For my own part, it has been always my opinion When I say in what manner and to what ends that this country can labor under no greater mis- the wisdom and experience of our an- Respect due fortune than a ministry without strength and sta-cestors have thus directed the exercise to the King. bility. The tone of government will never re- of all the royal prerogatives, let me not be uncover so as to establish either domestic harmony derstood as meaning in any degree to detract or foreign respect, without a permanent admin- from those dutiful regards which all of us owe, istration; and whoever knows any thing of the as good citizens and loyal subjects, to the prince Constitution, and the present state of parties who at present fills the British throne. No man among us, must be sensible that this great bless- venerates him more than I do, for his personal ing is only and substantially to be obtained and and domestic virtues. I love him as I love the realized in connection with public confidence. It Constitution, for the glorious and successful efis undoubtedly the prerogative of the Sovereign forts of his illustrious ancestors in giving it form to choose his own servants; but the Constitution and permanency. The patriotism of these great provides that these servants shall not be obnox- and good men must endear, to every lover of his ious to his subjects by rendering all their exer- country, their latest posterity. The King of Entions, thus circumstanced, abortive and imprac- gland can never lose the esteem of his people, ticable. The right honorable gentleman had, while they remember with gratitude the many therefore, better consider how much he risks by obligations which they owe to his illustrious famjoining an arrangement thus hostile to the inter- ily. Nor can I wish him a greater blessing than ests of the people; that they will never consent that he may reign in the hearts of his subjects, to be governed by secret influence; and that all and that their confidence in his government may the weight of his private character, all his elo- be as hearty and sincere as their affection for his quence and popularity, will never render the mid-person. night and despotic mandates of an interior cabinet acceptable to Englishmen. The motion was carried by a majority of 73. SPEECH OF MR. FOX ON THE WESTMINSTER SCRUTINY, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, JUNE 8, 1784. INTRODUCTION. THE leading facts respecting the Middlesex election of 1784 have already been given in the sketch of Mr. Fox's life. His contest with Sir Cecil Wray lasted forty days, and when the polls were closed there was a majority for Mr. Fox of two hundred and thirty-five votes. Great care had been taken throughout the contest to prevent false voting. At the suggestion of Lord Mahon, acting for Sir Cecil Wray, it was agreed, before opening the polls, that eleven inspectors and five friends should be constantly present on each side; and that whenever a person was challenged, his case should be reserved, and no vote allowed him until his claims were thoroughly investigated. A large part of Mr. Fox's votes were subjected to this test, and toward the close of the polls hardly one was received "without an appeal to the presiding officer, and a decision that such vote was good." Some of these decisions may have been hasty, but after such an arrangement Sir Cecil Wray ought to have acquiesced : to dispute the vote was unfair and uncandid in the extreme. But he did dispute it. Before the result was declared, he delivered to the presiding officer, Thomas Corbett, High Bailiff of Westminster, a list of bad votes which had been polled, as he affirmed, by Mr. Fox, and demanded a scrutiny, or re-examination of the entire poll. This was granted by Mr. Corbett on the 17th of May, 1784, when, by the writ under which he acted, he was bound to return two members for Westminster on the 18th, being the next day! Two questions, therefore, arose; first, whether a scrutiny into an election so conducted could be fairly and properly demanded; and, secondly, whether the presiding officer had a legal right to grant a scrutiny which ran beyond the time prescribed in his writ. Parliament met May 18th, 1784, and Mr. Fox, who had been returned by a friend as member for Kirkwall, in the Orkneys, took his seat for that borough. Within a few days, the subject was brought before the House. Mr. Corbett appeared at the bar, and read a long paper in defense of his conduct. Witnesses were examined, counsel were heard on both sides, and the subject was discussed in the House, from time to time, under various aspects. On the 8th of June, Mr. Wellbore Ellis offered the following resolution: "That it appearing to the House that Thomas Corbett, Esquire, bailiff of the Liberty of the City of Westminster, having received a precept from the Sheriff of Middlesex for electing two citizens to serve in Parliament for the said city; and having taken and finally closed the poll on the 17th day of May last, being the day next before the day for the return of the said writ, he be now directed forthwith to make return of his precept, and the names of members chosen in pursuance thereof." During the debate which followed Mr. Fox delivered the following speech, in which, I. He examines the evidence by which Mr. Corbett had endeavored to justify his granting the scrutiny. II. He discusses the question of law in respect to such a measure. III. He enters into remarks of a more general nature respecting the authors