xvi 



of Commons on the 1 7th July, 1850, and in a series of twenty-one Reso- 

 lutions which he moved in the House on the 1 7th June, 1852, and which 

 were negatived. (3 Hansard, cxxii. 899). His 'Fallacies against the 

 Ballot,' afterwards reprinted as a " Catechism," first appeared in 1855. 



At the general election in January 1835, he polled 138(5 votes at Preston 

 without being present. In June following he was elected, after a sharp con- 

 test, by a majority of five, for Hull, his native place, and was, as he expressed 

 it, "laid down and robbed at the door of the House of Commons" to the 

 amount of <£4000 by a petition of which none of the charges were proved 

 before the Committee. V>'hile in Parliament, both at that time and after- 

 wards, he maintained a constant correspondence with his constituents, 

 addressing them generally twice a week through local newspapers in short 

 and pithy reports, which were republished under the title of " Letters of a 

 Representative," and " Audi Alteram Partem," this last consisting chiefly 

 of an indignant commentary on the measures taken to suppress the Indian 

 Mutiny. He was also an active promoter of the abolition of corporal 

 punishment in the army, and an opponent of the restriction of marriage 

 with a deceased wife's sister. 



Defeated at Maidstone by Mr. Disraeli in 1837, and subsequently at 

 Marylebone, Manchester, and Sunderland, he was elected in 1847 for 

 Bradford, again defeated there in 1852 by six votes, and finally, in 1857, 

 returned without a contest. The dissolution of 1859 closed his career in 

 Parliament, for which he never stood again, although he continued to 

 write in various periodicals on public matters under the signature of " An 

 Old Reformer," and latterly as "A Quondam M.P.," in strenuous defence 

 of the Irish Church. As one of the leaders of the Anti-Corn Law League, 

 the pioneer aud fellow-labourer of Cobden and Bright, he will live in the 

 grateful remembrance of many whose cheap loaf is due to the Father of 

 Free Trade, *'the literary soldier who wrote the 'Corn Law Catechism.'" 

 In person he was short, active, and well made, and in middle age might 

 be, as he described himself, " stouter than would become a Light Dra- 

 goon ;" but he was capable of much fatigue, and insensible to irregu- 

 larities of hours and seasons. Of his acquirements and ability the fore- 

 going sketch may give some idea ; but only those who knew and loved 

 him in private life can tell the depth of his learning, of his goodness, be- 

 nevolence, and kindness of heart. After a life so long, so varied, and at 

 times so stormy, his end came peacefully at Blackheath, early on the 6th 

 of September, 1869, in the S7th year of his age. He had written letters on 

 various subjects, including his favourite Enharmonic Organ, up to the 

 middle of the day before, in full possession of his mental and bodily facul- 

 ties, and he may be said to have died, as he lived, pen in hand — "Qualis 

 ab incepto." He was followed by his children and grandchildren to Ken- 

 sal Green, \shere he rests not far from an old friend and fellow reformer, 

 Joseph Hume. 



