our deserving countrymen adrift, without regard to their past services,
that praise cannot be denied him; if it be commendable to have availed
himself of inordinate momentary passion to carry measures whereby the
general weal was sacrificed, whether designedly for the attainment of
popularity, or in the self-applauding sincerity of a heated mind, that
praise is due to Mr. Brougham and his coadjutors. But, to the judicious
Freeholders of Westmoreland, whether Gentry or Yeomanry, rich or poor,
he will in vain adduce this, or any other part of the recent conduct of
Opposition, as a motive for strengthening their interests amongst us.
No, Freeholders, we must wait; assuring them that they shall have a
reasonable portion of our support as soon as they have proved that they
deserve it!

Till that time comes, it will not grieve us that this County should
supply two Representatives to uphold the Servants of the Crown, even if
both should continue, through unavoidable circumstances, to issue from
one Family amongst us. Till that change takes place, we will treat with
scorn the senseless outcry for the recovery of an independence which has
never been lost. We are, have been, and will remain, independent; and
the host of men, respectable on every account, who have publicly avowed
their desire to maintain our present Representatives in their seats,
deem it insolence to assert the contrary. They are independent in every
rational sense of the word; acknowledging, however, that they rest upon
a principle, and are incorporated with an interest; and this they regard
as a proof that their affections are sane, and their understandings
superior to illusion. But in certain vocabularies liberty is synonymous
with licence; and to be free, as explained by some, is to live and act
without restraint. In like manner, independence, according to the
meaning of their interpretation, is the explosive energy of
conceit--making blind havoc with expediency. It is a presumptuous
spirit at war with all the passive worth of mankind. The independence
which they boast of despises habit, and time-honoured forms of
subordination; it consists in breaking old ties upon new temptations; in
casting off the modest garb of private obligation to strut about in the
glittering armour of public virtue; in sacrificing, with jacobinical
infatuation, the near to the remote, and preferring, to what has been
known and tried, that which has no distinct existence, even in
im