of this scrutiny, the expense it involved, the alternative suggested of issuing a writ for a new election; and repels the intimation of Mr. Pitt, that he "ought not again to disturb the peace of the city of Westminster!" A circumstance occurred at the commencement of the speech which turned greatly to the advantage of Mr. Fox. He began by complaining of a want of courtesy in the mode of carrying on the debate, and added, "But I have no reason to expect indulgence, nor do I know that I shall meet with bare justice in this House." Murmurs of disapprobation broke forth from a large part of the House, in which the minister had an overwhelming majority. Mr. Fox was at once roused to the utmost. His ordinary embarrassment and hesitation in commencing a speech instantly passed away. He repeated the words; he challenged his opponents to make a motion for taking them down with a view to his being censured; he referred to Mr. Grenville's bill in proof that the House was considered as peculiarly liable to act unjustly in such cases; he turned upon Lord Mulgrave, Lord Mahon, and Lord Kenyon, who had just spoken, commenting in the severest terms on the treatment they had shown him, and affirming that he might reasonably object to them as judges to decide in his cause; and repeated, for the fourth time, "I have no reason to expect indulgence, nor do I know that I shall meet with bare justice in this House." Never was a great assembly more completely subdued. From that moment, he was heard with the utmost respect and attention. He had remarked, in going to the House, that this would be one of the best speeches he ever made. It proved so; and if the subject had been equal to his manner of treating it, embracing great national interests, instead of the details of a contested election, roused to the utmost as he was, he would probably have made it the greatest speech he ever delivered. SPEECH, & c. MR. SPEAKER, Before I enter upon the consideration of this question, I can not help expressing my surprise, that those who sit over against me [the ministry] should have been hitherto silent in this debate. Common candor might have taught them to urge whatever objections they have to urge against the motion of my honorable friend [Mr. Ellis] before this time; because, in that case, I should have had an opportunity of replying to their arguments; and sure it would have been fair to allow me the slight favor of being the last speaker upon such a subject. But, sir, I have no reason to expect indulgence, nor do I know that I shall meet with bare justice in this House. Sir, I say that I have no reason to expect indulgence, nor do I know that I shall meet with bare justice in this House.3 Mr. Speaker, there is a regular mode of checking any member of this House for using improper words in a debate; and that is, to move to have the improper words taken down by the Clerk, for the purpose of censuring the person who has spoke them. If I have said any thing unfit for this House to hear, or me to utter-if any gentleman is offended by any thing that fell from me, and has sense enough to point out and spirit to correct that offense, he will adopt that parliamentary and gentleman-like mode of conduct; and that he may have an opportunity of doing so, I again repeat, that I have no reason to expect INDULGENCE, nor do I know that I shall meet with BARE JUSTICE in this House. Sir, I am warranted in the use of these words, by events and authorities that leave little to be doubted and little to be questioned. The treatment this business has received within these walls, the extraordinary proceedings which have 2 Expressions of disapprobation from the ministerial side of the House. 3 Expressions of disapprobation repeated. sprung from it, the dispositions which have been manifested in particular classes of men, all concur to justify the terms I have adopted, and to establish the truth of what I have asserted. If the declaration I have made had happened not to have been supported by the occurrences I allude to, the very consideration of Mr. Grenville's bill is of itself sufficient to vindicate what I have said. That bill, sir, originated in a belief that this House, in the aggregate, was an unfit tribunal to decide upon contested elections. It viewed this House, as every popular assembly should be viewed, as a mass of men capable of political dislike and personal aversion; capable of too much attachment and too much animosity; capable of being biased by weak and by wicked motives; liable to be governed by ministerial influence, by caprice, and by corrup tion. Mr. Grenville's bill viewed this House as endued with these capacities; and judging it therefore incapable of determining upon controverted elections with impartiality, with justice, and with equity, it deprived it of the means of mischief, and formed a judicature as complete and ample perhaps as human skill can constitute. That I am debarred the benefits of that celebrated bill is clear beyond all doubt, and thrown entirely upon the mercy, or, if you please, upon the wisdom of this House. Unless, then, we are to suppose that human nature is totally altered within a few months-unless we can be so grossly credulous as to imagine that the pres 4 Mr. Grenville's bill enacted that the persons to try disputed elections shall be drawn out of a glass to the number of forty-nine; that the parties in the dispute shall strike from these names alternately without assigning any reason until they reduce the number to thirteen; that these thirteen shall be gov. erned by positive law, and sworn upon oath to administer strict justice. ent is purged of all the frailties of former Parlia- | very respectable and learned profession, has ments-unless I am to surrender my understand-raised himself to considerable eminence; a pering, and blind myself to the extraordinary conduct of this House, in this extraordinary business, for the last fortnight—I may say, and say with truth, "that I expect no indulgence, nor do I know that I shall meet with bare justice in the House."