stated in the requisition, and as sanctioned by the Sheriff, is this: "to consider of a proper person to be put in "no nination" to serve the county as a member of parliament. Now, Gentlemen, this is a serious and solemn occasion, and so, I hope, you will consider it. We are not me for the vile purpose of hallooing and hooting at the holding up of the finger of a party leader; we are not met to degrade ourselves beneath the beasts that perish, but to exercise our judgment; to decide upon an important question, agreeably to the dictates of reason and of conscience. Apparently, all those, whom I have the bonour of addressing, are the friends, some of one of the candidates and some of the other; and, I can assure you, that I am the enemy of neither. They are both gentlemen of fortune and of respectable family; 2nd, of such members of parliament ought to consist. I am for choosing neither vagabonds nor upstarts, who, in general, when possessed of power, prove the worst tyrants. I object to neither of these gentlemen; but, before I give my vote, I must have an assurance, that the person for whom I vote will do, upon certain great points, that which I think is essential to the public good; and, in order that you may see the reasonableness of the assurance that I require, I will, with your indulgence, now state to you what the constitution says respecting the points which I have more immediately in view. First, then, Gentlemen, the constitution declares, that "the election of "members to serve in parliament shall be "free"; thereby meaning, that no undue influence of any sort shall be made use of to bias the minds, or obtain the votes of the electors; and next, which is what I more particularly wish you to attend to, it declares, "that no person, holding an office, or "place of profit, under the king, or having a pension from the crown, shall be capable of serving as a member of the "House of Commons." And, Gentlemen, if you consider the duties, which members of parliament have to perform, you will see the justice and reasonableness of this excellent rule of the Constitution, of all which duties, the first and greatest is, to see that the people's money is not improperly granted, and, when granted, not improperly expended. The House of Commons are called the guardians of the public treasure; and, sometimes, still more emphatically, the holders of the national purse-strings. Now only think, Gentlemen, of the great importance of this office. How long would each of you deliberate; what scrutinizing inquiries would

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you make; what solemn promises would you exact, before you would intrust any one with the absolute care and management of your purse. Would you not be quite certain, that he was possessed of integrity enough to secure it from the light fingers of the pick-pocket, and of resolution more than sufficient to defend the open assaults of the highway robber? Yes; and how many years of probation, would you require, before you ventured to confide to him the taking out of the purse just what he pleased? Besides, Gentlemen, we are to consider what is the company, amongst whom we are about to send either Mr. Herbert or Mr. Heathcote; for, unfurnished with that knowledge, it is next to impossible that we should be able to judge which of them is best calculated for the duty we are about to impose upon one or the other. It is a rule in common life to fit the person, or the animal, to the service: we use a dog and not a sheep for the driving of cattle. Leg us see, then, what sort of company that is, into which we are going to send one of the two gentlemen, who have been this day presented to us, as proper to be entrusted with the holding of the strings of our purse. And, here, Gentlemen, I must, with your leave, refer to a written memorandum of names and sums. The House of Commons, which now consists of 658 members, contains persons, who enjoy the emoJuments of 112 places and pensions. But, before I proceed further, suffer me to state to you upon what authority I am about to lay before you these interesting facts.They are drawn from a Report presented to the House of Commons, in consequence of a motion, made by that intelligent, upright, disinterested, and valiant nobleman, LORD COCHRANE, who, having so often defeated the enemies of England at sea, appears to have wished to contribute towards defeating its more dangerous enemies on shore. His lordship's motion, which would have brought into view all the placed and pensioned relations of the members, was, in a great measure defeated; but, we have, at any rate, got some information from it. The list, even of the members themselves, is very incom plete. It is acknowledged to be incomplete by those who make the Report. Many of the offices, out of mere modesty, I suppose, have not the amount of the emoluments placed against them; and, there are several placemen and pensioners, owing to the want of the returns from the department whence their emoluments arise, who are not mentioned at all, in any part of the Report. But, even from this Report, imperfect as it is, it

appears, that there actually are, in the House of Commons, 78 members, who are placemen or pensioners; that they enjoy amongst them 112 places and pensions; that these places and pensions amount to £178,994 a year, which sum, if it were equally divided, would give to each member of the whole House, £272 a year; and, I am convinced, that, if all the emoluments had been annexed, and all the names brought into view, the sum would have been double what it now appears. What, then, would you say if you, could behold the long list of places and pensions enjoyed by the relations of the different members? Suffer me now to state some particulars from this list; because they very nearly concern ourselves. First, Gentlemen of Romsey, there is your noble neighbour, my Lord Palmerston, who receives £1,000 a year. Secondly, Gentlemen of Bishop's Waltham, there is your neighbour, Mr. Sturges Bourne (who was standing amongst some tall men in the crowd, at the time) receives 1,500 a year. Thirdly, Gentlemen of the Isle of Wight, there is your Governor, my Lord Fitzharris, who, as governor of the Island, receives £1,379, and, observe, he has taken care to have a grant of this place for his life, sick or well; though, I must say, that in all probability, he is as able to command a military force, being bed-ridden, as if he were actually on the back of his charger. This lord has, besides, secured a further grant of the public money to the amount of £1,200 a year for life, to commence after his father's, Lord Malmsbury's, death, and Lord Malmsbury has received for fifteen years past, and isto receive for his life, a pension of £2,300 a year. This, Gentlemoen, is the new Lord Lieutenant of our county. A pensioner, paid out of the fruit of our labour, industry, ingenuity, and economy. Fourthly; and now I must beseech you to enlarge your minds in a degree proportioned to the increas ing magnitude of my subject: He that has ears to hear, let him hear; for I am about to speak of the sums enormous, which Mr. George Rose and his sons have received and do receive and are to receive out of the pockets of this taxed nation. First, as Treasurer of the Navy, he receives, £4,324 2 year; next, as Clerk of the Parliaments, which place he has for life, and in which he has never performed an hour's duty, he receives, and has received ever since

the year 1753, the sum of 23,278 a year; next, this place is granted to his son, Mr. George Henry Rose for life, Whois also a member of parliament; next, Mr. G. Ause has another sitecine place, as

