has gone on in for a most these hundred years, and never was disturbed but once!"

It were easy to reply to and refute the "Scribbler's" jargon about being born" to a monopoly of independence! but I cannot willingly contribute to divert your attention from the one circumstance that should determine every independent vote at the ensuing election. Secure your independence Now or never. My brother freeholders may be gulled, if they choose it; and they will be gulled if they do not take care; but I am determined that it shall not be my fault, if my son has not a vote as free and as efficient as his father. Trowbridge, May 26, 1818. A CLOTHIER.

To the Editor of the Salisbury and Winchester Journal.

I SHOULD not trouble you to notice your erratum "to be" instead of "be he" in my letter of May 17, but an anonymous writer, deficient in every liberal construction, perverts it to his purpose. The sentence was thus written-"The obnoxious person, be he a prince, noble, magistrate, parson, lawyer, doctor, or tradesman, finds his cast is to suffer for an alleged offence, which, if it were true, would entitle that cast, from every liberal mind, to the greatest commiseration for having so unworthy a member."

C. L.

To the Printers of the Salisbury and Winchester

GENTLEMEN,

Journal.

LIVING in an obscure hamlet on the verge of the county, I have not had the good fortune to be found out during the late canvass either by Mr. Benett or Mr. Long Wellesley, or what is matter of more surprise to me,after I had heard so much of them, "the indefatigable and notorious Quorum.” Being also prevented by indisposition from getting much into public, I have had no other means of hearing and judging of the pretensions, and politics of our rival Čandidates, than by the letters and advertisements in your paper. These therefore, I have perused with peculiar attention; but I must confess, that though I have been greatly amused, I have gained from them but little information on those points that appear to me those alone which we should attend to on the present occasion.

I can indeed sufficiently discover, by the oft repeated testimonials of the most interested, that one of our Candidates is a most excellent landlord, and I will not dispute (though

on this point there is no testimonial from the person most interested) that he may be also a most excellent husband. Nor can I discover that any objection worth our notice has been established against our other Candidate on one of these points. But, gentlemen, I cannot see how these matters at all concern us. If, indeed, we could expect that our representatives were to furnish each of us with an estate, or to marry our daughters, then these points might be worth our attention; but as to the first point we can have no chance from one of them at least, for we see all his estates are occupied by tenants so completely satisfied, that it may be looked on as a moral certainty, that nothing but death will ever divide them from a landlord so beloved; and as to the second point, we all know our Candidates are both married men already.

I observe also in the advertisements in your paper, professions of complete independence from both our Candidates. But when I look to what electioneering advertisements have always been, and recollect that the same professions have invariably been made by those who have afterwards proved themselves the veriest party men of the house, voting through thick and thin always on the same side, I must say (without meaning any disparagement to the intentions of our present Candidates) that such professions do not afford me any satisfactory criterion by which to judge of what is likely to be. their future conduct; nor indeed from a careful perusal of all the other letter and addresses in your paper, can I form to myself any probability respecting it.

We are called on to send up to parliament persons who shall represent and speak the voice of the county; yet we remain no ways informed, and it seems we scarcely trouble ourselves to inquire, how in this respect they are likely to vote and acquit themselves in our behalf. We have already one member, in whose favour, as far as I can learn, the general voice will be raised-I will not say the unanimous voice, for in so large a county that can never be expected,—but I am much mistaken if the event will not shew that the great majority of votes in his favour will be such, that no one will be able to contradict the assertion, that he fairly represents the county. Have we then reason to expect, from what we know of our present Candidates, that either of them, if elected, will in like manner carry up and represent the voice of the county? I confess, gentlemen, I have my fears on this head; but at the same time acknowledge, I am without due information to make up my mind on the subject.

If any attempt shall hereafter be made to vote out of the national purse, annuities to persons who have notoriously

lost the good opinion of the public, or to confer pensions and sinecures on those who have no claim but ministerial favour, have we reason to expect that either of our Candidates will (as our present worthy member did on a late occasion, so manfully and so much to his honour) raise their voice against such a prostitution of the public money?

If we can suppose, that when the allied troops may be withdrawn from France, that the nation should, by an unanimous movement, again express their dislike to the person at the head of their government, and our ministers should think fit, by counteracting such movement, again to commit the almost exhausted resources of this country, have we no reason to fear that one or both of our present Candidates would support them in such a project, and thus be the inevitable means of bringing about a re-enactment of that grinding and inquisitorial impost the income tax, and all the disastrous measure that would be the necessary consequences of a renewed war?

If, when the voice of the public is honestly and loudly raised in favour of economy and the abolition of useless and bloated sinecures and pensions, have we no reason to fear that either of our Candidates would suffer the holders of those very sinecures to delude him into a belief of pretended plots in order to silence the public voice and save themselves; and that he would allow himself, and, with himself, the county of Wilts, to be tied up in a green bag and laid on the table?

If, gentlemen, either judging from the past, or in the absence of precise information as to the future, we have reason to suppose that either of our Candidates would thus suffer himself to be bound hand and foot and laid on the table, I trust we shall have spirit enough to be beforehand with the ministers, and ourselves lay him on the shelf.

