CHARA CITERS. 
pel; but these are not the opportu- 
nities for displaying the talents of 
such a statesman. About this time 
also, he had an affair of honour with 
Mr. Adam, which is related in the 
Annual Register of the year. 
The support of the trade of Ire- 
Jand now- occupied a _ good deal 
the mind of Mr. Fox, and he did 
not hesitate to make some strong 
allusions to the propriety of popular 
armament, when the constitutional 
rights of the people can be obtained 
_ by no other means. 
The county of York also began, 
at the present period, to take the 
usual popular measures for evincing 
their discontent at the increase of 
taxes, in which it was followed by 
_ the city of Westminster. 
The par- 
 liament being about to be dissolved, 
a connection begun between Mr. 
_ Fox and the electors of Westmin- 
_ ster, who proposed to him the repre. 
“eis 
sentation of that city in parliament. 
Though by no means an old states- 
man, and without any popular mea- 
sures, such was the effect of his 
manners, and of the exertions he had 
made, that he received, on this occa- 
sion, the flattering title of The Man 
io 
of the People ; and the name of Fox 
_ was ever after associated with con- 
on 
Sete. 
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we 
stitutional freedom. The power 
_ with which he had to contend (the 
Newcastle interest,) and; the eclat 
of the affair of honour in which Mr. 
Fox had been engaged, did not fail 
to have their wonted effect on the 
public mind. 
Lord Lincoln was his opponent, 
and made what is called a powerful 
stand ; but Mr. Fox was ultimately 
successful. A scrutiny was demand- 
ed, but lord Lincoln did not proceed 
very far, As a mark of the inter- 
est Mr. Fox had} excited in the 
public mind, it is related, that 
895. 
not having been seen for a few 
hours, it was reported he had fought 
lord Lincoln, and that he was killed ; 
when immediately a vast:concourse 
of people proceeded to his house, 
to ascertain the truth. A wag first 
set them right, by exclaiming, 
‘¢ Oh! you need not make your- 
selves uneasy, for if it were true the 
park and tower gans would have 
been fired !” 
In the consideration of the riots 
of 1780, which yet so strongly im- 
press every mind, and which shook 
the very empire to its centre, Mr. 
Fox is no way prominent. Perhaps 
it was notto beexpected immediately 
after a popular election. 
Mr. Fox, this year, obtained the 
co-operation of a _ parliamentary 
friend, and the public the accession 
of abilities scarcely inferior to that 
of his splendid contemporarics, in 
Richard Brinsley Sheridan. And, 
in the month of February following, 
Mr. Pitt, the predestined rival of Mr. 
Fox, made his first speech in the 
house of commons. 
Mr. Pitt, who was in the twenty- 
second year of his age, (1781) had 
already maintained a literary dis- 
pute with the lord Mountstuart, 
concerning a supposed application 
of his father, the earl of Bute, to the 
earl of Chatham. Dr. Addington, 
father to the present lord Sidmouth, 
had published an account of some 
political transactions between the 
earl of Bute and the earl of Chat- 
ham; immediately previous to the 
death of the latter. Mr. Pitt pub- 
lished, in answer to it, a short well 
written pamphlet, which he entitled 
‘6 Another account.” ‘The subject of 
debate was Mr. Burke’s economical 
bill for regulating the civil list reve~ 
nue, which Mr. Pitt supported. 
Although he rather appeared among 
the 
