, or compromise, could exist. But the
principle of Election and Representation is so completely done away,
in every stage thereof, that inconsistency has no longer the power of
surprising.

Neither from elections thus conducted, nor from rotten Borough
Addressers, nor from County-meetings, promoted by Placemen and
Pensioners, can the sense of the nation be known. It is still corruption
appealing to itself. But a Convention of a thousand persons, fairly
elected, would bring every matter to a decided issue.

As to County-meetings, it is only persons of leisure, or those who live
near to the place of meeting, that can attend, and the number on such
occasions is but like a drop in the bucket compared with the whole. The
only consistent service which such meetings could render, would be that
of apportioning the county into convenient districts, and when this is
done, each district might, according to its number of inhabitants, elect
its quota of County Members to the National Convention; and the vote of
each Elector might be taken in the parish where he resided, either by
ballot or by voice, as he should chuse to give it.

A National Convention thus formed, would bring together the sense and
opinions of every part of the nation, fairly taken. The science of
Government, and the interest of the Public, and of the several parts
thereof, would then undergo an ample and rational discussion, freed from
the language of parliamentary disguise.

But in all deliberations of this kind, though men have a right to
reason with, and endeavour to convince each other, upon any matter that
respects their common good, yet, in point of practice, the majority of
opinions, when known, forms a rule for the whole, and to this rule every
good citizen practically conforms.

Mr. Burke, as if he knew, (for every concealed Pensioner has the
opportunity of knowing,) that the abuses acted under the present system,
are too flagrant to be palliated, and that the majority of opinions,
whenever such abuses should be made public, would be for a general and
effectual reform, has endeavoured to preclude the event, by sturdily
denying the right of a majority of a nation to act as a whole. Let us
bestow a thought upon this case.

When any matter is proposed as a subject for consultation, it
necessarily implies some mode of decision. Common consent, arising from
absolute necessity, has placed this in a majority of opinions; because,
without it, there can be