791* Parlimientary Proceedings, 261 



I candidate to reprefent the faid city and liberty in the prefent 

 Parliament. That in the laid city and liberty there are feven- 

 een thoufand, two hnndred, and ninety-one houfeholders, 

 ■.jted in the parilh books, unreprefented in Parliament, and 

 ivithout the means of being reprefented therein ; altho'.igh, by 

 Jiredt and indired: taxation, they contribute to the revenue of 

 he ftate veiy con fiderably more thanthofe who fend a hundred 

 ■nembers to Parliament. That, at each of tl.e three laft elec- 

 :ions for Weftminfter, (viz. in 1784, in 1788, and 1790,) noto- 

 ioiifly deliberate outrage, and purpofely armed violence, was 

 ufed ; and at each of thele eleftions murder was committed ; 

 Th.at, for thefe part outrages, aaif there were no attorney ge- 

 nera], no government, no legillature in the land, not the leaft 

 redrefs has been obtained, not the leaft puniiliment, nor even 

 the leaft cenfure, inflicfted ; nor has any remedy whatever been 

 appointed, or attempted, to prevent a repetition of fimilar out- 

 rages in future ; That, at the eleftion for Weftminfter in 17S4, 

 a fcrutiny was demanded in behalf of Sir Cecil Wray, which 

 was granted on the 17th of May 1784, and, witJi the approba- 

 tion or direftion of the then Houfe of Coir.mons, v.'as continu- 

 ed till the third of March 1785, when a very fmall compaia- 

 tive progrefs having been made, (viz. through the fmall parifli 

 of St Anne, and not entirely through St Martin's, leaving to- 

 tally untouched the pariflies of St Ueorge, St Jame?, St Mar- 

 garet, St John, St Paul, Covent Garden, St Mary le Strand, 

 St Clement, and St Martin le Grand,) the faid fcrutiny was, 

 by the dire(5tion or approbation of the Houfe of Commons, re- 

 linquifhed without effetft, after having lafted ten months, and 

 with an expence to Sir Cecil Wray of many thoufand pounds 

 more than appears, by fome late proceedings in chancery, to 

 be the allowed average price of a p:rpetual feat in the Houfe of 

 Commons, rjuhere feats for legi/latlon are as no'.orioi'Jly rented and 

 bought as the Jlandings for cattle at a fair. 



" That, on the eledion for Weftminder, in 1788, there be- 

 ing an abfolute and experienced impofliibility of deterxininp: the 

 choice of the eleiftors by a fcrutiny before the returning officer, 

 a petition againft the return was prcfented to the then Houfe 

 of Commons, by Lord Hood ; and another petition alfo againft 

 the return was prefented by certain ele(fta'"3 of Weftminfter ; 

 and a committee was in confequcnce appointed, which com- 

 menced its proceedings on Friday, April 3. 1789, and continu- 

 ed till June 18, 1789, when the committee, as able and refpeft- 

 able as ever were Iworn to try and determine the matter of 

 any petition, on their oaths, " Refolved, that, from the pro- 

 grefs which the committee have hitherto been enabled to make 

 lince the commcncem.cnt of their proceedings, as well as from 



