full execution. You all see how necessary it
is to review our military expenses for some
years past, and, if possible, to bind up and
close that bleeding artery of profusion: but
that business also, I have reason to hope, will
be undertaken by abilities that are fully ade
quate to it. Something must be devised (if
possible) to check the ruinous expense of
elections.

Sir, all or most of these things must be done.
Every one must take his part.

If we should be able by dexterity or power
or intrigue, to disappoint the expectations of
our constituents, what will it avail us? We.
shall never be strong or artful enough to parry,
or to put by the irresistible demands of our
situation. That situation calls upon us, and
upon our constituents too, with a voice which
will be heard. I am sure no man is more
zealously attached than I am to the privileges
of this house, particularly in regard to the
exclusive management of money. The lords
have no right to the disposition, in any sense,
of the public purse; but they have gone further
in self-denial than our utmost jealousy could
have required. A power of examining ac-
counts, to censure, correct, and punish, we
never, that I know of, have thought of denying
to the house of lords. It is something more
than a century since we voted that body use-
less ; they have now voted themselves so.
The whole hope of reformation is at length
cast upon us; and let us not deceive the na-
tion, which does us the honour to hope every
thing from our virtue. If all the nation are
not equally forward to press this duty upon us
yet be assured, that they will equally expect
we should perform it. The respectful silence
of those who wait upon your pleasure, ought
to be as powerful with you, as the call of those
who require your service as their right. Some,
without doors, affect to feel hurt for your dig-
nity, because they suppose that menaces are
held out to you. Jnstify their good opinion,
by shewing that no menaces are necessary to
stimulate you to your duty. But, Sir, whilst
we may sympathise with them, in one point,
who sympathise with us in another, we ought
to attend no less to those who approach us like
men, and who, in the guise of petitioners,
speak to us in the tone of a concealed autho-
rity. It is not wise to force them to speak out
more plainly, what they plainly mean.-But
the petitioners are violent. Be it so. Those
who are least anxious about your conduct, are

Moderate

not those that love you most. affection, and satiated enjoyment, are cold and respectful; but an ardent and injured passion is tempered up with wrath, and grief and shame, and conscious worth, and the maddening sense of violated right. A jealous love lights his torch from the firebrands of the furies.-They who call upon you to belong wholly to the people, are those who wish you to return to your proper home; to the sphere of your duty, to the post of your honour, to the mansion-house of all genuine, serene, and solid satisfaction. We have furnished to the people of England (indeed we have) some real cause of jealousy. Let us leave that sort of company which, if it does not destroy our innocence, pollutes our honour: let us free ourselves at once from every thing that can increase their suspicions, and inflame their just resentment: let us cast away from us, with a generous scorn, all the love-tokens, and symbols that we have been vain and light enough to accept ;-all the bracelets, and snuffboxes, and miniature pictures, and hair devices, and all the other adulterous trinkets that are the pledges of our alienation, and the monuments of our shame. Let us return to our legitimate home, and all jars and all quarrels will be lost in embraces. Let the commons in parliament assembled, be one and the same thing with the commons at large. The distinctions that are made to separate us, are unnatural and wicked contrivances. Let us identify, let us incorporate ourselves with the people. Let us cut all the cables and snap the chains which tie us to an unfaithful shore, and enter the friendly harbour, that shoots far out into the main its moles and jettees to receive us." War with the world, and peace with our constituents." Be this our motto, and our principle. Then indeed, we shall be truly great. Respecting ourselves we shall be respected by the world. At present all is troubled and cloudy, and distracted, and full of anger and turbulence, both abroad and at home; but the air may be cleared by this storm, and light and fertility may follow it. Let us give a faithful pledge to the people that we honour, indeed, the crown; but that we belong to them; that we are their auxiliaries, and not their task-masters; the fellow-labourers in the same vineyard, not lording over their rights, but helpers of their joy: that to tax them is a grievance to ourselves, but to cut off from our enjoyments to forward theirs, is the highest gratification we are capable of re

* Rejection of Lord Shelburne's motion in the ceiving. I feel with comfort, that we are all

house of lords.

warmed with these sentiments, and while we

VOL 1.-20

2.

