But, if this precedent be admitted and established, no man can, hereafter, be sure that he shall be represented by him whom he would choose.  One half of the house may meet early in the morning, and snatch an opportunity to expel the other, and the greater part of the nation may, by this stratagem, be without its lawful representatives.

He that sees all this, sees very far.  But I can tell him of greater evils yet behind.  There is one possibility of wickedness, which, at this alarming crisis, has not yet been mentioned.  Every one knows the malice, the subtlety, the industry, the vigilance, and the greediness of the Scots.  The Scotch members are about the number sufficient to make a house.  I propose it to the consideration of the supporters of the bill of rights, whether there is not reason to suspect that these hungry intruders from the north are now contriving to expel all the English.  We may then curse the hour in which it was determined, that expulsion and exclusion are the same; for who can guess what may be done, when the Scots have the whole house to themselves?

Thus agreeable to custom and reason, notwithstanding all objections, real or imaginary, thus consistent with the practice of former times, and thus consequential to the original principles of government, is that decision, by which so much violence of discontent has been excited, which has been so dolorously bewailed, and so outrageously resented.

Let us, however, not be seduced to put too much confidence in justice or in truth:  they have often been found inactive in their own defence, and give more confidence than help to their friends and their advocates.  It may, perhaps, be prudent to make one momentary concession to falsehood, by supposing the vote in Mr. Lutterel’s favour to be wrong.

All wrong ought to be rectified.  If Mr. Wilkes is deprived of a lawful seat, both he and his electors have reason to complain; but it will not be easily found, why, among the innumerable wrongs of which a great part of mankind are hourly complaining, the whole care of the publick should be transferred to Mr. Wilkes and the freeholders of Middlesex, who might all sink into nonexistence, without any other effect, than that there would be room made for a new rabble, and a new retailer of sedition and obscenity.  The cause of our country would suffer little; the rabble, whencesoever they come, will be always patriots, and always supporters of the bill of rights.

The house of commons decides the disputes arising from elections.  Was it ever supposed, that in all cases their decisions were right?  Every man, whose lawful election is defeated, is equally wronged with Mr. Wilkes, and his constituents feel their disappointment, with no less anguish than the freeholders of Middlesex.  These decisions have often been apparently partial, and, sometimes, tyrannically oppressive.  A majority has been given to a favourite candidate, by expunging