Honourable C. Poulett Thomson, Vice-President of the Board of Trade, and earnestly requests the honour of your co-operation and support.
On behalf of the committee,
September 6, 1832.
There was an arduous contest before the free traders of Manchester, and they were fully aware of it; but they felt that on the first election it was necessary to set an example that should influence future elections. If, on the first exercise of their elective right, a coalition between moderate whigs and moderate tories were to be triumphant, it might be expected that a spirit of compromise would be introduced, which would continue to take the place of the assertion of independent principles. It was felt that to send any member who would not strive, heart and hand, for freedom of trade, would be an abandonment of one of the principal grounds on which the Reform Bill was demanded; and that the election of one, who, had he possessed the opportunity, would have deprived that measure of some of its best and most popular features, would be to acknowledge its finality. The contest was felt to be one, not for 1832, not for one session, not for the return of one man, but for a precedent that might rule for a long series of years—a precedent that would rescue Manchester from the contempt with which it would be regarded were it untrue to its known opinions on political and commercial reforms, and raise it to the highest rank amongst the newly enfranchised boroughs. There were many difficulties to be overcome before victory could be achieved; but that victory was to be the prelude of many successive electoral victories, and the promise of a future legislatorial victory over the grasping avarice of confederated monopolists. The opponents of coalition and compromise had principle, and knowledge, and zeal, and youthful activity on their side. The press teemed with their publications,