Keeper of the Records in the Exchequer, for which he receives £400 a year; and next, his younger son, Mr. William Stuart Rose, has a sinecure place in the Exchequer, for which he receives £2,137 a year. Which sums put together, make £10,139 a year, which Mr. Rose, and his sons receive out of the taxes annually raised upon us, and, he having, upon an average, received about five thousand a year for office salary, besides sinecures, since the year 1783, I am far within the compass when I assert, that he and his sons alone have received out of the taxes of this back-broken country THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS STERLING.--Such, Gentiemen, is, in part at least, the company, into which we are going to send either Mr. Herbert or Mr. Heathcote. Does it not, then, behove us well to consider, what sort of man that is, whom we thus send? We are about to send, according to the language of the constitution, a person to be the guardian of our money, a check upon the minister in all things, but more especially to be a check upon his conduct as an expender of our money; does it, not, therefore, become us to be as sure 25 we possibly, in such a case, can be, that this guardian whom we choose, will not himself receive any of this money from the nister; and is it not to be guilty of the ga sest self-abuse to pretend to believe that will be a check upon the minister, if he himself be permitted to receive a share of what the minister may choose to expend or give away? But, Gentlemen, there would be, in such conduct, on our part, something a great deal worse than folly. There would be in it the basest treachery towards the rest of our countrymen; for, you are to remem ber, that there is not one man in five hun dred who can, as things now stand, vote for members of parliament. With the interests of persons, of this description, in this coun ty, we are charged, as well as with our own; and, therefore, if, in choosing a member, we consider only our individual interest, we are guilty of dishonesty; and, if we, from negligence, choose an improper person, we are guilty of a flagrant and shameful want of duty towards our neighbour. The way, Gentlemen, in which I think I shall best discharge my duty, is, to tender to the candidates the pledge, of which I have already spoken, for the requiring of which I have, with your great patience and indulgence, given my reasons, and the words of which, with the confident Lope, that they w meet with the approbation of every truly honest and independent man who hears me, I will now conclude with reading: “That

"he will never, either directly or indirect

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"for; but I know of no services which can "be performed by a member of parliament, "which ought to be paid for."

ly, either by himself or by any person "related to him or dependent upon him, "receive a single shilling of the public

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money, in sny shape whatever, so long as he shall live; and that he will use the utmost of his endeavours to obtain for "this burthened people a redress of all "their manifold grievances, and especially "of that most crying grievance of having "their money voted away by those, amongst whom there are many who re"ceive part of that money."

After this, a person, whose name was said to be BROWN; who was stated to have been a purser, or something of that sort, under LORD KEITH; and who now lives, it was said, at Purbrook-Heath, having begun to speak below, was called up to the window, where, having read from the report of the Debates in the short parliament, a passage wherein Mr. Herbert was represented as having proposed the disfranchisement of the borough of Lancaster, on account of their conduct relating to their member, COLONEL CAWTHORNE, he, Mr. Brown, inferred that Mr. Herbert had proposed to disfranchise the said borough, merely because the the voters had presented a petition disagreeable to the House.

MR. HERBERT then came forward, and began by defending himself against the charge preferred by Mr. Browr; but, owing to the inarticulate sound of his voice it was impossible to catch more than a very small part of what he said. He defended the conduct of himself and his friends; stated that he had never, in any single instance, shown himself dependent upon the ministry, and challenged any one to prove the contrary. He condemned the conduct of the present ministry, with regard to the Inquiry now going on, and complimented the country upon the spirit it had shown, in seconding the loudable and constitutional efforts of the City of London. With respect to the proposed pledge, he said, he would promise, in the most distinct terms, that he never would, as long as he lived, accept of sinecure or pension, and that he would reject, with scorn, the offer of either; but, that he would give no pledge, that, if the king should, at any time, think his services useful to the country, he would not accept of a proper compensation for such services; and this, he trusted, would be satisfactory. Upon perceiving, that Mr. Cobbett signified his dissent from this proposition, Mr. Herbert asked, what objection he had to it? to which Mr. Cobbett answered, "Those services I have no objection to, nor to their being well paid

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MR. HEATHCOTE said nothing that could be heard, except as to the proposed pledge, which he refused to give, though he said, that "if he knew his own mind, he never "should receive a farthing of the public

money as long as he lived"

MR. BARHAM, perceiving that Mr. Her bert's explanation as to his conduct, in respect to the petition from Lancaster, bad not been clearly understood, came to the window, and, in a very clear and satisfactory manner, showed, that Mr. Herbert's conduct, upon the occasion referred to, was not only blameless but deserving of the highest praise. Having completely removed the impression produced by the erroneous construction of Mr. Brown, Mr. Barbam said, that he had a test, whereby to try the candidates, to whom he put this question: "Will you, if the Inquiry, now going on,

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respecting the Convention of Cintra, should end in a blank report of merely "all's well, bring forward, or support, in "parliament, a motion for another and more satisfactory mode of Inquiry?"Mr Herbert answered distinctly in the affirmative; Mr. Heathcote gave no answer at all.

The Sheriff now put the question to the Freeholders, which of the two candidates they chose to put in nomination; and the majority appeared in favour of Mr. Heath

cote.