very little attention to my family and my private concerns.  A visit to Bristol is always a sort of canvass, else it will do more harm than good.  To pass from the toils of a session to the toils of a canvass is the furthest thing in the world from repose.  I could hardly serve you as I have done, and court you too.  Most of you have heard that I do not very remarkably spare myself in public business; and in the private business of my constituents I have done very near as much as those who have nothing else to do.  My canvass of you was not on the ’change, nor in the county meetings, nor in the clubs of this city:  it was in the House of Commons; it was at the Custom-House; it was at the Council; it was at the Treasury; it was at the Admiralty.  I canvassed you through your affairs, and not your persons.  I was not only your representative as a body; I was the agent, the solicitor of individuals; I ran about wherever your affairs could call me; and in acting for you, I often appeared rather as a ship-broker than as a member of Parliament.  There was nothing too laborious or too low for me to undertake.  The meanness of the business was raised by the dignity of the object.  If some lesser matters have slipped through my fingers, it was because I filled my hands too full, and, in my eagerness to serve you, took in more than any hands could grasp.  Several gentlemen stand round me who are my willing witnesses; and there are others who, if they were here, would be still better, because they would be unwilling witnesses to the same truth.  It was in the middle of a summer residence in London, and in the middle of a negotiation at the Admiralty for your trade, that I was called to Bristol; and this late visit, at this late day, has been possibly in prejudice to your affairs.

Since I have touched upon this matter, let me say, Gentlemen, that, if I had a disposition or a right to complain, I have some cause of complaint on my side.  With a petition of this city in my hand, passed through the corporation without a dissenting voice, a petition in unison with almost the whole voice of the kingdom, (with whose formal thanks I was covered over,) whilst I labored on no less than five bills for a public reform, and fought, against the opposition of great abilities and of the greatest power, every clause and every word of the largest of those bills, almost to the very last day of a very long session,—­all this time a canvass in Bristol was as calmly carried on as if I were dead.  I was considered as a man wholly out of the question.  Whilst I watched and fasted and sweated in the House of Commons, by the most easy and ordinary arts of election, by dinners and visits, by “How do you dos,” and “My worthy friends,” I was to be quietly moved out of my seat,—­and promises were made, and engagements entered into, without any exception or reserve, as if my laborious zeal in my duty had been a regular abdication of my trust.