Page:Letters of Junius, volume 1 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/195

 that a man, convicted of a high breach of trust, and of a notorious corruption, in the execution of a public office, was and ought to be, incapable of sitting in the same parliament. Far from attempting to invalidate that vote, I should have wished that the incapacity declared by it could legally have been continued for ever.

, Sir, observe how forcibly the argument returns. The house of commons, upon the face of their proceedings, had the strongest motives to declare Mr. Walpole incapable of being re-elected. They thought such a man unworthy to sit among them.—To that point they proceeded no farther; for they respected the rights of the people, while they asserted their own. They did not infer, from Mr. Walpole's incapacity, that his opponent was duly elected; on the contrary, they declared Mr. Taylor "not duly elected," and the election itself void.