| There are in this House, sir, many persons to whom I might, upon every principle of equity, fairness, and reason, object as judges to decide upon my cause, not merely from their acknowledged enmity to me, to my friends, and to my politics, but from their particular conduct upon this particular occasion. To a noble Lord [Lord Mulgrave] who spoke early in this debate, I might rightly object as a judge to try me, who, from the fullness of his prejudice to me and predilection for my opponents, asserts things in direct defiance of the evidence which has been given at your bar. The noble Lord repeats again that "tricks" were used at my side in the election, although he very properly omits the epithet which preceded that term when he used it in a former debate. But does it appear in evidence that any tricks were practiced on my part? Not a word. Against him, therefore, who, in the teeth of the depositions on your table, is prompted by his enmity toward me to maintain what the evidence (the ground this House is supposed to go upon) absolutely denies, I might object with infinite propriety as a judge in this cause. There is another judge, sir, to whom I might object with greater reason if possible than to the last. A person evidently interested in increasing the numbers of my adversaries upon the poll, but who has relinquished his right as an elector of Westminster, that his voting may not disqualify him from being a judge upon the committee to decide this contest. A person too, sir, who in the late election scrupled not to act as an agent, an avowed, and indeed an active agent, to my opponents. Is there any interruption, sir? I hope not. I am but stating a known fact, that a person who is to pronounce a judgment this night in this cause, avoided to exercise one of the most valuable franchises of a British citizen, only that he might be a nominee for my adversaries; concluding that his industry upon the committee would be of more advantage to their cause than a solitary vote at the election. This, sir, I conceive would be a sufficient objection to him as a judge to try me. A third person there is [Mr., afterward Lord Kenyon] whom I might in reason challenge upon this occasion. A person of a sober demeanor, who, with great diligence and exertion in a Here Lord Mahon started up in much agitation, and exposed himself to the House as the person alluded to. He appeared inclined to call Mr. Fox to order, but his friends prevented him. His Lordship, as already stated, was an avowed and active agent of Sir Cecil Wray during the election, and had been placed by his nomination on the joint committee selected by the two parties to conduct the scrutiny. son who fills one of the first seats of justice in 66 Sir, I understand that the learned gentleman I have just alluded to (I was not in the House during the first part of his speech) has insinuated that I have no right to be present during this discussion, and that hearing me is an indulgence. Against the principle of that assertion, sir, and against every syllable of it, I beg leave, in the most express terms, directly to protest. I maintain, that I not only have a right to speak, but a positive and clear right to vote upon this occasion; and I assure the House that nothing but the declaration I have made in the first stage of this business should prevent me from doing so. As to myself, if I were the only person to be aggrieved by this proceeding, if the mischief of it extended not beyond me, I should rest thoroughly and completely satisfied with the great and brilliant display of knowledge and abilities which have been exhibited by the learned gentlemen [Mr. Erskine and others], who appeared We have, in this enumeration of qualities, one of those side-blows so common with Mr. Fox, as he is pressing forward to his main point. [1784. gence or ability would be but a slight recompense for their zeal, constancy, firm attachment, and unshaken friendship to me upon all occasions, and under all circumstances. There are two leading points of view in which this question should be considered. The first is, whether the High Bailiff of Westminster has had sufficient evidence to warrant his granting a scrutiny, supposing that he possessed a legal discretion to grant it. The second, whether any returning officer can by law grant a scrutiny, even upon the completest evidence of its neces the day on which the writ is returnable. Examination of for me and for my constituents at your bar. If I alone was interested in the decision of this matter, their exertions, combined with the acute and ingenious treatment this question has received from many gentlemen on this side of the House, whose arguments are, as learned as they are, evidently unanswerable, would have contented me. But a sense of duty superior to all personal advantage calls on me to exert myself at this time. Whatever can best encourage and animate to diligence and to energy; whatever is most powerful and influencing