The Sun.
London, England, 1835-01-15 00:00:00

GENERAL ELECTIONS

IN THE COUNTRY.

HERTFORD (COUNTY).
The nomination of three representatives for this borough
took place at Hertford yesterday, when Lord Grimstone,
Abel Smith, Esq., and Rowland Alston, Esq., were duly
el ecte'a.

AA an early hour the town was thronged with the friends
elf the respective candidates, who paraded the streets,
colours flying, and attended by bands of music. Shortly
lfter eleven o'clock the carriages of the friends of the dis-
ent candidates began to draw up in order in the field
here the nomination was appointed to take place. Among
others we noticed those of the Marchioness of Salisbury
and Lady Verulam, whose noble occupants appeared to
take great interest in the proceedings. There were alto-
gether upwards of thirty carriages, principally filled with
ladies. Shortly before twelve the candidates respectively
-filed into the field, attended by large parties of gentlemen
on horseback, standards, and bands of music. The banners
were all of them of very costly materials, emblazoned with
various mottoes in gold : " Grimstone and Independence,"
" Alston and the Constitution." " Speed the Plough," and
SO OS. Lord Grimstone's party had also exhibited a golden
plough and a fleece, which latter emblem elicited some in-
sidious remarks.

The usual preliminaries having been gone through,
DELME RATCLIFFE, Esq., came forward to propose Lord
Grimstone.—(Cheers and hisses.) The election of that
noble lord would, in an eminent degree, tend to promote
the best interests, not only of the county, but of the coun-
try at large. In presenting himself as the proposer of that
noble lord, he utterly disclaimed all factious or personal
motives.—(oh, oh.) The sole feeling which actuated him
was his full conviction that the noble lord was of all men
qualified to represent the county.—(Cheers and hisses.)
The public conduct of Lord Grimstone was before them.
He had been tried, and found not wanting.—(oh, oh.)
During the late long and laborious session the noble
lord had ever been found at his post, suffering none of the
comforts of private life to allude him from a strict devotion
to his public duties. The principles which Lord Grim-
stone entertained were those of that judicious Conservatism
which could alone save the country in the present crisis.—
(Groans and cheers.) The struggle was now between those
who had credit and fortune at stake, and those who had
neither the one nor the other to lose—(Groans)—between
the maintenance of social order, and the institutions of the
country both in Church and State, and the introduction of
infidelity and republicanism.—(Groans and Cheers.) It
was for the electors to say whether they wished this country
to resemble in its institutions the so much vaunted repub-
lic of America, a nation composed of the refuse and out-
casts of society.—(Groans.) That the demon of destruc-
tion was abroad was clearly proved by the two attempts
which had been recently made to do away with the corn
laws, the only protection of the farmer,—(Oh, oh !)—and
to remove from the House of Lords the bench of bishops,
men not less conspicuous for their moderation than for
their piety.—(Shouts of laughter, and some cheers.) The
county electors of England would, however, by their choice
of representatives prevent the effectuation of such evils as
these, and preserve in all its purity their glorious constitu-
tion, and the same form of Government under which Eng-
land had attained such a height of glory.—(" And its na-
tional debt.") The boroughs had nearly all disgraced them-
selves.—(Cheers from all parties.) The metropolitan
boroughs in particular had stultified themselves by electing
men whose public principles tended to ruin the country, and
whose private characters rendered them fitter associates
for the inmates of the building behind him—(viz., the gaol,
groans and laughter.)--than for any other society. It re-
mained for the county electors to evince a more patriotic
spirit. He had only one more observation to make : the
Church was in danger. He was himself, though pretend-
ing to no peculiar morality,—(A laugh.)—a devoted friend
to that sacred establishment ; and he trusted that the elec-
tors would exercise the utmost caution in not electing men
who were not prepared to defend the rights of that Church
to the utmost. He would conclude with expressing his
full confidence that the electors of Hertfordshire would not
reject a man like Lord Grimstone, whose energy and ta-
lents—(Oh, oh !)—rendered him most competent to pro-
mote their interests, and whose honourable feelings made
him incapable of betraying their trust.—(Groans and
cheers.)
W. P. BARER, Esq., seconded the nomination.
Lord GRIMSTONE then came forward, and was received
with mingled cheers and hisses. Tills was the second time
he had appeared before them, and he could say that in none
of the principles which ne had before declared to them was
he altered now.—(Groans and cheers.) He returned pre-
cisely with tie same deep feeling of interest in the condi-
tion of the agriculturists which he had before expressed—
(Cheers)—and he might say paramount interest, for he was
convinced that on the prosperity of that class depended the
prosperity of all other classes.—(Cheers.) It had been
asserted that he was present at only sixteen divisions of the
House during the last session ; but he could prove, if it