MR. BURKE'S SPEECH

AT THE GUILDHALL, IN BRISTOL, PREVIOUS TO THE LATE ELEC-
TION IN THAT CITY, UPON CERTAIN POINTS RELATIVE TO HIS
PALIAMENTARY CONDUCT.

1780.

MR. MAYOR, AND GENTLEMEN,

I AM extremely pleased at the appearance
of this large and respectable meeting. The
steps I may be obliged to take will want the
sanction of a considerable authority; and in
explaining any thing which may appear doubt-
ful in my public conduct, I must naturally
desire a very
full audience.

I have been backward to begin my canvass.
-The dissolution of the parliament was un-
certain; and it did not become me, by an
unseasonable importunity, to appear diffident
of the fact of my six years' endeavours to please
vou. I had served the city of Bristol honour-
ably; and the city of Bristol had no reason to
think, that the means of honourable service
to the public, were become indifferent to me.

I found on my arrival here, that three gen-
tlemen had been long in eager pursuit of an
object which but two of us can obtain. I
found, that they had all met with encourage-
ment. A contested election in such a city as
this, is no light thing. I paused on the brink
of the precipice. These three gentlemen, by
various merits, and on various titles, I made
no doubt were worthy of your favour. I shall
never attempt to raise myself by depreciating
the merits of my competitors. In the com-
plexity and confusion of these cross pursuits,
I wished to take the authentic public sense of
my friends upon a business of so much deli-
cacy. I wished to take your opinion along with
me; that if I should give up the contest at the
very beginning, my surrender of my post may
not seem the effect of inconstancy, or timidity,
or anger, or disgust, or indolence, or any other
temper unbecoming a man who has engaged
in the public service. If, on the contrary, I
should undertake the election, and fail of suc-
cess, I was full as anxious, that it should be
manifest to the whole world, that the peace of
the city had not been broken by my rashness,
presumption, or fond conceit of my own merit.

I am not come, by a false and counterfeit
shew of deference to your judgment, to seduce

it in my favour. I ask it seriously and unaffectedly. If you wish that I should retire, I shall not consider that advice as a censure upon my conduct, or an alteration in your sentiments; but as a rational submission to the circumstances of affairs. If, on the contrary, you should think it proper for me to proceed on my canvass, if you will risk the trouble on your part, will risk it on mine. My pretensions are such as you cannot be ashamed of, whether they succeed or fail.

If you call upon me, I shall solicit the favour
of the city upon manly ground. I come before
you with the plain confidence of an honest
servant in the equity of a candid and discer-
ning master. I come to claim your approba-
tion, not to amuse you with vain apologies, or
with professions still more vain and senseless.
I have lived too long to be served by apologies,
or to stand in need of them. The part I have
acted has been in open day; and to hold out
to a conduct, which stands in that clear and
steady light for all its good and all its evil, to
hold out to that conduct the paltry winking
tapers of excuses and promises-I never will
do it.-They may obscure it with their smoke;
but they never can illumine sunshine by such
a flame as theirs.
6.I am sensible that no endeavours have been
left untried to injure me in your opinion. But
the use of character is to be a shield against
calumny. I could wish, undoubtedly (if idle
wishes were not the most idle of all things) to
make every part of my conduct agreeable to
every one of my constituents. But in so great
a city, and so greatly divided as this, it is weak
to expect it.

7 In such a discordancy of sentiments, it is
better to look to the nature of things than to
the humours of men.
The very attempt
towards pleasing every body, discovers a tem-
per always flashy, and often false and insin-
cere. Therefore, as I have proceeded strait
onward in my conduct, so I will proceed in my
account of those parts of it which have been

1

of the first Irish trade acts;-my opinion and mode of proceeding on Lord Beauchamp's debtors' bills; and my votes on the late affairs of the Roman Catholics. All of these (except perhaps the first) relate to matters of very considerable public concern; and it is not lest you should censure me improperly, but lest you should form improper opinions on matters of some moment to you, that I trouble you at all upon the subject. My conduct is of small importance.

