ands on the noble bridge
that now spans the valley of the Avon, he may recall Burke's local
comparison of these busy, angry familiars of an election, to the gulls
that skim the mud of the river when it is exhausted of its tide. He
gave his new friends a more important lesson, when the time came for
him to thank them for the honour which they had just conferred upon
him. His colleague had opened the subject of the relations between a
member of Parliament and his constituents; and had declared that,
for his own part, he should regard the instructions of the people of
Bristol as decisive and binding. Burke in a weighty passage upheld a
manlier doctrine.

Certainly, gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of
a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest
correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his
constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him;
their opinions high respect, their business unremitted attention.
It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasure, his
satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases,
to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiassed opinion,
his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to
sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. Your
representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment;
and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to
your opinion.

My worthy colleague says, his will ought to be subservient to
yours. If that be all, the thing is innocent. If government were a
matter of will upon any side, yours, without question, ought to be
superior. But government and legislation are matters of reason and
judgment, and not of inclination; and what sort of reason is that
in which the determination precedes the discussion, in which one
set of men deliberate and another decide, and where those who form
the conclusion are perhaps three hundred miles distant from
those who hear the arguments?... _Authoritative_ instructions,
_mandates_ issued, which the member is bound blindly and
implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though contrary to
the clearest convictions of his judgment and conscience--these are
things utterly unknown to the laws of this land, and which arise
from a fundamental mistake of the whole order and tenor of our
Constitu