principles of reason, any more than in law. This is not the hinge on which the debate turns.

Supposing, therefore, that I have laid down an accurate state of the question, I will venture to affirm, 1st, That there is no statute existing, by which that specific disability, which we speak of, is created. If there be, let it be produced. The argument will then be at an end.

2dly, That there is no precedent in all the proceedings of the House of Commons which comes entirely home to the present case, viz. "where an expelled member has been returned again, and another candidate, with an inferior number of votes, has been declared the sitting member." If there be such a precedent, let it be given to us plainly, and I am sure it will have more weight than all the cunning arguments which have been drawn from inferences and probabilities.

The ministry, in that laborious pamphlet, which, I presume, contains the whole strength of the party, have declared*, "That Mr. Walpole'st was the first and only instance, in which the electors of any county or borough had returned a person expelled to serve in the same parliament." It is not possible to conceive a case more exactly in point. Mr. Walpole was expelled, and having a majority of votes at the next election, was returned again. The friends of Mr. Taylor, a candidate set up by the ministry, petitioned the House that he might be the sitting member*. Thus far the circumstances tally exactly, except that our House of Commons saved Mr. Luttrell the trouble of petitioning. The point of law however was the same. It came regularly before the House, and it was their business to determine upon it. They did determine it, for they declared Mr. Taylor not duly elected. If it be said that they meant this resolution as matter of favour and indulgence to the borough, which had retorted Mr. Walpole upon them, in order that the burgesses, knowing what the law was, might correct their error, I answer,

I. That it is a strange way of arguing, to oppose a supposition, which no man can prove, to a fact which proves itself.

II. That if this were the intention of the House of Com

mons, it must have defeated itself. The burgesses of Lynn could never have known their error, much less could they have corrected it, by any instruction they received from the proceedings of the House of Commons. They might perhaps have foreseen, that, if they returned Mr. Walpole again, he would again be rejected; but they never could infer, from a resolution by which the candidate with the fewest votes was declared not duly elected, that, at a future election, and in similar circumstances, the House of Commons would reverse their resolution, and receive the same candidate as duly elected, whom they had before rejected.

This indeed would have been a most extraordinary way of declaring the law of parliament, and what I presume no man, whose understanding is not at cross-purposes with itself, could possibly understand.

If, in a case of this importance, I thought myself at liberty to argue from suppositions rather than from facts, I think the probability, in this instance, is directly the reverse of what the ministry affirm; and that it is much more likely that the House of Commons at that time would rather have strained a point in favour of Mr. Taylor, than that they would have violated the law of parliament, and robbed Mr. Taylor of a right legally vested in him, to gratify a refractory borough, which, in defiance of them, had returned a person branded with the strongest mark of the displeasure of the House.

But really, Sir, this way of talking, for I cannot call it argument, is a mockery of the common understanding of the nation, too gross to be endured. Our dearest interests are at stake. An attempt has been made, not merely to rob a single county of its rights, but, by inevitable consequence, to alter the constitution of the House of Commons. This fatal attempt has succeeded, and stands as a precedent, recorded for ever*. If the ministry are unable to defend their cause by fair argument, founded on facts, let them spare us at least

* See the Editor's note to Letter XLVI. in which the reader will find a particular account of the steps taken by Mr. Wilkes to procure the erasure of these proceedings from the journals of the House of Commons. EDIT. VOL. I.

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the mortification of being amused and deluded like children. I believe there is yet a spirit of resistance in this country, which will not submit to be oppressed; but I am sure there is a fund of good sense in this country, which cannot be deceived.

JUNIUS.

SIR,

LETTER XVII.

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER.

1 August, 1769. It will not be necessary for JUNIUS to take the trouble of answering your correspondent G. A. or the quotation from a speech without doors, published in your paper of the 28th of last month*. The speech appeared before JUNIUS's letter,

* It seems but fair that the reader should be put into possession of both the papers which it is the object of the present letter to oppose; but more especially the latter, which was written by Dr. Blackstone, and a passage from another part of which JUNIUS, in p. 144 of this volume, contrasts with one from the Commentaries. The Editor has therefore extracted them from the journal referred to.

SIR,

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER.

I HAVE perused, with all due attention, the letter of JUNIUS, inserted in your paper of the 19th inst. I perfectly agree with him, that a great deal of useless argument might have been saved in the political contest which has arisen upon the expulsion of Mr. Wilkes, and the subsequent appointment of Mr. Luttrell, if the question had been once stated with precision to the satisfaction of each party Yet after all the ingenious pains JUNIUS has taken, I much doubt whether the question, as he has thought fit to state it, will at all satisfy more than one party. The question, as he has given it, is "Whether or no it be the known established law of parliament, that the expulsion of a member of the House of Commons, of itself creates in him such an incapacity of being re-elected, that at a subsequent election, any votes given to him are null and void, and that any other candidate who, except the person expelled, has the greatest number of votes, ought to be the sitting member?" JUNIUS having thus formed his question, entertains the reader with a few spirited flourishes, not perhaps directly ad rem; and then asserts, what probably the party he opposes will not deny, viz. "That to support the affirmative fairly, it will either be necessary to produce some statute, in which that positive provision shall have been made, that specific disability clearly created, and the consequences of it declared;

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and as the author seems to consider the great proposition, on which all his argument depends, viz. that Mr. Wilkes was under that known legal incapacity, of which JUNIUS speaks, as a point granted, his speech is, in no shape, an answer to JUNIUS, for this is the very question in debate.