TO THE ELECTORS OF WESTMINSTER, GENTLEMEN, I THINK it my duty, on the present occasion, to solicit your votes to represent you in the ensuing parliament. The evident junction of two contending parties, in order to seize with an irresistible hand the Representation of the City of Westminster, and to deprive you even of that shadow of Election to which they have lately reduced you, calls aloud on every independent mind to endeavour to frustrate such attempts; and makes me, for the first time in my life, a candidate. I do not solicit your favour; but I invite you, and afford you an opportunity, to do yourselves justice, and to give an example (which was never more necessary) against the prevailing and destructive spirit of personal Party, which had nearly extinguished all national and public principle. The enormous sums expended, and the infamous practices at the two last Elections for the City of Westminster,-open bribery, violence, perjury, and murder, with the scandalous chicane of a tedious, unfinished, and ineffectual scrutiny, and a tedious, unfinished and ineffectual petition, are too flagrant and notorious to be denied or palliated by either Party and the only refuge of each has been, to shift off the criminality upon the other. Upon whom, and how, will they shift off the common criminality, equally heavy on them both, that neither of them has made even the smallest attempt by an easy par liamentary and constitutional method to prevent the repetition of such practices in future? If the revenue is threatened to be defrauded in the smallest article, law upon law, and statute upon statute are framed from Session to Session without delay or intermission. No right of the subject, however sacred, but must give way to Revenue. The country swarms with Excisemen, and Informers to protect it. Conviction is sure, summary, speedy.-The punishment Outlawry, and Death. Where, amongst all their hideous volumes of taxes and of penalties, can we find one solitary single statute to guard the right of representation in the people, upon which alone all right of taxation depends? Your late Representatives, and your two present Candidates have, between them, given you a complete demonstration that the rights.of Electors (even in those few places where any Election yet appears to remain) are left without protection, and their violation without redress. And for a conduct like this, they who have never concurred in any means to secure you a peaceable and fair Election, after all their hostilities, come forward hand in hand, with the same general and hacknied professions of devotion to your interest, unblushingly to demand your approbation and support! GENTLEMEN, Throughout the history of the world, down to the present moment, all personal parties and factions have always been found dangerous to the liberties of every free people; but their COALITIONS, unless resisted and punished by the public, certainly fatal. I may be mistaken, but I am firmly persuaded, that there still remains in this country a Public, both able and willing to teach its Government that it has other more important duties to perform besides the levying of Taxes, creation of Peerages, compromising of Counties, and arrangement of Boroughs. With a perfect indifference for my own personal success, I give you this opportunity of commencing that lesson to those in Administration, which it is high time they were taught. The fair and honourable expences of an Election, (and of a Petition too, if necessary) I will bear with cheerfulness. And if, by your spirited exertions to do yourselves right, of which I entertain no doubt, I should be seated as your Representative, whenever you shall think you have found some other person likely to perform the duties of that station more honestly and usefully to the country, it shall, without hesitation, be resigned by me with much greater plea sure than it is now solicited. I am, GENTLEMEN, Your most obedient Servant, JOHN HORNE TOOKE. Wednesday, June 16, 1790. TO THE ELECTORS OF WESTMINSTER. My mind, Gentlemen, is filled with satisfaction and delight. The factions of this country will soon be where they ought to be, at the feet of the public, Their Lords, their Dukes, and their Princes, have been compelled by you to combine, and openly to exert their utmost influence against the smallest and most unconnected individual in the land. Truth, and a clear principle, have served us as a sling and a stone; and with these in our hands, we have not been dismayed, and we will not be dismayed at the most formidable political adversaries. Individually feeble, and, till this moment, totally strangers to each other, we have, in seventeen days, restored more principle to the public mind, than they have been able to destroy in more than seventeen years. I came down to this contest, Gentlemen, single and alone, without communication, consultation, or notice of any sort, to any one creature upon the face of the earth; without the smallest support, an object of the scorn, brutality, and derision, of a band of ruffians who surrounded me. When, on the first day of the Election, I polled twenty-two votes, they were exactly two and twenty more than I expected. I continued for many days upon the Hustings contentedly, and cheerfully polling my score a day. Now, how do I retire?-With sixteen hundred and seventy-nine awakened and approving electors, who are neither to be influenced by hope or by fear, by Administration or Opposition; and with the hearts and inclinations of more than three fourths of the electors who have given their votes against me; and of ninety-nine out of a hundred ofthose who have not voted at all. GENTLEMEN, I do not consider what has been passing before us as any Election. As things at present are managed, it is impossible that the real Electors of Westminster should enjoy even that pitiful share of representation which is nominally left them. I trust I shall be the means of doing away for ever the infamies of what is called a Westminster Election. The sacrifice which I have already made, is, personally, very important to me; but I will go farther. For your sake, not for my own, I will present a petition against the return of Mr. Fox and Lord Hood, to Parliament. And I will endeavour to extort, by shame, fróm those whom no engagements, no honour, no sense of public justice, or of public decency, can move; I will endeavour, by shame, to extort redress, and a peaceable quiet election in future, without perjury or bloodshed, for the real Electors of Westminster. GENTLEMEN, Whenever, by some new Coalition, which probably is not far distant, some consequent preferment shall vacate Mr. Fox's seat for Westminster, I shall again present myself to you for your choice. I am, GENTLEMEN, Your most obedient Servant, JOHN HORNE TOOKE. |