To-morrow is the Day; a Day to be apprehended; a Day to be remembered; a Day whereon a City, as we may fay, must be either won, or loft. You are the Champions appointed to Battle, but the Arm of Flesh is not to decide it. The Conteft is to be between Power and Patriotifm, Intereft and Integrity, influence and Virtue; between the Licentioufnefs of Aldermen, and the LIBERTY of the PEOPLE.

Above all, beware, that you give not a fingle Voice in Favour of any whom you have already rejected; no Voice, we charge you, in Favour of Thofe who have appealed to Power, against the Rights of their Fellow-citizens, and against the Laws of their Country.

This would be to found the Trumpet of your own Defeat; to acknowledge yourselves the Servants of Influence; to put on the Cloak of Slavery that is handed to you; and to exhibit, to the Eye of a pointing World, the Badge of an ALDERMAN between your Shoulders.

Your Difapprobation of thofe Gentlemen, fhewed no Slight to their Merits, nor Difregard to their Perfons. It is no Affront to any Man to be deemed, comparatively, lefs deferving than fome other; efpecially in a Cafe where particular Offices demand particular Qualifications.

When you rejected those Gentlemen, you did it in Preference of fome others whom you judged more capable of ferving this City. You judged juftly, worthy Brothers. You judged, according to Law, and according to Duty.

Have the Perfons, then, in whofe Favour you formed that Judgment, loft their Qualities and Capacities fince that recent Day? Or have the Gentle

men,

men, whom you rejected, derived new Merits, from their appealing against the Liberties of this City; from their petitioning to have the ARBITRARY WILL and TYRANNY of ALDERMEN re-eftablished?

ADIEU till Saturday.

The Sword of the LORD and of Gideon!

Thursday, June 2, 1763.

Here endeth the Fourth Chapter.

The FLAPPER, No. II. To the Citizens 4

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of DUBLIN.

S well as I can recollect, from Papers, which I fome Years ago read with a mixture of pleasure and furprize, it was about the Year Forty One in this Century, that the Eyes of the Commons and Citizens of our Metropolis, indeed, of the Kingdom in general, were opened, with refpect to the Rights and Privileges of the Members of this great Body Corporate. As thefe Papers are chiefly founded upon the Charters and Records of the City, and as the Pofitions in them laid down, were never contradicted, nor the Arguments in any fort refuted; we must prefume they stand in full force at this Day

I shall not enter into a minute detail of the Facts and Arguments stated in these Papers, as I must prefume, among other inftances, from the uncommon regard fhewn their Author, and fupported without any diminution for a feries of Years, that every thinking Citizen is poffeffed of his Works. I fhall then content myself, and I hope my Reader, with a brief recapitulation of the legal Conftitution of the City, of the breaches made in that Conftitution, as tacitly confeffed by those who violated the happy Inftitution, and declared in feveral Bills, by every Part of the Legislature, before the laft, the final Act for the better Regulation of the City, &c. which I fhall alfo take into Confideration in its turn. And as I Imagine that I fhall be able to lay fome of the most important and interefting matters before the Citizens, I fhall only beg that they will be fo attentive to their own honour as to keep clear of all Influence but that of Right Reason, Truth and the Public good, in the Admiffion of Freemen, as well as in the Election of all their Offices, especially thofe on whom the great general Election of their Representatives in the Common Council of the City, may in any wife depend You are now upon the Eve of this Election; and your Conduct muft fhortly determine, whether you will concur in a general Reformation of your City, which the Law has happily put into your Hands, or whether you will return like the Dog to his Vom

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or like the Swine to wallowing in the Mire, and remain the Dupes andSlaves of those who have trampled your facred Rights and Privileges under Foot, wafted your Eftates and Revenues, robbed your poor, and defpifed your Fatherlefs Children and Widows, and looked upon you and your Commons as Beafts fit only to bear Burdens.

If I rightly retain what you may all find in a Tract Intitled, The Political Conftitution of Great Britain and Ireland Stated, &c. printed in London in the Year 1750, first published in feparate Addreffes to you in the Years 1748 and 49, all the grants whether of Franchifes, Powers, Lands, Tolls, Customs, or of what Nature or Kind foever they may be, which were in any paft Time made by the Royal Founders of this City, were made to the Citizens at large, under whatfoever Title the Corporation bore. The firft grants, as well as I can Remember, were by Henry the Second, who granted this City to the Citizens of Bristol with all the Powers, Liberties and Immunities they had a Title to in their Native City, or elsewhere in the King's Dominions. This enabled the Men of Bristol to establifh their Civil Conftitution here, and to introduce the Customs and Manners of Bristol into Dublin.

By various grants of the fucceeding Kings, thefe Privileges and the Territories of this City were enlarged and the Title of the grants run thus; to our Citizens of Dublin-to the Provoft and Citizens, or Provof, Commonalty and Citizens, or Provoft, Bai lifs and Citizens; or Provoft, Bailifs, Commonalty and Citizens; or Mayor, Bailifs and Citizens; or Mayor, Bailifs, Commons and Citizens; or Mayor, Sherifs, Commons and Citizens; or Lord Mayor, Sherifs, Commons and Citizens. And the Author Challenges any Man to produce any proof, that any Charter was ever granted, in any other Strain or Form, or to any other effect or purpose. Hence we may fairly infer that though the City's Title often changed, and different Officers were made to prefide in, or otherwise joined with the Body Corporate, the Citizens were ever confidered as the conftituent Part, the very

onse of the City, in fo much, that though a Com

mon Council was inftituted by the Citizens, for their own Eafe; yet this Council never had more power by Laws, than to prepare Bufinefs for the Aggregate Body of the Citizens in their Court of Darein Hundred, or D'Oyer Hundred.

Our Author, indeed, fhews us, what we have fince felt, that a board of Aldermen was inftituted by the Citizens too, and that, without any intervention of regal power; that thefe were added to the Common Council, and that these gaining the afcendant over the Commons, and in time becoming their Creators, they foon learned to fet both Commons and Citizens at Naught, by making the joint Acts of Aldermen and Commons, or the Decrees of the Board without the Commons, bind the whole Citizens, without their confent; and in time to keep up only the form of the Court of D'oyer Hundred, while its powers were abfolutely denied, and at length, the reafon of calling that most refpectable affembly by Bell and Proclamation, became utterly unknown, and now feems intended, by the late Act before mentioned, to be for ever abolished after that Act is Executed in the Election of the next Commons in Novembernext.

Under the Government which has prevailed in the City for near a century paft, it is easy to conceive how inconfiderable she must have proved upon most public occafions, and how contemptible her members, however dignified by Law with powers, and privileges, must upon all occafions be found! This affords but an unpleafing profpect. View these in another light: Suppofe the head and different members of this Body, properly united, and jointly cooperating in their respective (pheres, for the common good of the City and Kingdom; how great must their weight be in applications to the Crown or the Parliament? how great their influence on the conduct of other bodies corporate in the Kingdom! Might not Dublin be of as great weight and her example as prevalent in Ireland, as London is in Britain! But the fatal reverfe in all refpects here is felt by the remoteft Inhabitants of the Kingdom.

How defirable then muft it be to fee the City re

ftor