Page:Letters of Junius, volume 1 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/185

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declared. There had been no event to call up such a declaration. I trouble not myself with the grammatical meaning of the word expulsion. I regard only its legal meaning. This was not, as I think, precisely fixed. The house thought proper to fix it, and explicitly to declare the full consequences of their former vote, before they suffered these consequences to take effect. And in this proceeding they acted upon the most liberal and solid principles of equity, justice, and law. What then did the burgesses of Lynn collect from the second vote? Their subsequent conduct will tell us: it will with certainty tell us, that they considered it as decisive against Mr. Walpole; it will also, with equal certainty, tell us, that, upon supposition that the law of election stood then as it does now, and that they knew it to stand thus, they inferred, "that, at a future election, and in case of a similar return, the house would receive the same candidate, as duly elected, whom they had before rejected." They could infer nothing but this.

It is needless to repeat the circumstance of dissimilarity in the present case. It will be sufficient to observe, that, as the law of parliament, upon which the house of commons