II. That if this were the intention of the House of Commons, 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.

LETTER XVII.

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER.

SIR, 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 nst. 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;

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.

declared; or if there be no such statute, the custom of parliament must then be referred to, and some case, or cases, strictly in point, must be produced, with the decision of the court upon them." Suppose, for argu ment's sake, that no such statute, no such custom of parliament, no such case in point can be produced, does it therefore follow that the determination of the House of Commons, in regard to Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Luttrell, was wrong? Have not the members of the present House as good a right to establish a precedent, as the members of any antecedent house ever had? JUNIUS admits a right in the house to expel. But was there not a time prior to all expulsion? and was the first expulsion therefore wrong? Was there not a time prior to every other precedent in the Journals of the House? But was every such, or any such precedent therefore wrong? Are things wrong merely because they were never done before? Or do wrong things become right by mere dint of repetition? Should JUNIUS think fit to answer these questions, I may be induced perhaps to enlarge upon the subject.

July 26.

I am, Sir,

Your humble servant,

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER.

G. A.

July 28, 1769.

SIR, In answer to the arguments and observations of your correspondent JUNIUS (relating to the vote of the 9th of May, in favour of Colonel Luttrell) I send you the following extract from a pamphlet just published, which please to insert as soon as you can, and thereby oblige,

AN OLD CORRESPONDENT.

A speech without doors upon the subject of a vote given on the 9th day of

May, 1769.

"Your question I will answer, having first premised, that if you are satisfied we did right in setting aside Mr. Wilkes's election, I cannot believe it will be a very difficult task to convince you that the admitting of Mr. Luttrell was the unavoidable consequence. 'No: (say you) for surely you might have declared it a void election. Why go greater lengths than in former times, even the most heated and violent, it was ever thought proper to go? Or upon what ground, either of reason or authority, can you justify the vote you gave, that Mr. Luttrell, who certainly had not the majority, was duly elected?' The question you have a right to put to me, and I mean to give it a direct answer.

"Now

As to G. A. I observe first, that if he did not admit of JUNIUS's state of the question, he should have shewn the fallacy of it, or given us a more exact one;-secondly, that, considering the many hours and days, which the ministry and

"Now the principle upon which I voted was this, that in all cases of election by a majority of votes, wherever the candidate for whom the most votes are given, appears to have been, at the time of the election, under a known legal incapacity, the person who had the next greatest number of votes ought to be considered as the person duly elected. And this, as a general principle, I take to be altogether uncontrovertible. We may differ in our ways of expressing the principle, or of explaining the grounds of it: some chusing to state it, that the electors voting for such incapable person, do, for that time, forfeit their right of voting; others, that their votes are thrown away; and others, that votes for a person not legally capable, are not legal votes. But in whatever way we assign the ground of the rule, the result and conclusion is still the same, that, in every such case, the election of the capable person by the inferior number of votes, is a good and valid election.

"Nor is this rule, founded as it is in sound sense and public necessity, to be put out of countenance by a little ingenious sophistry, playing upon the ambiguity of certain undefined terms, taunting us with the reproach of elections by a minority, of inverting the rules of arithmetic, and the like. Not even the sacredness of the rights of the electors can stand against its authority; for sacred as those rights ought ever to be held, the exercise of them, as well as of all the other rights of individuals, must ever be confined within such bounds, and governed by such rules, as are consistent with the attainment of the great public ends for which they were established. But could any thing be more preposterous than if, while you are securing to individuals the right they have to take part in determining who shall be appointed to discharge the several public offices and trusts, no care should be taken that the public, in all events, may be secure of having any persons appointed at all? Yet to this inconvenience, the public must be perpetually exposed, if the rule were to be strictly and invariably followed, that nothing but a majority of the electors could ever make a good election. That a majority of the whole number intitled to have voice in the election, is not necessary, will be readily admitted; for at that rate, the absence of one half of the electors might defeat the possibility of any election at all. Neither is it necessary, in order to a candidate's being duly elected, that he should have the votes of more than one half of the electors present; since, if it were, diversity of inclinations among the electors, and the putting up of three candidates, might as completely frustrate all possibility of supplying the vacancy, as the absence of one half of the electors would in the former case. Accordingly, therefore, we constantly see, that wherever there are more than two candidates for one vacancy, the election is determined, not so properly by a majority, as by a plurality of voices; and the candidate, who has more voices than any one of his competitors, al

though

their advocates have wasted, in public debate, in compiling large quartos, and collecting innumerable precedents, expressly to prove that the late proceedings of the House of Commons are warranted by the law, custom, and practice of parliament, it is rather an extraordinary supposition, to be made by one of their own party, even for the sake of argument, that no such statute, no such custom of parliament, no such case in point can be produced. G. A. may however make the supposition with safety. It contains nothing, but literally the fact, except that there is a case exactly in point,

though fewer than one half of the electors present, is always determined to be well and duly elected; there being indeed no other method allowed by the constitution, of voting against one candidate, but by voting for another; nor any liberty of declaring whom I would prefer in the second place, in case my first vote should prove ineffectual; either of which allowances might prevent any election being made.

"Thus far then we are guarded against the public service being disappointed, either by the remissness of the electors in absenting themselves from the election, or by such a diversity of opinions among the electors present, as though innocent in itself, would yet be of fatal consequence to the public, should it be suffered to operate so far as to prevent any effectual election from taking place. But much in vain have these rules been established, if it is still to be in the power of the same number of electors, by a little management, to effect the same purpose, and put an effectual bar to all possibility of a valid election. Had they, by staying away, declared that they would take no part in supplying the vacancy, their fellow electors, who chose to exercise their franchise, and upon whom, in that case, the complete right would have devolved, might have exercised their right accordingly, and the public service would have been provided for. But shall they be allowed to come, and by declaring that they will vote against one candidate, but for no other, or by voting for a person whom they know to be incapable of holding the office, as truly, to all intents and purposes, deprive their fellows of their right, and the public of its due, as if, instead of coming, they had only sent a prohibition of proceeding to any election till it should be their good pleasure to suffer one? Against such a mockery of the public authority common sense reclaims, and has therefore provided against this abuse, by pointing out this farther qualification of the rule by which elections are to be decided. That, as the electors who give no vote at all, have no power of excluding any candidate for whom other electors do vote, so those who give their votes for a person whom they know to be by law incapable, are to be considered exactly on the same footing as if they gave no votes at all? Not to give any vote, to declare I vote for nobody, or to vote for the Great Mogul, must undoubtedly have the same effect.

"Thus