To be invited to stand for so great a constituency, without any request of his own and free of personal expense, was a distinction which no politician could hold lightly.

Burke rose from the table where he was dining with some of his supporters, stepped into a post-chaise at six on a Tuesday evening, and travelled without a break until he reached Bristol on the Thursday afternoon, having got over two hundred and seventy miles in forty-four hours.

Not only did he execute the journey without a break, but, as he told the people of Bristol, with an exulting commemoration of his own zeal that recalls Cicero, he did not sleep for an instant in the interval.

The poll was kept open for a month, and the contest was the most tedious that had ever been known in the city.

New freemen were admitted down to the very last day of the election.