The Sun.
London, England, 1834-07-25 00:00:00

NOTTINGHAM ELECTION.

NOTTINGHAM, WEDNESDAY.
NOMINATION OF THE CANDIDATES.

This being the day appointed for the nomination of the can-
didates who have come forward to contend for the honour of
filling the vacancy occasioned in the representation in Parliament
of the town of Nottingham, by the elevation of Lord Duncan-
non to the Peerage, the town from an early hour was in a state
of great bustle and excitement.

The great room of the Exchange having been that appointed
for the nomination of the candidates, the large space before it
was crowded by [persons anxious to obtain admission long be-
fore the appointed hour for proceeding to business, viz., 12
o'clock.

Sir John Hobhouse, accompanied by his noble proposer,
Lord Ranchffe, and Mr. Wakefield, his seconder, and several
other gentlemen, was the first to enter the room, and take his
station on the hustings, and was soon followed by Mr. Eagle
and friends. The room, within a few minutes from the enty
of the candidates, became densely crowded, and the assembly
very noisy, shouting, " Eagle first," " Eagle's the man," " No
flogging," Sce., accompanied by crowing in imitation of cocks,
and much laughter.
The formal business of opening the election, including the
reading of the writ, having been gone through, the yelling
commenced, and was continued for a length of time, an occa-
sional voice being heard to cry, " No Hobhouse," " Rejected
of Westminster," " John Sham," &c. On order having been
somewhat restored,
Mr. READER, the assessor, stood forward, and having alluded
to the vacancy in the representation, announced that there
were two candidates about to contend for the honour. of filling
it up, namely William Eagle, Esq., of Layton-heath Hall,
Merlin-hill, in the county of Suffolk ; and the Right Hon.
Sir John Cam Hobhouse, Bart., of Berkeley-square, London.
Mr. GEORGE HILL then rose for the purpose of proposing
Mr. Eagle.—( Much cheering.)
Mr. BENJAMIN BOOTIIBY,iIIII., on presenting himself to se-
cond the nomination, was loudly and enthusiastically cheered.
He proceeded to observe, that he then stood forward to second
the nomination of Mr. Eagle, whom he considered a most
excellent and proper man to represent them.—( Hear, hear.)
The present, he would say, was the time for the men of Not-
tingham to prove whether they would have a sham- or an
honest representative.—( Hear, hear.) He craved their indul-
gence, while he stated to them his reasons for pursuing his
present line of conduct on this occasion. They had before
them the first Lord Commissioner of Woods and Forests.—
( Tremendous howling from the body of the meeting)—who, in
his address to the electors, stated that he had come forward at

the request of a body of the electors.—(Much roaring, and
cries of ‘, No no !") He (Mr. Boothby) would ask

the Right Honourable Gentleman who those electors
were ?—( Hear, hear, hear. )—and he would pause a mo-
ment for a reply.—( Cheers from Mr. Boothby's friends.) They
had no reply ; but as the Americans say, " we•can give a pretty
good guess."—( A laugh.) He would put it to the noble-minded
men of Nottingham. —( The men of Nottingham themselves

laughed heartily at this compliment, as if they thought it was
all sham to apply it to them.) He would put it to them whe-
ther it was decent that they should be humbled to submit to
the dictation of the gentlemen in Downing-street, or to their
agents here ?—( Much groaning and uproar.) This was pre-
cisely the conduct of the former Government in the case of
rotten Gatton and Old Sarum.—(Loud cheering.) But was
Nottingham to be made a rotten Gatton of for the Whigs ?
—(
Hear, hear ; cries of " No," and cheers.) Would the men
of Nottingham submit to conduct such as this ?—( No, no.)
Certain gentlemen were favourable to such, and showed, by
their pursuit of it, that they were entirely reckness as to the
character of the men whom they brought forward ; but they
might draw the stretching string too tight, and they had done
so on the present occasion, in selecting the man who, of all
others, had been guilty of the greatest political apostacy that
any public man was guilty of up to the present day.—( Loud
uproar in the body of the Meeting.) He repeated the charge,
" Guilty of the greatest political apostacy. "—( A voice, " Don't
cry over it"—(Laughter). A charge which he (Mr. Boothby)
should be ashamed to bring, were he not able to make it good.
- Cries of " That's right, Boothby.") They could not forget
the man who, when he first came forward for Westminster,

stood forward in the character and profession of a thorough-
paced Reformer.—( Hear, hear, and much confusion and hiss-
ing.) The Right Hon. Gentleman indulged largely on that
day in his abuse of the contemptible Whigs, with whom he
now shared office.—( Roaring, bellowing, yelling, and all
manner of derisionary noises.) The- contemptible Whigs !
the contemptible Whigs I the contemptible Whigs ! Mr.
Boothby repeated with great emphasis, which again set the
" howl in motion. If the Whigs and their adherents, who
aimed to be the leaders of the men of Nottingham, could think
to drag them through all the dirt through which they wished
to go themselves—(groans and laughter)—he (Mr. Boothby)
would tell them that they were very much mistaken.--.("Hear,
hear," and loud cheers.) When placemen might think of
abandoning the path of duty, they might with safety do so,
should Sir John Hobhouse now be returned, and say, when
Sir John Hobhouse has not suffered for his political apostacy,
" why should we not do something for ourselves?" He (Mr.
Boothby) would now say, should the electors of Nottingham
give Sir John Hobhouse a fresh certificate of character, other
public men, he repeated, might say, " we, too, will do like-
wise."—( Veiling. ) These were the charges which he pre-
ferred against Sir John-Hobhouse, and before the close of the
day he would put it to the Right Hon. Gentleman what he
meant to do for the people in the event of his being elected ?
—(A voice, " Strike him hard Boothby,"—laughter.) Having
then discussed the character of Sir John Hobhouse, he would
now direct the attention of the meeting to that of his opponent,
Mr. Eagle. He (Mr. Boothby continued) was the friend of
the people—the friend of the working classes—who has ever
struggled in resisting the oppression of them, and who would
continue on their behalf for the total abolition of the corn laws.

