friend. Thus happily ended this disagreeable business. As soon as we returned to the town, Paulet despatched a servant with a note to the Priory, informing the ladies of what had taken place, lest any incorrect or exaggerated report should reach them. He described the affair as bloodless, observing to me it was better to make no mention of the slight scratch which he had received, for their imaginations might work it up into a source of anxiety and alarm.

CHAPTER XI.

DURING the first four days, the government candidate was kept at the head of the poll, but his advantage over Paulet was not considerable. The Man of the Mob, finding that he had no chance by fair means, did not hesitate to try what he could do by foul. He put bludgeons into the hands of his voteless vagabonds, who in great numbers surrounded the hustings. and marked and waylaid every freeholder who came to give his suffrage for either of the other parties. This system of intimidation was not without effect, for though some of the stout yeomen boldly advanced to the poll in defiance of threats and obstacles, many, either less bold, or having a due regard to their personal safety, for the sake of their helpless wives and families, were deterred by the apprehension of violence from exercising thei franchise.

The outrages of these villains at length grew so intolerable, that both Armstrong and Paulet presented a requisition to the sheriff, founded on the affidavits of several freeholders, who swore that they were prevented polling by the fear of bodily injury, to call in the aid of the military power, if the civil force was inadequate to preserve order. Accordingly, a troop of lancers, belonging to a regiment which had been quartered in the town, but removed during the election, was sent for. This proceeding was of course furiously clamoured against by Sims and his friends, who very plainly encouraged the mob to resist force by force. The consequence was, that the military upon entering the town were encountered with a storm of missiles, such as mud, broken crockery, stones, and brickbats, which they received with that forbearance unknown to any but a British soldier, because no other nation in the world enjoins such a respect for the license of the subject. It was not until two of the men had been disabled, and three or four severely cut and bruised by the assaults of the mob, that they were permitted to make any movement. They then advanced at a slow trot, driving the rapscallions before them by pricking them behind with their lances, to the great amusement of the spectators, who form a considerable item

in mobs, and who laughed heartily at this humane and contemptuous mode of goading the rioters into tranquillity. Exasperated, however, by this ridicule, the mob suddenly turned to bay, and with ferocious yells, made a desperate assault upon the military, who, finding themselves in imminent danger of being overpowered, drew their swords, and charged among the multitude, cutting away right and left, and revenging the insults and injuries to which they had been so long obliged patiently to submit. In this affray, three lives were lost, and several men wounded on the part of the rioters; only one of the soldiers was killed, but many were severely hurt. The scoundrel who had caused all this commotion, and who did not hesitate gladly to purchase a topic of decla mation against the powers that be, and the existing order of things at the expense of blood, now foamed, and threatened, and denounced, and published the most false and inflammatory accounts of the affair in the newspapers, which were thereby furnished with two or three leading articles; a precious Godsend at a time of the year when things were dull. The liberal prints called the above detailed fracas a massacre, and were very wrathful and eloquent; while, on the other side, the tory journals produced their own version in refutation of the statements of their whig and radical brethren, so that it yielded very pretty pickings to the gentlemen of the press, who managed it so well, as to make it last for two or three weeks.

The coroner's jury which sat on the bodies of the wretches who fell, returned, as is usual in such cases, a verdict of wilful murder against the sheriff and the officer commanding the troop. However, as nobody appeared to prosecute, the accused were of course set at large.

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The radical candidate finding his resources of opposition and vexation exhausted, withdrew his pretensions, but under a flourish of menaces and big words. He was driven from the contest by military force; he should petition, and his success would be certain, and when scated, he would move, and represent, and denounce, and hold up to indignation, and what not." However, we were glad to get rid of the fellow, who, though he could not affect the ultimate issue of the election, was a serious nuisance during its continuance. The struggle between the two substantial condidates proceeded warmly. Paulet's success would have been not merely certain, but overwhelming, could he have condescended to those practices by which elections are secured, but he kept rigidly

to his determination of refusing to countenance any such sinister arts. By the agents of the other party, these were put in vigorous operation, and the virtue of the majority of the electors, was not proof against the seducing arguments offered by the treasury candidate. Mr. Paulet had, at an early period of the contest, intimated his knowledge, that his opponent was endeavouring to procure his return by unconstitutional means; and farther observed, that immediately upon a single act of bribery having been authenticated to him, he should have retired, and preferred a petition, were he not desirous to afford every incorruptible elector an opportunity of recording his independence, for it was generally understood that by the conduct of the right honourable gentleman and his agents, every man who voted for him was suspected of dishonesty. Under these circumstances, he should deem it incumbent upon himself to keep the poll open to the last hour, and if the consequence of the right honourable gentleman's system should be, as he did not attempt to deny was probable, a numerical superiority, he was provided with abundant evidence to bring the matter before a committee of the House of Commons."

Accordingly, for the last two or three days, Mr. Paulet kept the poll open without any chance of a plurality of votes, and on the eighth day of the contest, Mr. Armstrong was declared duly elected.

Here reader, you have another proof that honesty is not the best policy; for by spending among the electors half the money which it will cost him to prosecute his claim before the House of Commons, his success would have been immediately secured; whereas, by the upright course of proceeding which he adopted, he incurred an outlay to a large amount, upon a remote and uncertain speculation.

CHAPTER XII.

LADY Jane Paulet did not betray much disappointment at her husband's failure; indeed she had no ambition, and her wishes for his success were only in proportion to those which he manifested, and would have been excited in the same degree for any other object, in the accomplishment of which he was interested. Alice, however, whose views and feelings expanded beyond the circle of private life, desired to see her high-minded brother in a situation where his character might be more largely appreciated. Her sense, which had a masculine energy and soundness, was certainly somewhat gilded by romance; not indeed that spurious, pinchback sentiment which young ladies learn from their intercourse with the circulating library; not the romance of my gracefully unhappy little friend Lady Oliphant; but an element of a higher nature, composed of an innate principle of exalted virtue, and a benevolence which led her to feel a deep interest in the welfare of mankind. This divine sentiment had not been worn away by the knowledge of the world which she had acquired, in the course of a considerable acquaintance with both English and foreign society, but existed in as much freshness after she had passed through this usually debasing ordeal, as it could have done before I had the happiness of being known to her, when it constituted in my eyes one of the highest charms of her character. God forbid that it should ever be stripped of such a beautiful and amiable delusion!

Let me not, however, be led away by this fascinating subject from the matter in hand. I was about to observe, that affection in the present instance, combining with this visionary notion to blind, in some measure, her better judgment, had caused her to fancy, that not only might the talents of her accomplished brother be beneficial to his country, but that his noble character might likewise become a salutary example, in a situation of life where the high qualities which it possessed were supposed to be exceedingly rare. Perhaps, also, in addition to these purer motives, a slight tinge of worldly ambition entered into the earnestness with which she inVOL. II.

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