must, at least, amount to a dissolution of the compact, if the highest cut up the chief privilege of the lowest by the root. Blackstone, another learned writer on the affairs of England, remarks, that it is essential to the very being of parliaments, that elections should be absolutely free, and therefore all undue influences upon the electors were illegal, and strongly prohibited. After enumerating the laws which were then in force for securing the freedom of elections to the people, he says:-" Undue influence being thus (I wish the depravity of mankind would permit me to say effectually) guarded against, the election is to be proceeded to on the day ap pointed (the sheriff, or other returning officer, first taking an oath against bribery, and for the due execution of his office). The electors also are compellable to take the oath against bribery and corruption, and it might not be amiss if the members elected were bound to take the same oath, which, in all probability, would be more effectual than administering it only to the electors." We think it would be an improvement on Blackstone, if the ministry were also obliged to take the same oath. Locke and Blackstone were both of them good Englishmen, and firm supporters of the genuine constitution! Now, although from these words of two sound writers, we may collect that elections were the most solemn affairs, and that the wisdom of parliament had devised every means to prevent an undue influence or corruption over or in them, yet they were notoriously made the most scandalous scenes of debauchery, corruption, and excess that the mind of man could ever form an idea of. The elections of the manor of Freeland were founded on the very same mode, and, we are sorry to add, carried on in the very same manner. The fact of corruption was so notorious, that even Billy Vortex himself had commenced his career as a patriot, by professing himself a friend to a reformation of the Common Hall.-Quirke was of the same opinion; but when the former was a placeman, and the latter a pensioner, on a motion made by Greygoose in the Common Hall, to bring about that desirable end, they both vehemently opposed it, on account of the insurrection in the manor of the Gulls. Merryman warmly espoused the cause of reform, and said:" This it is that sours the temper of the people, that neither in the church, the army, the flotilla, or any public office, was any ap pointment given, but in consequence of household influence; that, in consequence, corrupt majorities were at the will of the steward. In short, whether the eye turned to the church, the army, the flotilla, or to the common hall, it could only observe the seeds of inevitable decay in the constitution of the manor."-He affirmed that the object of reform which he and his friends had in view would be persevered in until it should be effectually accomplished. Was it possible that this man and his son could not only become inefficient and useless placemen, but could convert, or rather pervert the public money to the purposes of corrupting electors?-Go on, reader, and you will be able to judge for yourself. When the period of the general election arrived, Merryman declared himself one of the candidates to represent the electors at the Westminster Arms, and as he had declared that be would not accept of the household interest, the steward thought he might as well assist another candidate, and thus have both the delegates in his interest. They, therefore, put up one SAM BONNET, a brave man, who had ably defended · his country against the enemy on board the flotilla, for the other candidate. The electors had nothing to allege against Bonnet, but that he was a household man, and could not attend to his duty on board the flotilla and in the Common Hall, at one and the same time. The independent electors were, however, indignant that the steward should attempt to dictate to them the choice of both their representatives, and they put up one PAUL SHEERS, the son of a Scotch tailor, who had commenced his career as a patriot, but whether with a view like his predecessors, in ending as a placeman, we have not heard. Merryman had so often told the story in public, of his being a sincere friend of the tenants, that, perhaps, like some other story-tellers we have heard of, he believed it himself; he certainly hugged himself in the idea that the greater part of the tenants believed it, and thought himself so secure of his election, that he mocked all opposition to scorn. His oily tongue had so long buoyed him up, that he imagined, "The world was still deceiv'd with ornament: If the electors could have possibly overlooked the grossness of his conduct after his coming into office, he might have said with a certain drunken actor of the present day, who having insulted the public on many occasions, and one night more particularly so, went behind the scenes and exclaimed: -" There; if they will take that, they will take any thing!" But the very first opening of the election convinced Merryman that the clectors would not take any thing. A stage having been erected in a cabbage garden, belonging to the Westminster Arms, for the accommodation of the candidates and their par ticular friends; the first who appeared on it. was Paul Sheers, accompanied by Mr. Francis Browbeat, a rich independent gentleman, and a |