—( Great cheering.) He would vote for the reduction of tax-
ation, for the abolition of every abuse, and for the reduction of
the standing army, to increase which a motion was brought
into the House of Commons by Sir John Hobhouse.
Sir JOHN HOBIIOUSE (warmly)—That is false—it is false—
it is false.—( Great uproar and yelling followed Sir John's de-
nial of the charge.)
Mr. BOOTHBY then alluded to the pension list, which, he
said Mr. Eagle would vote popularly upon, and also for the
ballot, for the adoption of which he would vote, and it was a
question which the electors of Nottingham would never cease
contending for until granted. He would also vote for triennial
Parliaments. He hoped that the electors of Nottingham
would break down the attempt which was now being made to
ride rough-shod over then..—( Hear, hear, and cheers)—and he
trusted that they would perform their duty.
Mr. EAGLE then presented himself, and said it was always
i
considered n bad taste for a man to speak of himself, but there
were exceptions to the rule, and a member of Parliament was
one of them, and should speak for himself. He did not come
before them to make an apology for political apostacy, nor for
offences against the people.—( Hear, hear, yelling, and noises. )
He came before them on his long known public character.—
( Cheers.) It was not, indeed, as public as his Right Hon.
F— ( A voice, " say Friend") but though it was humble,
it was unstained—and if he was guilty of the charges that
had been enumerated that day, he should pray that the
earth might open and swallow him up for ever.—
( Great applause, and hear, hear.) He was not sent down
from Downing-street, packed up in a band-box, labelled
and ticketed to the Corporation of Nottingham—( Cheers and
laughter)—and to the dictation which presided over that Cor-
poration. He came there as the people's man.—( Much
cheering.) He came there to fight the battle for the men of
Nottingham and the country in
. the House—( A Voice, "when
you get there,")—and to give the proper impulse to Reform.
He should not make any personal allusion to Sir John Hob-
house, but he would say, that the attempt now made to thrust
him down the throats of the people of Nottingham was the
greatest insult that ever was offered to an enlightened and re-
spectable constituency.—( Hear, hear, confusion and yelling. )
Having alluded to some points respecting the representation,
embracing Birmingham, Manchester, &c., together with Old
Gatton, which it might be attempted to render them as bad,
Mr. Eagle proceeded to inquire, if the Treasury candidate
founded his pretensions to represent Nottingham in connection
with the Administration: When he, ( Mr. Eagle,) and his
brother electors demanded the Reform Act, did they not
require it for certain purposes ?—( Yes, yes.) Did they not
demand the cutting off the pensions and sinecures ?—( Yes,
yes.) Have the Whigs, he would ask, done so?—(No, no.)
They profess to cut them off, still they opposed that course,
when the subject was brought forward, with more dexterity
and want of honesty, than ever the Tories did.--( Shame,
shame, and great yelling.) The Whigs had hitherto
advocated the shortening the duration of Parliaments, but
since they came into office, they not only did not give it to the
people, but opposed it when the people petitioned for it. After
observing upon the opposition which the Whigs had given to
the ballot, he said, with regard to religion, he did not come
there with " civil and religious liberty in his mouth." He was
himself a Church of England man, but though a Church of
England man, he should strenuously struggle, should they re-
turn him, to Parliament, to put an end to all compulsory pay-
ments to the Church.—( Enthusiastic cheering.) Then, with
regard to the liberty of press, about which the Whigs pro-
claimed much when out of office, and a toast with them all at
their tavern was, " The Liberty of the Press, it is the air we
breathe, and if we have it not we die."---( Much laughter.)
Have they not, he would ask, since they came into office, done
every thing in their power to resist the liberty of the press ?
( Yes.) With regard to the Poor Law Amendment Bill—
( Loud hissing and groaning)—what, he would ask, was the
meaning of that Bill ? Why, to make poverty a crime, and to
imprison a man who had not the means of supporting himself.
—( Great disapprobation.) It was now passed by great ma-
jorities through both Houses of Parliament, but he doubted
very much whether it would pass freely through the country.
That Bill, he maintained, removed one of the greatest bulwarks
of the constitution, on which it inflicted a deep and fatal stab.
—( Hear, hear.) Mr. Eagle then adverted to the power
which it conferred upon a set of London Commissioners, and
who might as well have been at St. Petersburgh, and to the
ability which it took out of the hands of the parochial authori-
ties of extending relief, and remarked this is the conduct of the
Whigs-4 Much groaning)—but it marked the inconsistency
of the Government. The Whigs, too, had always out of office
advocated Trial by Jury, and upon that point he would only
allude to thellrish Coercion Bill—( Long-continued groaning. )
It had been said, should the Whigs go out, that we would again
have a Tory Government, but that was a mere bugbear; and
were they to come in, he would ask what worse could they do
than the Whigs?—(Hear, hear, and "We'll not have them.")
The Whigs would not give the people religious freedom,which
the people demanded from them as a boon; they would not
give them the liberty of the press, and they would not give
them many other things which they were justly entitled to.
If the Great Captain was to come into power, the people
would fear him ! The Tories had never been friends to free-
dom; but they had been open and candid enemies.—( Hear,