which our ancestors have shed their dearest blood to check and limit? Let the people of England once confederate with the Crown and the Lords in such a conflict, and who is the man that will answer for one hour of legal liberty afterwards? Can the people confide in His Majesty's secret advisers? I say NO. And I demand one instance, in the twenty-three years of this wretched reign, when a regard to the liberty of the people can be traced in any measure to the secret system.'

This document, which went on in a similar strain to a great length, was handed about from house to house: no doubt a copy was given to the King.

A general meeting of all the electors was called on March 14th, in Westminster Hall. This assemblage proved everything that could be desired; the hall was completely packed with an uproarious mob, chiefly on the King's side; the hustings were made a battlefield for the possession of the chair, which was pulled to pieces in the struggle; then the hustings broke down, and a good many on either side were trampled upon and injured. Nobody could be heard; when it was understood that the meeting was asked to express an opinion on the Address to the King, nearly all the hands went up: Fox tried to speak; a bag of assafoetida was thrown in his face; his friends carried him out on their shoulders; finally he addressed the crowd from the bow-window of the King's Head Tavern, in Palace Yard. After the speech they took the horses from his carriage and dragged him all the way to Devonshire House, in Piccadilly, with shouts and cheers. A so-called report of the meeting was then drawn up by Fox's friends, stating that the chair had been taken by Fox and that a new Address to the King had been unanimously adopted. At the outset, therefore, neither side was in the least degree desirous to present the bald, bare, cold, unsatisfying truth.

On March 19th the Friends of Liberty held a great banquet

at Willis's Rooms. They numbered five hundred; the dinner. was fixed for half-past five, but such was the ardour of the

company, so great their determination to do justice to the feast, that they began to assemble at half-past three.

It is pleasant to read of civic and electioneering banquets -to see pictures of the patriots enjoying some of the rewards. of virtue. The dinner was spread on six tables; and, in order to prevent confusion, everything was put on the table at once, so that when the covers-if there were any covers were removed, the company saw their dinner.' Then friends and neighbours helped each other with loving zeal from the dishes before them; the waiters looked to the bottles, while the guests handed the plates to each other. Only to think of this dinner makes one hear the clatter of knives and forks, the buzz of talk-serious talk, because the average elector of Westminster in 1784 was not a person who laughed much-indeed, one imagines that, after the humiliations and disgraces of the American war, there could be very little laughter left in the country at all, even among the young and the lighthearted. Music there was, however-music to uplift the hearts of the despondent-violins and a 'cello, with perhaps flutes and horns. Singing there was, also, after dinner. During the banquet there was not much drinking: it would be sinful, with the whole night before one, to destroy a generous thirst at the outset. Men of that age were very powerful performers at the table; we neither cat nor drink with the noble, copious and indiscriminate voracity of our ancestors : without any scientific observance of order these Friends of Liberty tackled all that stood before them-beef and mutton, fish and apple pie, turkey, tongue, ham, chicken, soup and jelly-plentifully dispersed and fashionably set out.' Faces grew shiny with long-continued exercise; those who wore wigs pushed them back, those who wore powder found it slipping from their hair on their shoulders; bones-the succulent bones of duck and chicken-were freely gnawed and sucked, as was still the custom even in circles much higher than that which these Friends of Liberty adorned.

At last the dishes were removed, and the business of the evening, with the drinking, began. It is not stated, unfortunately, whether the Friends of Liberty drank port or punch. Contemporary pictures incline one to favour the theory of punch.

We of too degenerate age are wont to complain of the after-dinner speech. Which of us could

now sit out the speeches and the toasts at this banquet, and survive? Even the speaker would recoil in terror at the prospect of such a night.

They did not drink the health of the King. His name was purposely omitted -a thing astonishing to us, who cannot remember personal hostility to the sovereign. Fox, who was in the chair, began with the Independent Electors of the City of Westminster'; he followed with 'The Majesty of the People of England,' 'The Cause of Freedom all over the World,' 'The Glorious and Immortal Memory of King William the Third.' Twenty-seven toasts are enumerated at length, with the ominous words at the end, 'Several other toasts were given.' Songs were sung by Captain Morris of Anacreontic fame, Mr. Bannister, and others of the tuneful choir.

In the midst of this growing excitement it was learned that the Great Seal

THEMISTOCLES (LORD
HOOD), FROM THE
RIVAL CANDIDATES,

of England, which was in the custody of the Lord Chancellor, had been stolen. Men looked at each other in amazement and dismay. What did this thing portend? Who had caused it to be done? What did it mean? Was it ordered by the King, or by Pitt, or by Fox? What deep-laid plot did the

burglary conceal? Nobody could tell. The King, rising to the occasion, ordered a new seal to be made without delay. The robbery, which had no political significance, was forgotten, and the mind of the public returned to the General Election. On March 25th the House of Commons was dissolved, and the candidates made haste to issue their addresses to the

'DEMOSTHENES' (CHARLES JAMES FOX), FROM THE RIVAL CANDIDATES '

'Worthy and Independent Electors of the City of Westminster.' The Committee of Hood and Wray met at Wood's Hotel, and that of Fox at the Shakespeare Tavern, both in Covent Garden. The Westminster hustings were at that time put up in front of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. If I remember aright, the hustings of the election of 1868 were erected in Trafalgar Square; and I think they were the last.