Hunt. He denied that there was any foundation for such allegations of Mr. Cobbett, and he challenged any man to prove that he had ever received a single sixpence from the Honorable Baronet for that purpose. He had been charged by Mr. Thelwall yesterday with having coalesced with Mr. Hunt, and becoming thereby the mouthpiece of the committee of Major Cartwright. He was not astonished at such a charge, and could only pity the man who was foolish enough to believe it.-(Loud cheers.) Never had he formed such a coalition-never had he acceded to it, and he would scorn ever to make such a mean sacrifice of principle. The letter in the New Times, written and signed by Mr. Hunt, charged him with being supported by a female, but he in the most unqualified manner denied that, and challenged any human being to produce the slightest evidence, or shadow of evidence, that such was the case.--(Loud and long applause.) Assertions of that nature were base in the extreme; but satisfied in his conscience, and before his God, that he was free from any grounds of making them, he could only say that he would treat them with that contempt which the efforts of malevolence deserved. Considering his present state of health, he would not have presumed to address them, had he not felt that by not coming forward he was subjecting himself to base imputations on his character.-(Loud applause.)

Mr. Jones and Mr. Hunt not having thought it advisable to appear this day, and nobody coming forward on behalf of Major Cartwright, who for several days had not polled a single vote, it was generally supposed the Major had withdrawn, and the Times announced it as a fact. The meeting broke up about five o'clock. The Reformers circulated the following hand-bill, with the state of the poll:

66 REFORM OF PARLIAMENT.-WESTMINSTER ELECTION. "Electors of Westminster!-To-day being a Holiday at all the Public Offices, the Dependents of the Government were polled against you.

"You despise the Enemy, but in your security you suffer him to steal upon you.

"It is not enough that you obtain a Victory at the conclusion of the Election-you should gain a Victory every day, and thus shew to the Country that the despicable and degraded COALITION to destroy your Freedom is powerless when opposed to the People's WILL.

"REFORM is your object-your great-your only object-to promote that object place HOBHOUSE by the side of BURDETT."

*Times, Thursday, February 25.

Mr. Lamb thanked the Reformers in these terms :

TO THE ELECTORS OF THE CITY OF WESTMINSTER.

"Gentlemen,-It is my duty to return you Thanks for your renewed alacrity in hastening to the Poll; it has again turned in my favour, but the majority is much too small to insure success against the unremitting and extraordinary efforts of your adversaries. On the Friends of REAL FREEDOM and INDEPENDENCE I repeat my call. Though my opponent would deny that denomination to any but his own supporters, I cannot but consider that the trial of years has confirmed to the followers of those Patriots whose principles I profess, that title which he would arrogate to unintelligible theory and undefined innovation. All is fair before us if we speedily seize the opportunity, nor sacrifice to an over-confidence the success that an active zeal will command.

"I have the honour to be, "Your faithful and obedient servant, "GEORGE LAMB.

"General Committee Room, Henrietta-street, Covent Garden.”

The rage of the Whigs at discovering how totally they had miscalculated their popularity in Westminster, now knew no bounds, and, before they had learned the event of this day's polling, they vented it in a long letter in the Morning Chronicle, which, as it certainly came from authority, and may be supposed to contain all the charges that the Whigs can make against Sir Francis Burdett for the whole of his public career, it has been thought advisable to insert it, especially as Mr. Hobhouse alluded to it in his speech of the following day :

"TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING CHRONICLE.

"Sir, The language and conduct of the Burdettites are intolerable. (a) My objections to them are, not that they are Levellers

The reader will, perhaps, not be displeased with some observations on this Whig.

(a) He has seen what Sir Francis Burdett and Mr. Hobhouse have said and done during this election-and can judge for himself, whether their language and conduct had been such as not to be borne, and whether the personalities and the insults did not come from and remain with the Whigs. Mr. Lamb opened his fire at once on the day of nomination, by comparing Mr. Hobhouse to Jack Cade;

or Republicans, because such sentiments, though erroneous, may be honorable and respectable; but that they shew neither consistency nor gratitude; that they have no scruple in denouncing, not merely as defects in the system of Government, but as personal crimes, those very acts, which they practise themselves, and encourage when practised in their favour. (b) A person may consistently sit for a rotten Borough, and even buy his seat, and yet think that such Boroughs should be suppressed, and no seats be so close as to be bought; but what shall we say of a man, who, like Sir F. Burdett, buys a seat for Aldborough or Boroughbridge, obtains popularity for his conduct in Parliament, to which he is introduced by pur

and his other pleasantries, such as that his opponent was Joe Miller the second, and the trumpeter of his own praises, did, we believe, provoke no parallel language from Mr. Hobhouse-to say nothing of the gross language daily published in the Morning Chronicle, both in the character of the editor, and purporting to be the applauded speeches of Messrs. Hunt and Jones, which they

were not.

