not contenting yourself with a temporary expedient, but entailing upon them the immediate blessings of your administration. Boroughs were already too much at the mercy of government. Counties could neither be purchased nor intimidated. But their solemn determined election may be rejected, and the man they detest may be appointed, by another choice, to represent them in parliament. Yet it is admitted, that the sheriffs obeyed the laws, and performed their duty.[1] The return they made must have been legal and valid, or undoubtedly, they would have been censured for making it. With every good-natured allowance for your Grace's youth and inexperience, there are some things which you cannot but know. Yon cannot but know that the right of the freeholders to adhere to their choice (even supposing it improperly exerted) was as clear and indisputable as that of the house of commons to exclude one of their own members?—nor is it possible for you not to see the wide distance there is between the negative power of rejecting one man, and the positive power of appointing another. The
- ↑ Sir Fletcher Norton, when it was proposed to punish the sheriffs, declared, in the house of commons, that they, in returning Mr. Wilkes, had done no more than their duty.
