was-Grey, 23; Disraeli, 12; majority, 11. Mr. Disraeli says in a bill that he had a majority of resident voters, but the numbers were-Grey, residents, 11; Disraeli, 7; majority, 4. There were two more to poll in the Grey interest.” *

* Bucks Gazette, June 30, 1832. The same journal, in the same issue, also says Mr. Disraeli's "principal supporters were the Radicals."

CHAPTER IV.

THE SECOND ELECTION AT WYCOMBE.

MR. DISRAELI received his defeat at High Wycombe with neither patience nor despair.

Immediately after the declaration of the poll, he again ascended the rostrum, and again delivered a lengthy speech. In those days of hard hitting, no man, perhaps, had much chance of prominence in the political arena without using strong language. Mr. Disraeli, at all events, had determined at a very early stage in his career that the bitterness of his tongue should be one of his principal means of success.

Some of the assertions made in this speech afforded subject for a controversy between Mr. Disraeli and his opponent in the interval between the first and second elections. Of these things, however, there is but one which interests us nowadays. In a speech to his constituents in December, Colonel Grey accused Mr. Disraeli of having made use of the words,

"The Whigs have cast me off, and they shall repent it."

*

Mr. Disraeli at once replied in a letter to the Times. "Whatever," he wrote, "may be the disposition of the Whigs to me, they never could have cast me off, since I never had the slightest connection with them. I believe that the phrase I did use, and I am sanctioned in my recollection by every person to whom I have applied, was the following: 'The Whigs had opposed me, not I them, and they shall repent it.' I am in nowise ashamed of this observation, and I adhere to my intention."

Parliament was dissolved on August 16, and Mr. Disraeli resolved to seek a second time the suffrages of the Wycombe electors. On the 5th of October appears in the Times the first election address of Lord Beaconsfield which I am able anywhere to find.

"I come forward," says Mr. Disraeli in this address, "wearing the badge of no party, and the livery of no faction." But he goes on to add that he has no desire to "escape an explicit avowal" of his opinions. Then he expresses himself in favour of vote by ballot, triennial Parliaments, and retrenchment of the public expenditure. After a violent attack on the Ministry, the address winds up with an appeal to the constituency to rid themselves of all "that political jargon and factious slang of Whig and Tory-two names," proceeds Mr. Disraeli, "with one meaning, · Times, Nov. 11, 1832.

used only to delude you,-and unite in forming a great national party, which can alone save the country from impending destruction."♦

This is the address in full :

66 TO THE INDEPENDENT ELECTORS OF THE BOROUGH OF

CHIPPING WYCOMBE.

"Friends and Neighbours,

"A dissolution of Parliament, notwithstanding the machinations of those who have clogged the new charter of your rights which you have won with so much difficulty, with all the vexatious provisoes of a fiscal enactment, being an event which cannot be much longer delayed, I think fit to announce my readiness to redeem the pledge which I made to you at the close of the late contest on the hustings of our borough, and to assure you of my resolution to go to the poll to make another, and, I doubt not, triumphant struggle for your independence.

"I warned our late masters of the dangerous precedent of electing a stranger merely because he was the relative of a Minister. I oretold, as a consequence of their compliance, a system of nomination as fatal as those close corporations of which you are relieved. The event has justified my prediction. Wycombe has now the honour of being represented by the private secretary of the First Lord of the Treasury.

"A few years back, Aylesbury was threatened with the private secretary of the Lord Chancellor. The men of Aylesbury rejected with loathing that which, it appears, suited the more docile digestion of the late electors of Wycombe. The private secretary of the Lord Chancellor was withdrawn, and in his place was substituted an unknown youth, whose only recommendation is that he is the very young brother of a very inexperienced Minister, and one who has obtained power merely by the renunciation of every pledge which procured him an entrance into public life.

"Gentlemen, I come forward to oppose this disgusting system of factious and intrusive nomination, which, if successful, must be fatal to your local independence; and which, if extensively acted upon throughout the country, may even be destructive of your general liberties. I come forward wearing the badge of no party, and the livery of no faction. I seek your suffrages as an independent neighbour, who, sympathising with your wants and interests, will exercise his utmost influence in the great national council to relieve the one and support the other.

At a public meeting given to him by his supporters, Mr. Disraeli elaborated the opinions which he had expressed in the address. This speech is a really memorable one: delivered at a petty dinner in a

"But, while I am desirous of entering Parliament as an independent man, I have never availed myself of that much-abused epithet I am desirous of to escape an explicit avowal of my opinions. assisting in the machinery of our new constitution, without which perfection I am doubtful whether it will work. I am prepared to support that ballot which will preserve us from that unprincipled system of terrorism with which it would seem we are threatened even in this town.

"I am desirous of recurring to those old English triennial Parliaments of which the Whigs originally deprived us, and, by repealing the taxes upon knowledge, I would throw the education of the people into the hands of the philosophic student, instead of the ignorant adventurer.

"Although I shall feel it my duty to enforce on all opportunities the most rigid economy, and the most severe retrenchment, to destroy every useless place and every urdeserving office, and to effect the greatest reduction of taxation consistent with the maintenance of the public faith and the real efficiency of the Government, I shall withhold my support from every Ministry which will not originate some great measure to ameliorate the condition of the lower orders-to rouse the dormant energies of the country, to liberate our shackled industry, and reinstate our expiring credit.

"I have already expressed my willingness to assist in the modification of our criminal code. I have already explained how I think the abolition of slavery may be safely and speedily effected. With regard to the Corn Laws, I will support any change the basis of which is to relieve the customer without injuring the farmer; and for the Church, I am desirous of seeing effected some commutation which, while it prevents the tithe from acting as a tax on industry and enterprise, will again render the clergy what I am always desirous of seeing them, fairly remunerated, because they are valuable and efficient labourers, and influential, because they are beloved. "And now I call upon every man who values the independence of our borough, upon every man who desires the good government of this once great and happy country; upon every man who feels he has a better chance of being faithfully served by a Member who is his neighbour, than by a remote representative, who, like tae idle