forward in troubling you. From the beginning to the end of the election,
I have kept silence in all matters of discussion. I have never asked a
question of a voter on the other side, or supported a doubtful vote on
my own. I respected the abilities of my managers; I relied on the candor
of the court. I think the worthy sheriffs will bear me witness that I
have never once made an attempt to impose upon their reason, to surprise
their justice, or to ruffle their temper. I stood on the hustings
(except when I gave my thanks to those who favored me with their votes)
less like a candidate than an unconcerned spectator of a public
proceeding. But here the face of things is altered. Here is an attempt
for a general _massacre_ of suffrages,--an attempt, by a promiscuous
carnage of _friends_ and _foes_, to exterminate above two thousand
votes, including _seven hundred polled for the gentleman himself who now
complains_, and who would destroy the friends whom he has obtained, only
because he cannot obtain as many of them as he wishes.

How he will be permitted, in another place, to stultify and disable
himself, and to plead against his own acts, is another question. The law
will decide it. I shall only speak of it as it concerns the propriety of
public conduct in this city. I do not pretend to lay down rules of
decorum for other gentlemen. They are best judges of the mode of
proceeding that will recommend them to the favor of their
fellow-citizens. But I confess I should look rather awkward, if I had
been _the very first to produce the new copies of freedom_,--if I had
persisted in producing them to the last,--if I had ransacked, with the
most unremitting industry and the most penetrating research, the
remotest corners of the kingdom to discover them,--if I were then, all
at once, to turn short, and declare that I had been sporting all this
while with the right of election, and that I had been drawing out a
poll, upon no sort of rational grounds, which disturbed the peace of my
fellow-citizens for a month together;--I really, for my part, should
appear awkward under such circumstances.

It would be still more awkward in me, if I were gravely to look the
sheriffs in the face, and to tell them they were not to determine my
cause on my own principles, nor to make the return upon those votes upon
which I had rested my election. Such would be my appearance to the court
and magistrates.

But how should I appear to the _voters_ them