I remain, your's, &c.

near Swindon, May 25, 1818.

་

RUSTICUS.

To the Freeholders of the County of Wilts.

GENTLEMEN,

WHAT is our good friend "the Moon-Raker about?" He might have been more advantageously occupied with any of his "moon-raking propensities," than in the composition of his last letter. He has abandoned himself! He has fallen into the pit which his enemies had dug for him!-If he gets out at any rate, he must be in a dirty condition.

He has dated all his letters at Swindon, the place of Mr. Goddard's residence; he has amused us with a long story of the "glorious struggle of 1772;"-of the active part he

bore in it, of his drinking and huzzaing with old Mr. Goddard,of "great age," of the "honour and principles of his family," of his own "great spirit of independence;" and now, gentlemen, he has the effrontery to turn short round on us, and cooly tell us, that it is no sort of difference to us whether the whole of this tale is true or false, whether he lives at Swindon or at Salisbury, whether he is old or young, whether he bore any part in the election of 1772, or whether he ever in his life saw Mr. Goddard; whether it is possible for him to have seen the transactions in which he boasts that he bore a part, or whether he was even born at that period; in short, whether he is an impostor, or whether he his not, I conclude also that, by parity of reasoning, he will not allow you to inquire whether he is an independent writer, or hired only for electioneering puposes.

That his "birth, parentage, and education, can signify nothing" to us, is true; except inasmuch as we may deduce from them, whether he has told us facts or falsehoods.

He either did or did not take a part in the events he has described; if he did, why does he not support his original assertion?-If he did not, where was his "great spirit of inde pendence" when he practised a gross imposition, in order to give weight to his garbled statements?

But he says, "my opponents would do better to refute my arguments, than to descant upon the supposed period of my birth, or the place of my residence." His arguments! Where are they to be found? I have seen none of them; but, in their place, I find abundance of insinuation, and irrelevant propositions, exemplified by supposititious facts, which he has misrepresented and disfigured to answer his shabby purpose.

The principles of freedom asserted in 1772 can never be strengthened by such support. The independent freeholders then roused themselves to resist a combination of men in authority, who wished to usurp the rights of the electors, and to appoint a representative for the county.-Let it be our business to inquire from what quarter a similar danger is now likely to assail us, and let our efforts be directed accordingly.

Again, he says," the truth which I promulgate, and the reasons which i advance, would be of equal weight," &c. &c. -Good! but how are we to distinguish what he intends for truth, and what for fiction ?-when he means to be in sober reason, or when with his "cousin" in the moon?

Farther, he says, "I hate the midnight assassin and the anonymous libeller: in the moral scale they hold the same station, and are equally detestable."-What does this pompous diatribe mean? To whom does it apply? Can it be better applied than to one who is not only anonymous, but

CC

who disclaims the necessity of bearing the slightest resem blance to the character described by his assumed signature? Or does he imagine, because he has had the art to cover the malice of his attacks under a specious shew of moderation, and has depreciated the candidate that he opposes by sly insinuations does he, I say, imagine that he is therefore less libellous, less slanderous than he would be if his charges were openly and unequivocally asserted?

All that has been said relative to Mr. Long Wellesley's wish "of restoring to the house of Draycot the honour of representing the county," is too absurd to require notice: I should think that an instance had never yet occurred in election annals, of a body of freeholders being offended, because the candidate for their favour had observed, that his family would feel themselves honoured by their preference.

The story about Mr. Salmon has been ten times explained, and the charges arising out of it refuted;-it commenced nobody knows where, and will terminate nobody knows when, but it is worn completely threadbare.-The proceedings at the Marlborough dinner, though strangely misrepresented, furnish no ground of discredit to Mr. Long Wellesley's cause.

It is fortunate for us that "the question for our decision is simple and unchangeable."-It is simply whether we will submit to be led by the nose, by the same usurped authority which kept us in subjection for forty years, or whether we will exercise a will of our own-whether we choose to "die slaves, or live all free-men."

What a pity it is that all the fine writing of "The Old Moon-Raker" should have been so wasted; all his luminosity so evaporated in smoke, that a farthing rush-light would direct us better on our way!-His next attempt to lead us must be made in some other character-it will be of no use to address us in his old style-" Forty-six years ago I was in the vigour of life, and bore an active part in the glorious strug gle," &c. &c. It would be just as much to the purpose, if he were to begin like Ephraim Jenkinson in the Vicar of Wakefield, "The world is in its dotage; and yet the cosmogony, or creation of the world, has puzzled philosophers in all ages," &c.

This won't do; we must have a fresh tale to move us: and if this cunning partisan could manage us as well as he did the appointment of agents for Devizes, I would give him credit, though the policy was rather jesuitical-but we will talk of this another day. For the present, I advise him to lay aside all his old stories, and bury them decently with the full suit of habiliments, in which he has been burlesquing the character of "The Old Moon-Raker of Swindon.'

I remain, Gentlemen, your

BROTHER FREEHOLDER.