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EDMUND BURKE.

SPEECH PREVIOUS TO THE BRISTOL ELECTION; A
DEFENCE OF HIS CONDUCT IN PARLIAMENT.

AT THE GUILDHALL, BRISTOL,

SEPTEMBER 6, 1780.

MR. MAYOR, AND GENTLEMEN,

I am extremely pleased at the appearance of this large and respectable meeting. The steps I may be obliged to take will want the sanction of a considerable authority; and in explaining anything which may appear doubtful 5 in my public conduct, I must naturally desire a very full audience.

I have been backward to begin my canvass. The dissolution of the Parliament was uncertain; and it did not become me, by an unseasonable importunity, to appear 10 diffident of the fact of my six years' endeavors to please you. I had served the city of Bristol honorably; and the city of Bristol had no reason to think that the means of honorable service to the public were become indifferent to me.

15

I found on my arrival here that three gentlemen had been long in eager pursuit of an object which but two of us can obtain. I found that they had all met with encouragement. A contested election, in such a city as this, is no light thing. I paused on the brink of the 20 precipice. These three gentlemen, by various merits

Spain armed herself with blood-hounds to extirthe wretched natives of America, and we improve on inhuman example even of Spanish cruelty; we turn e these savage hell-hounds against our brethren and trymen in America, of the same language, laws, libs, and religion, endeared to us by every tie that ld sanctify humanity.

y Lords, this awful subject, so important to our or, our Constitution, and our religion, demands the solemn and effectual inquiry; and I again call upon Lordships, and the united powers of the state, to nine it thoroughly and decisively, and to stamp upon indelible stigma of the public abhorrence. And I n implore those holy prelates of our religion to do these iniquities from among us. Let them perform stration; let them purify this House, and this counfrom this sin.

y Lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable ay more; but my feelings and indignation were too g to have said less. I could not have slept this t in my bed, nor reposed my head on my pillow, out giving this vent to my eternal abhorrence of preposterous and enormous principles.

1

EDMUND BURKE.

SPEECH PREVIOUS TO THE BRISTOL ELECTION; A
DEFENCE OF HIS CONDUCT IN PARLIAMENT.

AT THE GUILDHALL, BRISTOL,

SEPTEMBER 6, 1780.

MR. MAYOR, AND GENTLEMEN,

I am extremely pleased at the appearance of this large and respectable meeting. The steps I may be obliged to take will want the sanction of a considerable authority; and in explaining anything which may appear doubtful 5 in my public conduct, I must naturally desire a very full audience.

I have been backward to begin my canvass. The dissolution of the Parliament was uncertain; and it did not become me, by an unseasonable importunity, to appear 10 diffident of the fact of my six years' endeavors to please you. I had served the city of Bristol honorably; and the city of Bristol had no reason to think that the means of honorable service to the public were become indifferent to me.

15

I found on my arrival here that three gentlemen had been long in eager pursuit of an object which but two of us can obtain. I found that they had all met with encouragement. A contested election, in such a city as this, is no light thing. I paused on the brink of the 20 precipice. These three gentlemen, by various merits

and on various titles, I made no doubt were worthy of your favor. I shall never attempt to raise myself by depreciating the merits of my competitors. In the complexity and confusion of these cross pursuits, I wished 5 to take the authentic public sense of my friends upon a business of so much delicacy. I wished to take your opinion along with me; that if I should give up the contest at the very beginning, my surrender of my post may not seem the effect of inconstancy, or timidity, or anger, 10 or disgust, or indolence, or any other temper unbecoming a man who has engaged in the public service. If, on the contrary, I should undertake the election, and fail of success, I was full as anxious that it should be manifest to the whole world that the peace of the city had not been 15 broken by my rashness, presumption, or fond conceit of my own merit.

I am not come, by a false and counterfeit show of deference to your judgment, to seduce it in my favor. I ask it seriously and unaffectedly. If you wish that I 20 should retire, I shall not consider that advice as a censure upon my conduct, or an alteration in your sentiments; but as a rational submission to the circumstances of affairs. If, on the contrary, you should think it proper for me to proceed on my canvass, if you will risk 25 the trouble on your part, I will risk it on mine. My pretensions are such as you cannot be ashamed of, whether they succeed or fail.

If you call upon me, I shall solicit the favor of the city upon manly ground. I come before you with the 30 plain confidence of an honest servant in the equity of a

candid and discerning master. I come to claim your approbation, not to amuse you with vain apologies, or with professions still more vain and senseless. I have lived too long to be served by apologies, or to stand in need of 35 them. The part I have acted has been in open day; and

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