents. He had faithfully endeavoured to do them the utmoft fervice, and to maintain their interefts even against their opinions. To be pleafed with that fervice, he told them, was their affair, not bis. He had not looked to the flash of the day. He knew that he had been chofen, in his place, along with others, to be a pillar of the flate, and not a weather-cock on the top of the edifice, exalted for his levity. and verfatility, and of no ufe but to indicate the shiftings of every fashionable gale. He had voted for conceffions in favour of Ireland, on the very fame principles that he had voted for conceffions in favor of America. He had alfo given his fupport to lord BEAUCHAMP'S bill for reforming the law-procefs concerning imprifonment,

I i

prifonment, though his conftituents, from a mistaken idea of its being injurious to credit, had petitioned against that reform.* As to the charge brought against him for his concurrence in the repeal of the penal laws against Roman catholics, he said it was a calumny fitter to be fcrawled with the midnight chalk of incendiaries, with “No popery," on walls and doors of devoted houses, than to be mentioned in any civilized company. Yet he entered into a full refutation of it, and thus concluded his manly appeal to the candour and good sense of the meeting:

"Gentlemen, I do not here ftand before you, accused of venality, or of neglect of duty. It is not faid, that, in the long period of my fervice, I have, in a fingle inftance, facrificed the flighteft of your interests to my ambition or to my fortune. It is not alledged, that to gratify any anger, or revenge of my own, or of my party, I have had a fhare in wronging or oppreffing any description of men, or any man in any description. No! the charges against me, are all of one kind, that I have pushed the principles of general justice and benevolence too far; further than

In order to fhew that the counting-houfe had no alliance with the jail, Mr. BURKE mentioned Mr. HOWARD'S account of the few prisoners for debt that he found in Holland; and thence took occafion to pay the due tribute of praife to that gentleman's humane exertions. "I cannot name him," said the orator," without remarking that his labours and writings have done much to open the eyes and hearts of mankind. He has visited all Europe,—not to furvey the sumptuoufness of palaces, or the stateliness of temples; not to make accurate measurements of the remains of antient grandeur, nor to form a fcale of the curiofity of modern art; not to collect medals, or collate manufcripts ;— but to dive into the depths of dungeons; to plunge into the infection of hofpitals; to furvey the manfions of forrow and pain; to take the gage and dimenfions of mifery, depreffion and contempt; to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to vifit the forfaken, and to compare and collate the diftreffes of all men in all countries. His plan is original, and it is as full of genius as it is of humanity. It was a voyage of dif covery-a circumnavigation of charity." The beauty of this panegyric is confiderably heightened by our conviction of its juftice.

a cautious

a cautious policy would warrant; and further than the opinions of many would go along with me.-In every accident which may happen through life, in pain, in forrow, in depreffion, and diftrefs---I will call to mind this accufation, and be comforted. Gentlemen, I fubmit the whole to your judgment. *** If this company should think it advifeable for me to withdraw, I fhall respectfully retire: if you think otherwise, I fhall go directly to the Council-house and to the 'Change, and without a moment's delay begin my canvass.”

As the meeting confifted chiefly of Mr. BURKE's friends, they came to feveral refolutions, warmly approving of his eminent fervices, and affuring him of their full and ftrenuous support. The business being over, he went to the Exchange, and offered himself as a candidate in the usual manner. Thofe, who had efpoufed his cause, endeavoured by their zeal and by their exertions to maintain a spirited struggle with the superior numbers of his opponents---but in vain. During the conteft, intelligence was brought him while on the huftings, that one of the candidates had just died---" This," faid he, moralizing on the fudden event, "thews us what shadows we are, and what fhadows we purfue." He declined a continuance of the poll, very candidly informing the citizens at the fame time, that it would have been far more agreeable to him never to have been the object of their choice, than to be rejected after trial. He then went down to Malton, where he was once more chofen, and which borough he continued to represent till he finally withdrew from parliament. He never after made any attempt to regain the confidence of the electors of Bristol, though a fort of connecting link between him and them was kept up by the appointment of his brother, Mr. RICHARD BURKE, to the recordership of that city, on the death of Mr. DUNNING

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DUNNING [lord ASHBURTON.] Some ftaunch and respectable friends were always ready to testify their efteem for him, till the unhappy period, when his flagrant desertion of those principles which had once been his pride and glory,---when his shameful compromise with the tools of arbitrary power,---when his acceptance of a paltry bribe at the very time that nature denied him the power of enjoying it,---in fhort, when his ribbald invectives against the affertors of civil and religious liberty, rent asunder all the bonds of generous attachment, and made him an object of just abhorrence to every man of honour and virtue.

It was not only at Bristol, but at the hustings in Covent Garden, that Mr. BURKE experienced no fmall mortification from the flanderous report of his attachment to popery. His friend, Mr. Fox, was then engaged in a very sharp contest with the earl of LINCOLN, in favour of whom all the weight, power, and influence of the court were fully exerted. Mr. BURKE, having at that time a vote for Westminster, went to give it to his friend; but was challenged as a papift. Lord LINCOLN's mob infifted on his being fworn, and nothing for a few minutes could be heard but loud cries of "tip him the long oath---TIP HIM THE LONG OATH"---It was neceffary to comply; and Mr. BURKE, who of all men had the least command of his paffions, no fooner kiffed the book than he flung it with the most furious indignation among the populace. This, however, was not the only instance of his venting his rage upon a poor book, when its contents or the use made of it happened to irritate him. In a debate on a grant for the ordinary and extraordinary fervices of the navy in February 1778, he was so far hurried beyond the bounds of decorum, as to throw the book of estimates at the treasury bench, exclaiming, that it was treating the house with the utmost con

tempt,

tempt, to present them with a fine gilt book of eftimates, calculated to a farthing, for purposes to which the money granted was never meant to be applied. The houfe fimiled at this new rhetorical flourish, the violence of the gefture having innocently spent itself in knocking down the candle, and warning Mr. WELBORE ELLIS to take care of his fhins. At another time, Mr. BURKE'S quick fenfe of indignity discovered itself by flight. He had juft rifen with some papers in his hand, on the subject of which he intended to make a motion, when a rough-hewn member, who had no ear for the charms of eloquence, rudely started up, and faid, "Mr. Speaker, I hope the honourable gentleman does not mean to read that large bundle of papers, and to bore us with a long speech into the bargain."---Mr. BURKE was fo fwoln, or rather so nearly fuffocated with rage, as to be at the inftant incapable of utterance, and abfolutely ran out of the house. On this Occafion GEORGE SELWYN remarked, that it was the only time he ever faw the fable realized---a lion put to flight by the braying of an ass!

Though the elections had turned out very much in favour of the court, as appeared by the divifions on the choice of a new fpeaker, [Mr. CORNWALL] and on the addrefs, yet the oppofition did not lofe courage. They thought that a fyftem founded in error and in injuftice, fupported by fallacy and corruption, and. tending alike to exhauft the vital and commercial refources of the nation, could not be of much longer continuance. The commencement of hoftilities against the Dutch afforded Mr. BURKE a new subject of declamation on the arrogance, the rashness, the frenzy of the minifter, in provoking an old ally to join the confederacy of Great Britain's enemies. Lord NORTH, however, withstood for above a year longer the tremendous batteries of the

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