upon a mind not callous to every sentiment of gratitude and hon-sity, which scrutiny can not commence till after or, demand at this moment the exercise of every function and faculty that I am master of. This, sir, is not my cause alone; it is the cause of the English Constitution; the cause of the electors of this kingdom; and it is in particular the especial cause of the most independent, the most spirited, the most kind, and generous body of men that ever concurred upon a subject of public policy. It is the cause of the Electors of Westminster; the cause of those who, upon many trials, have supported me against hosts of enemies; of those who upon a recent occasion, when every art of malice, of calumny, and corruption; every engine of an illiberal and shameless system of government; when the most gross and monstrous fallacy [as to the East India Bill] that ever duped and deceived a credulous country have been propagated and worked with all imaginable subtlety and diligence, for the pur-ble. Expunged, however, though it is, I wish pose of rendering me unpopular throughout the empire, have, with a steadiness, with a sagacity, with a judgment becoming men of sense and spirit, defeated all the miserable malice of my enemies; vindicated themselves from the charge of caprice, and changeableness, and fluctuation; and, with a generosity that binds me to them by every tie of affection, supported me through the late contest, and accomplished a victory against all the arts and power of the basest system of oppression that ever destined the overthrow of any individual.7 If, by speaking in this House (where many perhaps may think I speak too much), I have acquired any reputation; if I have any talents, and that attention to public business has matured or improved those talents into any capability of solid service, the present subject and the present moment, beyond any other period of my life, challenge and call them into action. When added to the importance of this question upon the English Constitution, combined with the immediate interest I feel personally in the fate of it, I am impelled by the nobler and more forcible incitement of being engaged in the cause of those to whom the devotion of all I have of dili I. First proceed upon the evidence. the evidence. (1.) The great defense of the High Bailiff is built upon the circumstance of Sir Cecil Wray and his agents having furnished him with regular lists of bad votes on my part; and to prove that these lists were delivered they have brought a witness who knows not a syllable of the truth of the contents of the list! The witness who drew the affidavit which affirms those bad votes to have polled for me, upon cross-examination appears equally ignorant of the truth of the affidavits; and therefore the burden of the proof rested upon the evidence of Affleck, whose testimony, nevertheless, after four hours examination, is expunged from your books as inadmissi the House to recollect the answers he gave concerning the descriptions of the bad voters which are imputed to me, and to the stated number of them. The number is said to be one hundred and forty-three; and the House will recollect that, although I repeatedly pressed the witness to name some of them, he could not even name one. I questioned Affleck particularly whether the one hundred and forty-three were persons who did not exist where they pretended to reside; his answer was that some did reside in the streets as mentioned in the poll-books, and that others could not be found at all. Those who could not be found at all (if any such there were) might fairly be deemed bad votes, but the other class of voters involved a question of law; and I submit to the House whether, if the evidence of this man, instead of being rejected as incompetent, had actually been admitted, the whole tenor of it, instead of exculpating, would not in the strongest sense tend to criminate the High Bailiff. Had he known his duty, or been disposed to discharge it, this he would have said to such a reporter. "You may be, and most likely are, interested in deceiving me. After much argument and discussion I, as the sole judge in this which you (of whom I know nothing) affirm to court, have admitted these to be legal votes, be only lodgers or non-residents. My situation 7 This fine burst of eloquence is highly character istic of the speaker; not lofty or imaginative, but simple, terse, bold, and springing from those generis ous sentiments which were the master-spirit of Mr. Fox's oratory. The reader of Cicero will at once trace the opening of this sentence to the exordium of the oration for the poet Archias. too solemn to be affected by such information, and therefore I dismiss it as unfit for me to proceed upon." This should have been the High Bailiff's conduct, but his conduct is the exact reverse of it. He receives this species of information, and from | at your bar, as the rule that governed him in this this sort of men; and not only so, but accepts business, is exactly and directly the very reverse affidavits imputing bribery to some persons who of the principle he pretended to act upon at the canvassed for me, acknowledging at the same time of granting the scrutiny. Fortunately, howmoment that he had no cognizance of bribery; ever, this fact is established in clear and unquesand never once inquires into the truth of the tioned evidence before you. Mr. O'Bryen's testcharge, nor whether any credit is due to the de- imony is complete and decisive to that