Page:Letters of Junius, volume 1 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/182

 at the apprehension of so strange an appearance amongst them. A motion, however, is at length made, that the person was incapable of being elected, that his election therefore is null and void, and that his competitor ought to have been returned. No, says a great orator; First, shew me your law for this proceeding. "Either produce me a statute, in which the specific disability of a clergyman is created; or produce me a precedent, where a clergyman has been returned, and another candidate, with an inferior number of votes, has been declared the sitting member." No such statute, no such precedent to be found. What answer then is to be given to this demand? The very same answer which I will give to that of Junius. That there is more than one precedent in the proceedings of the house—"where an incapable person has been returned, and another candidate, with an inferior number of votes, has been declared the sitting member; and that this is the known and established law, in all cases of incapacity, from whatever cause it may arise."

now therefore beg leave to make a slight amendment to Junius's state of the