be bought; it is in my estimation above all price; and I trust that my conduct will always be such as to ensure me a continuance of it. Of 2300 promises of support which I had received in my canvass, 1572 independent men enrolled their names for me at the poll, and 300 more were anxious to give me their suffrages. These are not the men that would forge "chains" for their fellow freeholders; they are not those who would sacrifice their independence for any sordid motive. In the annals of county elections, our Wiltshire election is without example.

The scandalous falsehoods which were circulated under anonymous signatures, by hand-bills and other papers, the opening of houses of public resort, and the inflammatory speeches which were daily and hourly addressed to the populace in the streets and ale-houses of the manufacturing and other large towns, exceed in infamy any thing which has been known in the most corrupt borough elections. These proceedings occasioned the numerous assaults which were committed on my friends and myself, and established that system of intimidation which prevented a number of my voters (though in many instances not till after they had been beaten and the carriages in which they would have been conveyed broken to pieces), from coming to the poll in my favour. Others, by the same circumstances, were induced to vote against me: thus has the freedom of election been grossly violated, and the unbiassed suffrages of the freeholders have not been obtained against me.

I would not notice the opposition of the populace, had it proceeded from any feeling founded on truth or reason; but as canvassed those places which have now shewn the greatest irritation against me a very short time since, with great success, and without sustaining any insult, that feeling can only have been excited by the system adopted for the purposes of the election, and founded on the grossest misrepresentation and injustice.

But when I have seen the magistracy of the county insulted, and every attempt made to degrade that most respectable body in the estimation of the people-when I have seen the country gentlemen and the yeomanry vilified, and the most artful means used to disunite that chain of society on which depend the happiness and prosperity of the British nation, I cannot be surprised at the base attacks made on an individual like myself. In truth, more has been done during this election to demoralize the rising generation of this county, than those who reside in the county, and interest themselves in the moral and orderly conduct of the people, will for many years be able to counteract. After the numerous instances of personal attachment I have

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experienced amongst all classes of independent men, I have little to lament on my own account; but in common with all Wiltshire men who think and act for themselves, I must lament that the representation of our county has becomelike a borough interest; that it has been obtained by means which are without precedent, and which I would never adopt for any purpose whatever; and that it is wrested from the free, independent, unbiassed and uncorrupted freeholders, to be attached as an honour to a single family. The stigma will not, I trust, remain long upon us; the friends of Freedom and Indepen dence will seize the earliest opportunity to rescue our degraded representation from the grasp of those who now regard it as their property. I shall be at my post ready to unite with them in promoting so glorious a cause.

I have the honour to remain, brother freeholders,
Your very faithful, obliged, and devoted servant,
JOHN BENETT.

Pyt House, July 10, 1818.

To the Freeholders of the County of Wilts.
GENTLEMEN,

I SHOULD Very much have wished not again to have troubled you with a public address. When I last appeared before. you, it was my sincere desire that all the irritation arising out of the contest, should be allayed, that all its animosity should cease to exist.

I was willing to spare to my adversary the mortification of being told of his defeat, and had resolved that from me should escape no expression of exultation.

I intended strictly to adhere to this resolution, but the extraordinary manifesto of the 10th July, published under the name of Mr. Benett (solely calculated to keep up contention), obliges me to come forward once more, but it shall be for once only. Having terminated the contest at the hustings, I will not be dragged into a paper war by that Gentleman, or his partisans.

Gentlemen, "I do not arrogate to myself and my supporters all the independence of Wiltshire," but I maintain, that by your honourable exertions I have been the instrument of rescuing the county from the dictation of a few: and I repeat that by "refusing to wear the chains with which it was attempted by those few to shackle you," you have for ever secured your independence.

It is as absurd, as it is false, to talk of your representation as the appendage of any one family; the spirit manifested by all classes, in all parts of the county, throughout the last contest, affords the most decisive proof to the contrary, and is a suffi

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cient guarantee in future for your freedom of choice. There is in the freeholders of Wiltshire a high minded independence, which will not submit itself to any undue influence, which will not brook any improper control. The Candidate who offers himself to them must have principles, and a public and private character, which will bear the test of inquiry. those grounds I stood; upon them I have been elected. In personal independence I will yield to no man. Mr. Benett must and does know, I disdain Treasury influence, and used none; that I courted no high alliances; that I made no boast of immoderate fortune. Our mutual pretensions for the honour of representing the county were brought before the freeholders, and a preponderating majority of the "free, the independent, the unbiassed and uncorrupt freeholders" were pleased to consider my claims as better founded than his. They were the persons most capable of judging between us; they were the persons to whom Mr. Benett so confidently insisted upon making his appeal; their selection is too flattering not to be highly grateful to me, and it would well become him to submit with resignation to their decision. To all those parts of Mr. Benett's letter which may be construed as relating personally to myself, I shall not condescend to give any other answer, than a positive denial of all the charges levelled at me; nor shall I insult you, gentlemen, the freeholders of the county, by any defence of your conduct. The accusations against you carry with them their own refutation;-the-language in which they are couched, breathes throughout a spirit of intemperance and disappointment. The writer in his cooler moments, will not be able to reflect upon them, without regretting the use of expressions towards persons whom he was desirous of calling his constituents, which manifest the possession of the highest disqualification that can belong to a public servant, that of allowing personal feeling to affect his public conduct.

