Huntingdon, and the Aldermen and others the Burgesses of the said Borough of the other part, Witnesseth, that in prosecution and by virtue of a writ, &c. the said Thomas Freeman, Mayor of the Borough aforesaid, and other the Burgesses of the said Borough, proclamation thereof being first made, &c., at the same met and assembled, being the major part, have elected and constituted Francis Wortley, otherwise Montague, Esquire, and Edward Carter, Esquire, fit and discreet Burgesses of the said Borough, so that they shall be at the said day and place, having full and sufficient power for themselves and the Commonalty of the Borough aforesaid of themselves, &c. In witness whereof, to one part of this Indenture the aforesaid Sheriff hath set his seal, and to the other part the same Mayor and other the Electors aforesaid have set their seals, together with the common seal of the Borough aforesaid, the day and year first abovesaid. THO. FREEMAN, [L.S.] Mayor. [Twelve other signatures and seals.] Writ dated the 6th January, in the 12th year of the reign of King William III. THIS INDENTURE, Between William Jeay, Mayor of the Borough of Huntingdon, in the County of Huntingdon, and the Aldermen and Burgesses of the said Borough of the one part, and Laurence Blatt, Esquire, Sheriff of the County of Huntingdon aforesaid, of the other part, Witnesseth, that by virtue of a certain warrant, &c. the said William Jeay, Mayor of the said Borough, together with the Burgesses of the said Borough, and with the unanimous assent and consent of the said Burgesses of the said Borough, proclamation and public notice, &c., have elected the Honourable Charles Boyle, Esquire, and Francis Wortley, Esquire, to be the Burgesses of the said Borough of Huntingdon, having full and sufficient power for themselves and the Commonalty of the Borough aforesaid, &c. In witness whereof to one part of this Indenture, remaining in the custody of the said Sheriff, the said Mayor hath set the common seal of the Borough aforesaid, and the other part of the said Indenture, remaining in the custody of the aforesaid Mayor, the said Sheriff hath set his seal, the day and year first abovesaid. WILLIAM [L.S.] JEAY. [Twelve other signatures and seals.]. Writ dated the 25th November, in the 13th year of the reign of King William III. THIS INDENTURE, Between William Dowse, the younger, Gentleman, Mayor of the Borough of Huntingdon, and the Aldermen and Burgesses of the said Borough of the one part, and Laurence Blatt, of the County of Huntingdon aforesaid, of the other part, Witnesseth, that by virtue of a certain precept, &c. the said William Dowse, Mayor of the said Borough, together with the Burgesses of the said Borough, and with the unanimous assent and consent of the same Burgesses of the said Borough, proclamation being made, &c. elected the Honourable Charles Boyle, Esquire, and Francis Wortley, otherwise Montague, Esquire, the two Burgesses of the said Borough of Huntingdon, and giving and granting to the aforesaid two Burgesses full and sufficient power for themselves and the Commonalty of the Borough aforesaid, &c. In witness whereof to one part of this Indenture, remaining with the said Sheriff, the said Mayor hath set the common seal of the Borough aforesaid, and to the other part of the said Indenture, remaining in the custody of the aforesaid Mayor, the said Sheriff hath set his seal, the day and year abovesaid. WM. DowSE, [L.S.] William Jeay [L.S.] Having brought these returns down to the eighteenth century and to the reign of Queen Anne, and as we admit that all of them, from that time to this, bear, in some respects, the semblance and character of corporate acts, though they are in general under the seals, as well of the individual electors as of the corporation, it seems unnecessary to state the rest of them more particularly. It is not pretended that the corporate seal to these returns vitiates them in any way; but without the individual seals of the burgesses, or at least without a common seal of theirs as burgesses, and not as the corporation of Charles II., they would, we submit, be informal. But whence arises this extraordinary circumstance, of putting both the common seal and the individual seals? Does it occur in any other act? We apprehend it originated entirely in the conviction of those who first, from sinister motives, affixed the common seal to these instruments, feeling at the same time that the common seal alone would not authorise the acts. But when it is asserted that the right is in the burgesses, it must not be forgotten, that the mayor and aldermen are necessarily burgesses, that all the members of the corporation are necessarily burgesses; the election by the corporation, therefore, might be a good election, and describing the electors as mayor and aldermen, &c. might be treated as surplusage, as much so as if they were so described when voting individually as freeholders in a county election; and, in this view of the case, an election by the corporation, with all the formalities of a corporate act, might be good. The objection to this is, that though all the corporators are voters, they do not, as now constituted, include all the voters. Restore the corporation to its pristine state, divest it of its elective selfperpetuating character, except in cases of aliens born out of the borough and going there to settle, and include all the inhabitants in the corporation, then the question, whether the exercise of the elective franchise was a corporate act or not, would be immaterial; for we have before stated, that the burgesses, that is, the inhabitant householders of the borough, whether incorporated or not, alone, originally, exercised the right in question; a right which no act of royal authority, without the sanction of parliament, can alter. We would again, therefore, repeat, that the real question is not so much whether the present corporation of Huntingdon has the right in question, as it is, who are by law burgesses? These, whether corporators or not, ever had, and still, we argue, ought to have the right, so long as they continue to abide and reside in the place. Who the burgesses were, and who they ought to be, the preceding records have been called upon to testify. They do so, as appears to us, with irresistible force they proclaim uniformly, that the residents in the town, having property there, were the burgesses thereof; and we venture to predict, after much research, that the ancient records of all other boroughs will, if properly investigated, do the same. In conclusion-we have faithfully stated the documents upon which we rely; and we confidently refer the reader to them for confirmation of the points upon which we stand. And we affirm, without the risk of effectual contradiction, that, 1. Huntingdon was a borough having burgesses in the reign of Edward the Confessor. 2. That it continued so in the reign of William the Conqueror, when the burgesses and their houses are enumerated. 3. That no charter or grant between that period and the first of Richard III., either in the reign of John, Edward I., II., or III., or other reign, in any measure alters the character or description of the burgesses, but speaks of them under the most general terms of the burgesses of the town; the men of the town; the commonalty of the town. 4. That Huntingdon returned members to Parliament long before the charter of the first Richard III. was granted, namely, from twenty-sixth Edward I. 5. That the charter of Richard III. first uses words of incorporation, none having been used in any of the former charters or grants; and that such charter could not affect the right of parliamentary elections. 6. That, in point of fact, the returns both before and after that charter, appear not to have been made by any select body, but by and on behalf of the burgesses at large, under their name, and the equally general name of the commonalty. 7. And, as the result of the whole, that the burgesses, from the time of Edward the Confessor to the present moment, have been, or ought to be, the inhabitant house 4 holders, paying scot and lot-that the first returns were made by those burgesses-and that, as no subsequent charter of the crown could alter their parliamentary right of election, so no charter was, in point of fact, granted for that purpose -and finally, that the returning member to parliament for this Borough never was, nor ought to be, a corporate act. |