(b) What persons did Sir Francis Burdett and Mr. Hobhouse denounce?-what acts of corruption and compulsion, which they charged upon their opponents, did they practise themselves? They denounced no individuals-they did not practise one of these acts. The Whig writer, if he be rightly guessed at, has before made these random charges in private-he has been corrected in private-he is now corrected in public: he is told his assertion is false-absolutely false. Moreover, he is asked whether Sir Francis Burdett has been consistent, or whether the Whigs have been consistent. Read the second speech ever made by Sir Francis Burdett, it was in 1797, on Reform-does it not tally exactly with his last speech? Has he fallen away from the opinions professed by him in 1797? Have the Whigs fallen away? What says the country? What say the Whigs themselves? Lord Grey himself said that he did not hold the same opinions on Reform as formerly; but the reader may see this point settled in the "REPLY TO LORD ERSKINE," and in the "DEFENCE OF THE PEOPLE." As for want of gratitude, let it be asked, did Sir Francis Burdett ever refuse his vote to the side on which the Whigs voted, whenever they were true to their own professions?-Never. The complaint is reduced to the fact, that when they, and Mr. Fox at the head of them, deserted their own principles in 1806, and incurred the contempt of the country, Sir Francis Burdett would not desert his own principles, and share the contempt of the country with them.

chase, and then does not satisfy himself with saying, that Reform is necessary; but broadly states, that, rebus sic stantibus, whoever buys or sells a seat is a rogue, and that a Boroughmonger is almost synonymous to a thief? (c) Again, he spends 80,000/. in a Middlesex Election-a good reason, no doubt, for saying, that another system, less corrupt and less expensive, would be preferable; but how can he, who has bought votes by wholesale, who has practised and encouraged every electioneering art in Middlesex, maintain, that the man who brings up an Elector by influence, persuasion, or interest, is a perjured wretch; and that he forsooth, who worked so hard to obtain a seat by such means, would disdain to accept such assistance? (d) Did no ladies in coroneted chariots canvass for him?-Many; and even some who now canvass against him. And why do they canvass against him, or, rather, his Nominee? Not merely because he pushes his opinions ou Reform to extremes, (for

(c) Positively false. Sir Francis Burdett never said such a thing in his life; he, on the contrary, has often declared that he would be glad to assist in the regular purchase of a seat in parliament, in order to procure one more vote in parliament towards a reform of parliament. He has denounced the boroughmongers who profess that they wish to continue the boroughmonger system; but he has not denounced the borough proprietors as individuals, neither has he ever said that some of their nominees might not have appeared inclined to favour Reform of Parliament.

(d) Does the WHIG mean to praise the extravagance of the Middlesex Election, or to blame it? According to his own story, the Whigs encouraged Sir Francis Burdett in this effort, and assisted him; they must blame him then now, for having made in 1807 his former declaration, that he never would again spend a farthing towards the promotion of his own election; and for having acted upon it since, and having thereby contributed mainly to the new system in Westminster, to hint that Sir Francis would willingly renew the same efforts which were made for him in Middlesex, though he has given his solemn assurance that he would not; and has notoriously since that assurance never varied from that declaration, is insolent; and is insinuating that to be true which all Westminster knows to be false. If this Whig has been rightly pointed out, the same Whig said in private, that Sir Francis Burdet spent 80007. on his election in 1818, and said he knew it— again positively false. Sir Francis Burdett did not spend a single shilling on that occasion, and a debt of several hundred pounds still remains unpaid.

we must grant his opinions to be to the full as variable as those of different persons in other parties) but because, after associating with public men, after accepting and loudly commending their generous support against danger and power, he suddenly, and without fresh provocation, (e) reviles them for transactions long since past, misrepresents their expressions and their conduct, and shews the greatest rancour against those, from whom he has received the greatest obligations, and towards whom he has professed the most unqualified respect. (f) He witnessed the exertions of Mr. Fox in favour of liberty in the protection of those who had been his bitterest foes.

(e) Sir Francis Burdett's association with the Whigs, has been confined to opposing Ministers: he has often voted with them, not for them. When did he accept and loudly commend their generous support against danger and power? Was it when they joined the Minister to send him to the Tower? If he did commend them when they acted well, so much the more candid he, who knew they hated him; and so much the more base they, who pretended that such a commendation was a token of gratitude for services which they never performed. What does the Whig mean by sudden and without provocation? Was the sudden and treacherous starting of a Whig against the Reformers in Westminster no provocation? Did the Whigs believe that when they brought the whole force of the Aristocracy against the cause of Reform in Westminster, Sir Francis Burdett, the champion of that cause, should be so cowardly, so ungrateful to those who had supported him for twelve years, as to let that only champion stand idly by? Be it remembered that Sir Francis never uttered a word against these persons until the Election shewed they were resolved to oppose the People. Be it also remembered, that the Whigs made the first attack on Sir Francis Burdett, in the Chronicle and on the hustings.

(f) When did Sir Francis Burdett revile the Whigs, except for their abandonment of Reform? He spoke the truth-he never reviled them. It is the Whigs who always talk of transactions long. past, and challenge glory for them. The Whig administration in 1806 is not so long past as the Middlesex Election in 1802, and yet the Whig attacks Sir Francis Burdett for that. Sir Francis Burdett never misrepresented their expressions; never-he never showed rancour against them; he never received the greatest obligations from them. When he expressed unqualified respect for them, it was when they behaved well. He never bound himself by the slightest tie to the party. All these charges are gratuitous and false.