At the end of it, Burke was second on the poll, and was declared to be duly chosen (November 3, 1774).

There was a petition against his return, but the election was confirmed, and he continued to sit for Bristol for six years.
The situation of a candidate is apt to find out a man's weaker places.
Burke stood the test.

He showed none of the petulant rage of those clamorous politicians whose flight, as he said, is winged in a lower region of the air.

As the traveller stands on the noble bridge that now spans the valley of the Avon, he may recall Burke's local comparison of these busy, angry familiars of an election, to the gulls that skim the mud of the river when it is exhausted of its tide.

He gave his new friends a more important lesson, when the time came for him to thank them for the honour which they had just conferred upon him.