point. His poser, nor even who the deposer is. All this the words were, "that the High Bailiff in the vestry, High Bailiff does in concert with my adversaries, upon granting the scrutiny, disclaimed the informsecretly, collusively, without even once giving ations delivered to him by Sir Cecil Wray and me or any one of my agents the very slightest his agents-that he replied with peevishness and idea that any such intercourse had subsisted be- some displeasure to Sir Cecil for having mentween him [the judge of the court] and one of tioned them-that he declared he believed he had the parties litigating that upon which he was to never read them; certainly never with any atexercise his judicial function. tention that he threw them aside unnoticedthat they had not the least operation upon his judgment; and that they did not, in the very slightest sense, influence his determination in granting the scrutiny." These were his words. Atkinson, upon cross-examination, was obliged to acknowledge this; and Grojan's want of memory upon it goes of itself a great way to establish the truth, if it required farther corroboration. To have received such information with the least attention was in itself criminal enough; but studiously, cautiously, and deliberately to have concealed it from me was base and wicked in the extreme. Had I been apprised of these machinations, I might have established the falsehood of every accusation; and surely, if justice had been the object of the High Bailiff, he would not rest one moment until he communicated to me the burden of these informations and affidavits, especially if he meant to overturn the whole tide of precedents, and to innovate upon the practice of all the returning officers that ever lived in this kingdom, in granting a scrutiny to commence after the return of the writ. If truth was his aim, the obvious mode of ascertaining it was to have given the other party an opportunity of knowing the charges brought against them; to let them have the chance of contradicting their accusers; and if we failed in falsifying these informations, the High Bailiff would have had this presumption in his favor, that it was only because we could not. But, sir, not this nor any thing like it did the High Bailiff of Westminster. So far from acting like an impartial judge, he appears to have been the agent, or rather the mere tool of my opponents; and every syllable of these informations upon which he acted might have been, for aught he knew, the vilest mass of falsehood and perjury that ever thwarted the course of justice. I say then, sir, if the High Bailiff absolutely possessed a legal discretion in granting a scrutiny, to have granted it upon this sort of evidence, and under these circumstances, was, to say no worse of it, an act that can not be justified upon any obvious principle of law, reason, common sense, or common equity. (2.) But what will the candid part of the House think of this High Bailiff when they consider that the grounds of his vindication at your bar differ as much as light and darkness, from his vindication in the vestry of Covent Garden, upon granting the scrutiny? And here, sir, I have to lament that the paper which he read to this House as his defense, which the gentlemen opposite to me [the ministry], for reasons as honorable, perhaps, to themselves as to the High Bailiff, so strenuously opposed being laid on the table, is now impossible to be produced. That paper, sir, would have enabled me, from his own words, to have proved to you that the principle he avowed Now, let the House and the world judge of this High Bailiff, who, upon granting the scrutiny, affects to be insulted at the supposition of his acting upon this ex parte information, and yet rests all his defense at the bar of this House upon that very ex parte information which, but a fortnight before, he disclaimed and despised!! Without adverting to his shameful and scandalous conduct (which, if he had one spark of feeling, would make him blush to show his face, much less to avow the act) in holding this fraudulent intercourse with my enemies, cautiously concealing that any such intercourse subsisted between them, treacherously betraying the cause of justice, which his situation bound him to support inviolate, and basely lending himself to one party for the ruin of the other; can any thing better show his iniquity than varying the grounds of his defense according to the variation of scene, and the pressure of exigency. This continual shifting demonstrates that he has no honest defense to make; put the most favorable construction possible upon his conduct, and the best of the alternatives marks him a hypocrite, at the least. If he has spoken truth in the vestry, he is an arrant liar before this House; or if he vindicates himself before you upon pure principles, he has grossly and wickedly deceived me and all who heard the contempt he expressed in the vestry for that information upon which he has expatiated at the bar of this House with such extraordinary reverence." So much for the consistency of the High Bailiff, respecting his alleged motives in granting a scrutiny. (3.) It is said upon the other side of the House that the poll was not a scrutiny, and said, in ex This is one of those repetitions, so often spoken of as a peculiarity of Mr. Fox. He manages it admirably in this case; varying the mode of statement, and crushing into one mass the preceding charges of fraudulent collusion and gross inconsistency on the part of Mr. Corbett. |