If Mr. Benett accuses me or my friends of "infamy" in the conduct of the election, the allegation shall be repelled by me, with the contempt and indignation it deserves.

I deny that the freedom of election was grossly violated by me or my friends; that threats or intimidation were used to procure me a single vote; that I sanctioned the propagation of scandalous falsehoods;-I deny that the magistracy of the county were treated with disrespect, or any attempt made to degrade them, or that the country gentlemen or yeomanry of the county were vilified. To treat with disrespect -the magistracy or country gentlemen, would be to cast a reproach upon my own station in life; to vilify the yeomanry, would be to offer an insult to a body or men, with whom I

am more closely and largely connected, than most other persons; but gentlemen, I did and still do reprobate the conduct of those few, who assumed the appellation, without having the character of the yeomanry of your county, and who daily attended at the hustings in the suite of my oppo

nent.

The men of Wiltshire, like other men possessing common understanding, have had an opportunity of witnessing the conduct of the several Candidates; they will judge which of those Candidates or their friends excited commotion. The magistracy of Devizes, the magistracy of Salisbury, the respectable inhabitants of Bradford, of Trowbridge and Westbury, will do me the justice to acknowledge, that my most anxious solicitude was engaged in preserving the public tran quillity. To those persons who frequently honoured me by their attendance to and from the hustings, I invariably said, that "by any tumult they would disgrace me, and disho nour themselves; and that I considered popular opinion as alone valuable, when constitutionally and moderately expressed."

I call the particular attention of the county to the state of the Poll when published.

I refer to it as a mark to myself of honourable distinction; for it evinces, that I am not indebted to any one interest or family, for the high station which I now occupy my success is grounded upon the spontaneous support of the two great interests, upon which rest, when united, the prosperity of this kingdom,-the agricultural and the manufacturing.

Had the conduct of my friends or myself been such as could tend to demoralize the rising generation of your county, I should not have had to reflect with exultation upon the support given to me, by the highest and most respectable dignitaries of the Established Church, by the most moral heads of other religious persuasions, by the established magistracy of the county, whose names as magistrates stand recorded in the annals of 1772, and as freeholders at that period carried that great cause in the person of Mr. Goddard; and whose descendants in 1818, did not think my public character undeserving support, upon the principles of Independence.

I have now the honour of assuring those gentlemen whom I presume to call my constituents, that they shall find me at all times ready at my post, humbly, but firmly, to urge my pretensions as Candidate for the representation of their great county. Willing to court inquiry into my public and private life, and never assenting to relinquish the honour now conferred upon me, until I sacrifice their good opinion, by adopting a course of conduct in direct opposition to the

principles which have regulated it from my first entrance into public life.

I have the honour to remain, Gentlemen,
Your devoted faithful servant,

W. LONG WELLESLEY.

Wanstead House, July 15, 1818.

To the Editor of the Salisbury Gazette.
SIR,

MR. BENETT, in his letter of the 10th instant, inserted in your last Gazette, and addressed to the Freeholders of the county of Wilts, says, "I trust the remarks which I consider it my duty to submit to you on the subject of the late election will be attentively examined, even by those who have hitherto been opposed to me.

I mean to accept this invitation; in part for the purpose of endeavouring to refute an assertion and repel an insinuation of Mr. Benett's, which may, unnoticed, appear to the freeholders as incontrovertible. Mr. Benett remarks that

"The representation of the county of Wilts is intended to be in future the appendage of one Family, and its independence is become a bye-word amongst all people."

It is to this paragraph and the meaning it is intended to Convey, that I object, as equally unfair and untrue. Mr. Benett also adds that the county is become a rotten borough. What, by the means of one family-does this gentleman imagine that so gross a calumny can pass uncontradicted either by the family or the 2009 voters who supported Mr. Wellesley? The latter will not thank him for the compliment, nor probably forget it whenever another opportunity offers them of again giving their unbiassed suffrages to any Candidate who may present himself,

The Family wholly disclaim the honour of attempting, and much more the power, of returning one of the representatives for Wiltshire: but they would most undoubtedly be worse than fools if they did not accept the proffered assistance of their neighbours in the support of a Candidate of whom they approved. I know where the sore place is: but look at the manufacturing interest, and let any man of judgment determine, whether it is probable or possible that any family can induce so large, so respectable, and so opulent a body of freeholders to resign their votes, or permit themselves to be biassed against their better judgment.

The fact is, that the family alluded to lives, and has lived for some hundreds of years, in the neighbourhood of several large manufacturing towns, and it has been their happiness so to live in peace, harmony, and good will with their several inha