With regard to the first charge, my friends have spoken to me of it in the style of amicable expostulation; not so much blaming the thing, as lamenting the effects.-Others, less partial to me, were less kind in assigning the motives. I admit, there is a decorum and propriety in a inember of parliament's paying a respectful court to his constituents. If I were conscious to myself that pleasure or dissipation, or low unworthy occupations, had detained me from personal attendance on you, would readily admit my fault, and quietly submit to the penalty. But, gentlemen, I live at an hundred miles distance from Bristol; and at the end of a session I come to my own house, fatigued in body and in mind, to a little repose, and to a very little attention to my family and my private concerns. A visit to Bristol is always a sort of canvass; else it will do more harm than good. To pass from the toils of a session to the toils of a canvass, is the furthest thing in the world from repose. I could hardly serve you as I have done, and court you too. Most of you have heard, that I do not very remarkably spare myself in public business; and in the private business of my constituents I have done very near as much as those who have nothing else to do. My canvass of you was not on the change, nor in the county meetings, nor in the clubs of this city: It was in the house of commons; it was at the customhouse; it was at the council; it was at the treasury; it was at the admiralty. I canvassed you through your affairs, and not your persons. I was not only your representative as a body; was the agent, the solicitor of individuals; I ran about wherever your affairs could call me; and in acting for you I often appeared rather as a ship-broker, than as a member of parliament. There was nothing too laborious, or too low for me to undertake. The meanness of the business was raised by the dignity of the object. If some lesser matters have slipped through my fingers, it was because I filled my hands too full; and in my eagerness to serve you, took in more than any hands could graso. Several gentlemen stand

round me who are my willing witnesses; and there are others who, if they were here, would be still better; because they would be unwilling witnesses to the same truth. It was in the middle of a summer residence in London, and in the middle of a negotiation at the admiralty for your trade, that I was called to Bristol; and this late visit, at this late day, has been possibly in prejudice to your affairs. 15 Since I have touched upon this matter, et me say, gentlemen, that if I had a disposition, or a right to complain, I have some cause of complaint on my side. With a petition of this city in my hand, passed through the corporation without a dissenting voice, a petition in unison with almost the whole voice of the kingdom, (with whose formal thanks I was covered over,) while I laboured on no less than five bills for a public reform, and fought against the opposition of great abilities, and of the greatest power, every clause, and every word of the largest of those bills, almost to the very last day of a very long session; all this time a canvass in Bristol was as calmly carried on as if I were dead. I was considered as a man wholly out of the question. Whilst I watched, and fasted, and sweated in the house of commons-by the most easy and ordinary arts of election, by dinners and visits, by "How do you do's," and "My worthy friends," I was to be quietly moved out of my seat-and promises were made, and engagements entered into, without any exception or reserve, as if my laborious zeal in my duty had been a regular abdication of my trust. 16 To open my whole heart to you on this subject, I do confess, however, that there were other times besides the two years in which I did visit you, when I was not wholly without leisure for repeating that mark of my respect. But I could not bring my mind to see you. You remember, that in the beginning of this American war (that æra of calamity, disgrace and downfall, an era which no feeling mind will ever mention without a tear for England) you were greatly divided; and a very strong body, if not the strongest, opposed itself to the madness which every art and every power were employed to render popular, in order that the errours of the rulers might be lost in the general blindness of the nation. This opposition continued until after our great, but most unfortunate victory at Long Island. Then all the mounds and banks of our constancy were borne down at once; and the phrensy of the American war broke in upon us like a deluge. This victory, which seemed to put an immediate and to all difficulties, perfected us in that