The Sun.
London, England, 1837-07-27 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

Sllti—The City Tories—call them Hanoverians if you
please—bear their late defeat with the malignancy and ill-
humour which ever characterise that faction. Amongst
the many other equally unfounded fabrications, they have
industriously reported that I voted twice—as a Liveryman
and as a householder—fur the four successful candidates.
This Tory lie, I presume, is promulgated for the purpose
of justifying their threale):ed petition to the House of Com-
mons against the return of Mr. Grote, and to swell the
amount of subscription for supporting it. I need scarcely
say, that like every other independent elector, I voted but
once.

EFFINGHAM WILSON.
Royal Exchange, July 27, 1837.

BRIBERY AT BRIDGWATER.

The following communication appeared yesterday in a
rCi'd°guiw.jactie. r, July 26, 1837.
Second Edition
Gofeottrigee Tauntonl Hotel,
t e l
Sir,—l hasten to inform you that the same may be made
as public as possible, that at this place yesterday occurred
the most scandalous, the most gross and illegal conduct that
has been hitherto exhibited by the Tories and Conservatives
of this Borough, and by which the elective franchise of the
majority of the electors has been fraudulently destroyed.
I am, Sr, one of the candidates : a requisition having
been sent to me at my residence, twelve miles distant, early
in the morning of yesterday the 25th inst., and which was
signed in an hour and a half the preceding evening by 208
of the most independent and influential of the electors (the
gross number of whom being about 500), by which requisi-
t:on I was desired to join Mr. Richard Brinsley Sheri_
dan, of Primp:on House, Dorset, in order t• give the
1 beral electors a chance of meeting their opponents upon
fAir and open terms. Mr. Sheridan had before been a
candidate, and would have been returned at the last elec-
tion had not the same outrageous conduct of the Tories
prevented it, the circumstances relating to which would
Lye been all completely laid bare and exposed had the sit-
ting Member, Mr. Broadwood, dared to defend his seat
against the petition to the late House of Commons from
certain electors, and had not the demise of the Crown put
an end to the Parliament.

I obeyed the requisition, and early yesterday morning
met my talented young friend Mr. Sheridan on the bust-
where, after a severe struggle in a broiling sun, we suc-
ceeded in spite of an hired and ruffian mob (who were for
the most part not electors), in obtaining a preponderating
show of hands in our favour, and such a number of pure
and independent promises as gave us a certain prospect of our
return at, the poll this morning. After visiting our com-
mittee, and making the necessary arrangements for the
Poll, several of our agents at twelve o'clock at night ar.
rived and informed us that our opponents, Mr. Broadwood
and Mr. Courtney, with their principal leaders, Mr.
Ruscombe Poole, Mr. John Trevor, and five or six other
attornies of the town, had got together at the Clarence
Hotel, shut up in an apartment there about 100 of the
lower class of the electors, with a promise to each that if
they remained there the night and polled in the morfiing
for their Candidates, Messrs. Broadwood and Courtney,
they should each receive from 10 to 20 sovereigns a man.
By this course of proceeding, Mr. Sheridan and myself
immediately perceived that our election was lost, unless
indeed we had chosen to imitate a conduct so unworthy
and illegal, and the only .course left for us was to quit
this scene of depravity and fraud, and leave the borough
to its fate, and in the hands of men who had again re-
sorted to means so disgraceful and unjust.
The Tories and Conservatives will for the present there-
fore succeed here, and every Liberal elector be deprived of
his elective franchise by a junta• of persons of the most
abandoned political principles—the " elite" of the Tory and
Conservative school in this borough.
But, Sir, I trust that the House of Commons when they
assemble, where the whole of this abominable conduct shall
be exposed, will deal with the perpetrators of it in a manner
suitable to their crimes, by disfranchisement or otherwise as
to their wisdom shall seem meet.

In the meantime I have shown you how it is that the
Tory and Conservative cause is supported—how it is that
the people of England are to be deprived of their liberties
by persons who assume to themselves the exclusive merit of
supporting what they please to call the wisdom of their
forefathers, and as being the only true defenders of the
faith in Church and State.

Mr. Sheridan and myself, after publishing a short decla-
ration of what had happened, resolved on returning to our
homes.

I am, Sir, your faithful and obedient servant,
T. BUCKLER LETHBRIDGE.

To avoid the payment of a tax, the owner of a dog,
at Ilkeston determined upon drowning him in an old pit, forty-
nine yards deep, and nearly five feet deep in water, About 17
days after a miner descended the pit with a lighted candle, in
order to ascertain the state of the works, with a view to re-
commence coal-setting, when he perceived something move in
asiiideoxoafro
itohiengslitahfe place, discovered the dog t, which he suspected to be a
reptile,
on
the
re-
ducedobut, to a mere skeleton, and half buried in the loose soil.
hole
The poor animal was extricated from Lis perilous abode, and he
home.—Derby-
shire lives the welcome inmate of his former hoe.—Derby-
shire tburier.

Accounts from Groningen, Bois le Due, and Til-
burg, of the 29th, give various details of a dreadful thunder-
storm which visited those places ou the 19th and 20th,