The Sun.
London, England, 1841-06-18 00:00:00

TO THE WORTHY AND INDEPENDENT ELECTORS
OF THE FAITHFUL CITY OF WORCESTER.
GENTLEMEN,
THE retirement from Parliament of Colonel
Davies, will, at the ensuing General Election, impose
upon you the necessity of selecting some other individual to
whom you will confide the important trust which your long-
tried and justly-valued Representative is about to resign.
Encouraged by the favourable opinion communicated to me,
by several of the members of your highly-respectable consti-
tuency, I venture to present myself to your notice, and re-
spectfully to solicit your suffrages, that I may, as his successor,
represent your faitlaful City.
While thus soliciting your support, I am fully aware that
the privilege an'A duty of electing Members to serve in Parlia-
ment, at all tiT.nes important, are rendered so at the present
crisis to a degree which at no period of our history has ever
been surpo.ssed.
As I I",ave sat for some time in Parliament, my name and
tilts general character of my political principles are perhaps
'Jot altogether unknown to some of you. But on the present
most important occasion, and soliciting for the first time the
honour of a connection with your city, it is fit that I should
make some more particular and distinct avowal of my political
sentiments. I declare myself, therefore, to be a steady, persever-
ing Reformer, at all times desirous of maintaining and preserving
the institutions of our country by adapting and restoring them
to their original objects, and by purifying those institutions
from the defects and abuses which the progress of time, the
changes in the state of society, or the selfish purposes of suc-
cessively dominant parties, may have created ; believing as I do
that the blessings of the Constitution can be perpetuated only
by seasonable and timely reparations, and that without such
reparations, and without a proper and judicious adaptation of
its true principles to the present circumstances of the com-
munity, even its most valuable parts may be perverted into po-
sitive evils.
I first sought a seat in Parliament for the immediate purpose
of adding my hnmble aid to the promotion of the cause of civil
and religious liberty ; and I have constantly, and, I trust, con-
sistently, persevered in furthering those objects, while, at the
same time, to the Church I have been a determined friend,
and of which I shall ever continue to be a steady defender ;
conceiving, however, that I best discharge the duties of those
characters, and that I act most in accordance with the prin-
elides upon which that Church is based, by recognizing the
rights of all to liberty of conscience, unaccompanied by civil
disability, and unstained by degradation of any kind.
The proposed alterations in the Corn-laws, and in restrictions
upon other branches of trade, demand especial and explicit no-
tice ; I, therefore, beg to state, that I entertain the opinion
that the country cannot too soon regulate its commerce gene-
rally upon principles more enlarged and liberal, and directed to
the promotion of the greatest possible good to the community at
large, and to the abandonment of the false system of sacrificing
one class of the community to another—a system which experi-
ence has shown, not only fails in attaining its partial and unjust
object, but is productive of evils never contemplated. At the
same time, I admit, that justice requires that the necessary al-
terations in the laws should be made with due caution, that they
may not injure the classes or individuals whose pursuits and en-
gage:events have been regulated with reference to the existing
laws, and without just ground to anticipate any immediate
change in those laws.
I appear before you, soliciting the free and unbiassed votes of
every member of your Constituency, expressing my abhorrence
and repudiation of coercion and intimidation in every form.
Long, indeed, have I opposed the exercise of such unrighteous
means, and too long have I been witness to the cruelty and the
evils which it inflicts. Ido not hesitate, therefore, to declare
my intention to continue to vote for Election by Ballot, not
insensible that some evils may be inseparable from the system,
but feeling that such evils are less than those produced by
the present course of unjustifiable interference and persecu-
tion, rendering, as it does in many instances, the Elective
Franchise, intended by our Constitution to be the most honour-
able badge and possession of a freeman, an evil to its possessor,
and converting it into an instrument of his oppression and
degradation.
Such, should Ibe honoured with your confidence, are the
public principles by which my Parliamentary conduct will be
regulated. To the local and particular interests of your faith-
ful City, and its Inhabitants, you shall also find me zealously de-
voted. The trust which I now solicit at your hands I shall
regard as of the highest value, and your kindness in conferring
it, as binding me, by every tie of duty and gratitude, to main-
tain and defend it on all occasions to the best of my abilities,
and, whenever the season shall arrive, render it back to you
unimpaired.
Immediately my public duties will permit I shall appear
before you, when I shall be ready and anxious to afford such
further satisfaction as any of the Electors may desire, and shall
have the honour to renew, in person, my solicitation for your
favour and support.
In the meantime I beg to subscribe myself with great re-
spect, Gentlemen,
Your most devoted and very humble servant,
THOS. WILDE.
29, Dover-street, London, June 15, 1841.