if he should even, upon any misunderstanding, go to betray his principal, his testimony could not, in any court of law, obtain faith against you.

There is ANOTHER sort of election-undertaker, who executes things of this nature upon a scale still greater. He may be either banker or contractor, so he but possess the most prompt command of money to an immense. amount. He anticipates the approach of the season of election, and by the aid of subordinate agents, and the lavish distribution of his money, holds himself in readiness to secure the election of any representative he pleases for any of the boroughs of which others were not irrevocably masters before he commenced his enterprise. He then, as it were, opens shop for the general accommodation of the opulent who wish to have seats in parliament. He is known, and is resorted to; he fails not to get at least cent. per cent. by the gigantic speculation, besides the credit of engrossing a prodigious election influence. Should his creatures even betray

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him to the cognizance of parliament, and of the courts of justice, yet, having gained his object, he needs not distress himself in regard to any pnnishment which justice can now inflict upon him. A sentence expressed in language of severity - a few months of easy imprisonment—what harm can these do him? They do not take away his fortune; they do not exclude him out o the society in which he has hitherto lived they serve, if any thing, to give new lustre to his character, by displaying the extent and the magnitude of his electioneering transactions.

There are, yet, other inferior agents, whose services are but temporary, and who work as occasional hacks for the dispatch of dirty jobs at elections. These are the persons to excite riots, to harangue in the midst of the mobs, to muster ballad-singers, to provide and disperse hand-bills, to hire fictitious voters, to embarrass the progress of the poll by the arts which they know how to practice when they are employed as inspec

tors of it. But, in respect to these persons, I must refer you for information to the practice of electors in Ed, and to the works of Mr. Wm Ct. It is what I would not counsel our political adventurer to take any concern in; not on account of its turpitude, but because he is to reserve his talents, his efforts, his intrigues, for occasions of higher importance.

CHAPTER III.

TRIALS OF ELECTIONS BEFORE COMMITTEES.

THE last toil is not over when a gentleman has been returned, and has taken his seat in the house. Petitions may be presented against the return; and the member must then await the decision of a committee. He cannot influence the ballot for the committee; but he may, otherwise, thwart the petition which comes to disturb him. He may feign occasions of delay, so as to tire out the patience of the petitioner, or to deprive him

of the attendance of his witnesses. Counsel skilful to perplex and embarrass evidence may be procured to cross-examine the petitioner's witnesses. The short-hand writers may be disturbed or corrupted. If the sittings of the committee be continued for any length of time, may not some of them be gained to view the sitting member's rights with the same favour with which he himself views them? There was a time, when it was not so much the legality of the return, as the presumed politics of the member petitioned against, that guided the decision for or against him. These times are past. It requires infinite address in a member that sits upon a bad return, to keep his seat, in spite of a well-grounded petition and a trial by a committee chosen by ballot: but may not the thing be atchieved by a man of true vigilance, insinuation, and delicate artifice? Let no man, having before him an object of such consequence as a seat in parliament and the discharge of the legislative functions, hesitate to put in practice the necessary arts.