The Sun.
London, England, 1866-07-17 00:00:00

ELECTION INTELLIGENCE.

ESSEX (NORTH).
•
The election of a knight of the shire to supply
the vacancy o3casioned by the appointment of Mr.
C. Du Cane as a Lord of the Admiralty took place
yesterday at Braintree, the high sheriff of the
county (Mr. A. Pryor) presiding.
Mr. C. G. ROUND proposed, and Lieut.-Col.
BRUCE seconded the re-election of Mr. Du Cane
No other candidate was proposed, and
The HIGH SHERIFF accordingly declared Mr. Du
Cane duly elected.

Mr. DUCANE, M.P., thanked most deeply his poli-
tical friends and supporters for this proof of their
confidence. When he last met them on the hustings
it was at the close of a very hotly contested general
election, the resultof which undoubtedly was to add
very largely to the number of Lord Palmerstou's
supporters in the House of Commons. So far as
the political horizon was then concerned, all seemed
to be calm and fair sailing for the great Liberal party
of England; but he remembered that even then he
ventured to observe that although the sea was calm
and the water smooth, yet that the water over which
the Liberal vessel was sailing had beneath it more
than one hidden rock and quicksand. (A voice—
" The Adullamites," and laughter.) Oh, that was
long before the Adullamites were heard of. He had
ventured to 'observe that if anything happened to
withdraw the experienced hand of the veteran pilot
from the helm it would need all the intelligence and
judgment of his successor to prevent the stranding
of their vessel ; and he might point to his own ap-
pearance on the hustings that day to show that he
was not altogether wrong in his prognostications of
the storm which was brewing. He appeared that
day in somewhat of a naval, or perhaps he might
more correctly say something of an amphibious, ca-
pacity—(laughter) —and therefore he might be ex-
cused if he indulged in a naval form of metaphor.
In contemplating the sudden collapse of the late
Government he was reminded of a certain sad and
mournful episode in the naval history of this coun-
try--he try—he meant the loss of the Royal George, while
S thead.
riding calmly at anchor in the waters
Some of them might remember thelwtetsord:oliPi,ii.7.l—iich
the poet desQribed that memorableve:,
the tshotZ
" 'T ws not in the battle, no tempest
gl:u no rock;
She sprang no fatal leak,
he sshohro ran
unPud she was oversee,
A land breeze shook t
d all her crew complete.',
went the Royal Georg ut
d to say. that the historical
He might 1;e
allowed
further. The loss of the
Parni" °was occasioned by an attempt to
Royal George
cleanse and purify the vessel, and in order to do that
all the guns Were very injudiciously placed on one
side, and the consequence was that the vessel lost
its equilibtand the catastrophe occurred to which
be had just alluded. Now the collapse of the Go-
vernment had been caused by an attempt of a very
similar character, to remodel and purify, according
to their idea, the representative system of this country;
and in order to do that they resorted to the danger-
ous expedient of placing all their guns on one side,
or, to drop naval metaphor, they drew their inspira-
tions almost wholly from the Radical side of the
house. The consequence was that, like the Royal
George, Lord Russell and Mr. Gladstone had gone

- , -
&.---2—e--ger-2. TE\V S PAPER
___.ltelike.
down. (Laughter.) If '- `,
_hattctisi
where were they ? Yes, t 4i9i4ik--tifik iIA
ging down with them so 605.1.'intinlkicf.4
1.‘..t
house into the depths of opp de:Ea AO-1(61
gun which had proved fat
or
-1.--e- r-c 4 ' nt
vessel was the late Government or Bil . Ire
did not want upon the present occasion to go into a
very long history of the birth, life, adventures, and
death of that unfortunate and ill-starred measure.
[A Voice.—lt is not dead yet."] Yes; dead and
buried ; and if he could not on the present occasion
say, Dc mortuis nil nisi bonum, at all events he was
happy to say, " Peace be to its ashes." (Laughter.)
If he were called upon to write its epitaph, he would
certainly borrow for the occasion the well-known
couplet—

" Afflictions soro
Long time it bore."

(Laughter.) If he could not say " physicians were
in vain," it was because its unnatural parents re-
fused when invited to call in the aid of any phy-
sician at all, and left it to stand or fall entirely by
its own weakly legs and sickly constitution. He
attributed the failure and collapse of the Reform
Bill no less to the intrinsic demerits of the measure
itself than to the manner in which the Govern-
ment thought fit to deal with the House of Com-
mons with reference to the question. He was con-
vinced that any measure to have a chance of pass-
ing the llouse of Commons must be framed in a
fair and equitable spirit of compromise, and with
a due regard to the fair representation of the exist-
ing interests of the country. But the bill of the
late Government was a measure which aimed at a
complete transference of political power, and the
destruction, or at all events the temporary suppres-
sion, of a great political party.
A vote of thanks to the High Sheriff closed the
proceedings.