were necessary, that he had been most assiduous in atten-
tion to his duties, and had been.present at most of the divi-
sions which took place.—(Cheers.) It was also charged
against him that he had voted against the admission of Dis-
senters to the Universities : he would at once admit that he
had so voted—and he had given his vote most con-
scientiously. It was said, too, that he had voted in favour
of the malt-tax : this he denied ; that tax having been re-
pealed by a vote of the House, he was not among those who
voted for its restoration.—(Cheers.) His principles, he
would repeat, were already before the electors. He would
now add that, in the present crisis it was the duty of every
constituency to lay aside all petty differences of opinion, and
unite in opposition to men who, under pretence of necessary
innovation, aimed at nothing less than the destruction of
all our ancient and glorious institutions.—(Oh, oh, and
cheers.) He would only add, that if he were returned, he
would give one pledge, and only one ; which was, that he
would most assiduously attend to his duty in Parliament,
and promote to his utmost the interests of his constituents
and of the country at large.—(Cheers and hisses.)
H. G. WARD, Esq., the Member for St. Alban's,
then came forward and was received with loud cheers.
When he stood in that same place, two years ago, it was
for the honour of proposing to them their late tried and
valuable friend Mr. Calvert, as a proper person to repre-
sent them in the Reformed Parliament. That gentleman
had now closed his political career ; and he (Mr. Ward)
hoped that he might say, without distinction of party or
colours, had retired with the esteem and respect and
grateful feelings of that enlightened body whom he had so
long and so faithfully served.—(Cheers.)Had Mr. Calvert
not considered that in the address to the electors, which he
published a week ago, he had finally closed his political
life, he would have been on the hustings that day, to per-
form an office as grateful to himself as it was calculated to
be beneficial to the constituency—that of proposing them a
man whom he believed the best calculated to promote
the interests of the county and the people at large,
Mr. Alston.—(Cheers.) In the absence of Mr. Calvert,
he (Mr. W.) had undertaken that office, with the utmost
satisfaction, because, from a long and intimate knowledge
of that gentlemen, he was well assured that he would be a
most efficient and valuable representative.—(Cheers.) If
he had any scruple in coming forward as that gentleman's
nominator, it was because he was somewhat afraid that his
doing so might enable Mr. Alston's opponents to connect
him—as indeed had been attempted—to connect him with
every article of the political faith held by himself (" He
could not do better.") He was not now going to enter into
any defence or explanation of that faith : he had fought his
battle elsewhere, and had won it.—(lmmense cheering, and
some hisses.) He had fought his battle under no false
colours, and, thanks to the public spirit which had resisted
all the influence of family, of faction, and of money, he had
conquered.—(Renewed cheering.) He should not do his
duty by Mr. Alston if he were not explicitly to state, that
upon some points relating to ulterior changes in the Church,
that gentleman differed from himself, as honest and consci-
entious Reformers must differ among themselves.—( Cheers.)
But having said so much, he would assure them that he
should not be there to propose Mr. Alston, if he was not
convinced, that wherever particular grievances were to be
removed, that Honourable Candidate was as fully deter-
mined to contribute his utmost exertions to aid their re-
moval as he himself was.—(Cheers.) He should not be
there to support him, if he thought that he had to go to Sir
Robert Peel's school, in order to ascertain what those
grievances might be, which had been denounced for years
and years past, by the universal voice of the nation—(Cheers.)
He should not be there to support Mr. Alston, if he did
not know that he was fully prepared to throw open the
gates of the Universities to his Dissenting brethren ; if he
. did net know him to be ready to concede to every class of
his fellow-subjects equal civil rights, without distinction of
zect, or creed, or of those religious differences of opinion, of
which God alone could be the impartial and unerring judge.
(Cheers.) He should not be there to support Mr. Alton,
if he d:d not know that, instead of promising to give his
"most serious consideration" to the question of municipal
reform, that gentleman had made up his mind to intro-
duce into Corporations that system of real representa-
tion, publicity, and responsibility, which could alone en-
sure the proper administration of municipal affairs.—
(Cheers.) He should not propose him did he not know
that on another question, in which he himielf took a deep
and peculiar interest—that of the Irish Church—Mr.
Alston was prepared, not to go the whole length of his
first resolutions, the principle of which resolutions he
maintained as strong as ever—(cheers)—but Mr. Alston
was prepared to go to the length which Lords Melbourne
and Spencer assented to, and which would be adopted the
moment ,those Neble Lords returned to the posts from
which they had been removed by an insidious and factious
plot, bid -fo Which they would ere leng be restored.-
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