Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

nevertheless, I was disposed to hope for the best. "Oh, no!"

continued he, with good-humoured raillery, "you won't get in. I

don't suppose you really expect it. But there is a fine career open

to you. You will spend (pounds)1000, and lose the election. Then you will

petition, and spend another (pounds)1000. You will throw out the elected

members. There will be a commission, and the borough will be

disfranchised. For a beginner such as you are, that will be a great

success." And yet, in the teeth of this, from a man who knew all

about it, I persisted in going to Beverley!

The borough, which returned two members, had long been represented

by Sir Henry Edwards, of whom, I think, I am justified in saying

that he had contracted a close intimacy with it for the sake of

the seat. There had been many contests, many petitions, many void

elections, many members, but, through it all, Sir Henry had kept

his seat, if not with permanence, yet with a fixity of tenure next

door to permanence. I fancy that with a little management between

the parties the borough might at this time have returned a member

of each colour quietly; but there were spirits there who did not

love political quietude, and it was at last decided that there

should be two Liberal and two Conservative candidates. Sir Henry

was joined by a young man of fortune in quest of a seat, and I was

grouped with Mr. Maxwell, the eldest son of Lord Herries, a Scotch

Roman Catholic peer, who lives in the neighbourhood.

When the time came I went down to canvass, and spent, I think, the

most wretched fortnight of my manhood. In the first place, I was

subject to a bitter tyranny from grinding vulgar tyrants. They were

doing what they could, or said that they were doing so, to secure

me a seat in Parliament, and I was to be in their hands, at any

rate, the period of my candidature. On one day both of us, Mr.

Maxwell and I, wanted to go out hunting. We proposed to ourselves

but the one holiday during this period of intense labour; but I

was assured, as was he also, by a publican who was working for us,

that if we committed such a crime he and all Beverley would desert

us. From morning to evening every day I was taken round the lanes

and by-ways of that uninteresting town, canvassing every voter,

exposed to the rain, up to my knees in slush, and utterly unable

to assume that air of triumphant joy with which a jolly, successful

candidate should he invested. At night, every night I had to

speak somewhere,--which was bad; and to listen to the speaking of

others,--which was much worse. When, on one Sunday, I proposed to

go to the Minster Church, I was told that was quite useless, as

the Church party were all certain to support Sir Henry! "Indeed,"

said the publican, my tyrant, "he goes there in a kind of official

profession, and you had better not allow yourself to be seen in the

same place." So I stayed away and omitted my prayers. No Church of

England church in Beverley would on such an occasion have welcomed

a Liberal candidate. I felt myself to be a kind of pariah in the

borough, to whom was opposed all that was pretty, and all that was

nice, and all that was--ostensibly--good.

But perhaps my strongest sense of discomfort arose from the conviction

that my political ideas were all leather and prunella to the men

whose votes I was soliciting. They cared nothing for my doctrines,

and could not be made to understand that I should have any. I had

been brought to Beverley either to beat Sir Henry Edwards,--which,

however, no one probably thought to be feasible,--or to cause him

the greatest possible amount of trouble, inconvenience, and expense.

There were, indeed, two points on which a portion of my wished-for

supporters seemed to have opinions, and on both these two points

I was driven by my opinions to oppose them. Some were anxious for

the Ballot,--which had not then become law,--and some desired the

Permissive Bill. I hated, and do hate, both these measures, thinking

it to be unworthy of a great people to free itself from the evil

results of vicious conduct by unmanly restraints. Undue influence

on voters is a great evil from which this country had already done

much to emancipate itself by extending electoral divisions and by

an increase of independent feeling. These, I thought, and not secret

voting, were the weapons by which electoral intimidation should be

overcome. And as for drink, I believe in no Parlimentary restraint;

but I do believe in the gradual effect of moral teaching and

education. But a Liberal, to do any good at Beverley, should have

been able to swallow such gnats as those. I would swallow nothing,

and was altogether the wrong man.

I knew, from the commencement of my candidature, how it would be.

Of course that well-trained gentleman who condescended to act as

my agent, had understood the case, and I ought to have taken his

thoroughly kind advice. He had seen it all, and had told himself

that it was wrong that one so innocent in such ways as I, so

utterly unable to fight such a battle, should be carried down into

Yorkshire merely to spend money and to be annoyed. He could not

have said more than he did say, and I suffered for my obstinacy. Of

course I was not elected. Sir Henry Edwards and his comrade became

members for Beverley, and I was at the bottom of the poll. I paid

(pounds)400 for my expenses, and then returned to London.

My friendly agent in his raillery had of course exaggerated the

cost. He had, when I arrived at Beverley, asked me for a cheque

for (pounds)400, and told me that that sum would suffice. It did suffice.

How it came to pass that exactly that sum should be required I never

knew, but such was the case. Then there came a petition,--not from

me, but from the town. The inquiry was made, the two gentlemen

were unseated, the borough was disfranchised, Sir Henry Edwards

was put on his trial for some kind of Parliamentary offence and

was acquitted. In this way Beverley's privilege as a borough and

my Parliamentary ambition were brought to an end at the same time.

When I knew the result I did not altogether regret it. It may be

that Beverley might have been brought to political confusion and

Sir Henry Edwards relegated to private life without the expenditure

of my hard-earned money, and without that fortnight of misery; but

connecting the things together, as it was natural that I should

do, I did flatter myself that I had done some good. It had seemed

to me that nothing could be worse, nothing more unpatriotic, nothing

more absolutely opposed to the system of representative government,

than the time-honoured practices of the borough of Beverley. It had

come to pass that political cleanliness was odious to the citizens.

There was something grand in the scorn with which a leading Liberal

there turned up his nose at me when I told him that there should

be no bribery, no treating, not even a pot of beer on one side.

It was a matter for study to see how at Beverley politics were

appreciated because they might subserve electoral purposes, and

how little it was understood that electoral purposes, which are in

themselves a nuisance, should be endured in order that they may

subserve politics. And then the time, the money, the mental energy,

which had been expended in making the borough a secure seat for

a gentleman who had realised the idea that it would become him to