? Mr. Gladstone was informed by his
brother that the duke had neither heretofore asked for pledges, nor now
demanded them.

After a very brief correspondence with his shrewd and generous father,
the plunge was taken, and on his return to England, after a fortnight
spent 'in an amphibious state between that of a candidate and [Greek: idiotes]
or private person,' he issued his address to the electors of Newark
(August 4, 1832). He did not go actually on to the ground until the end
of September. The intervening weeks he spent with his family at Torquay,
where he varied electioneering correspondence and yachting with plenty
of sufficiently serious reading from Blackstone and Plato and the
_Excursion_ down to _Corinne_. One Sunday morning (September 23), his
father burst into his bedroom, with the news that his presence was
urgently needed at Newark. 'I rose, dressed, and breakfasted speedily,
with infinite disgust. I left Torquay at 83/4 and devoted my Sunday to the
journey. Was I right?... My father drove me to Newton; chaise to Exeter.
There near an hour; went to the cathedral and heard a part of the
prayers. Mail to London. Conversation with a tory countryman who got in
for a few miles, on Sunday travelling, which we agreed in disapproving.
Gave him some tracts. Excellent mail. Dined at Yeovil; read a little of
the _Christian Year_ [published 1827]. At 61/2 A.M. arrived at Piccadilly,
181/2 hours from Exeter. Went to Fetter Lane, washed and breakfasted, and
came off at 8 o'clock by a High Flyer for Newark. The sun hovered red
and cold through the heavy fog of London sky, but in the country the day
was fine. Tea at Stamford; arrived at Newark at midnight.' Such in forty
hours was the first of Mr. Gladstone's countless political pilgrimages.

His two election addresses are a curious starting-point for so memorable
a journey. Thrown into the form of a modern programme, the points are
these:--union of church and state, the defence in particular of our
Irish establishments; correction of the poor laws; allotment of cottage
grounds; adequate remuneration of labour; a system of Christian
instruction for the West Indian slaves, but no emancipation until that
instruction had fitted them for it; a dignified and impartial foreign
policy. The duke was much startled by the passage about labour receiving
adequate remuneration, 'which unhappily among several classes of our
fellow countrymen is not now the case.' He did not, however, in