Gentlemen, I should make a strange figure, if my conduct had been of this sort.  I am not so old an acquaintance of yours as the worthy gentleman.  Indeed, I could not have ventured on such kind of freedoms with you.  But I am bound, and I will endeavor, to have justice done to the rights of freemen,—­even though I should at the same time be obliged to vindicate the former[17] part of my antagonist’s conduct against his own present inclinations.

I owe myself, in all things, to all the freemen of this city.  My particular friends have a demand on mo that I should not deceive their expectations.  Never was cause or man supported with more constancy, more activity, more spirit.  I have been supported with a zeal, indeed, and heartiness in my friends, which (if their object had been at all proportioned to their endeavors) could never be sufficiently commended.  They supported me upon the most liberal principles.  They wished that the members for Bristol should be chosen for the city, and for their country at large, and not for themselves.

So far they are not disappointed.  If I possess nothing else, I am sure I possess the temper that is fit for your service.  I know nothing of Bristol, but by the favors I have received, and the virtues I have seen exerted in it.

I shall ever retain, what I now feel, the most perfect and grateful attachment to my friends,—­and I have no enmities, no resentments.  I never can consider fidelity to engagements and constancy in friendships but with the highest approbation, even when those noble qualities are employed against my own pretensions.  The gentleman who is not so fortunate as I have been in this contest enjoys, in this respect, a consolation full of honor both to himself and to his friends.  They have certainly left nothing undone for his service.

As for the trifling petulance which the rage of party stirs up in little minds, though it should show itself even in this court, it has not made the slightest impression on me.  The highest flight of such clamorous birds is winged in an inferior region of the air.  We hear them, and we look upon them, just as you, Gentlemen, when you enjoy the serene air on your lofty rocks, look down upon the gulls that skim the mud of your river, when it is exhausted of its tide.

I am sorry I cannot conclude without saying a word on a topic touched upon by my worthy colleague.  I wish that topic had been passed by at a time when I have so little leisure to discuss it.  But since he has thought proper to throw it out, I owe you a clear explanation of my poor sentiments on that subject.

He tells you that “the topic of instructions has occasioned much altercation and uneasiness in this city”; and he expresses himself (if I understand him rightly) in favor of the coercive authority of such instructions.

Certainly, Gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents.  Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinions high respect; their business unremitted attention.  It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasure, his satisfactions, to theirs,—­and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own.