t say that I despair of being
able to apply a direct remedy to either of these evils. The ballot might
perhaps be an indirect remedy for the latter. I think that the system of
registration should be amended, that the clauses relating to the payment
of rates should be altered, or altogether removed, and that the elective
franchise should be extended to every ten pound householder, whether
he resides within or without the limits of a town. To this extent I am
prepared to go; but I should not be dealing with the ingenuousness which
you have a right to expect, if I did not tell you that I am not prepared
to go further. There are many other questions as to which you are
entitled to know the opinions of your representative: but I shall only
glance rapidly at the most important. I have ever been a most determined
enemy to the slave trade, and to personal slavery under every form. I
have always been a friend to popular education. I have always been a
friend to the right of free discussion. I have always been adverse to
all restrictions on trade, and especially to those restrictions which
affect the price of the necessaries of life. I have always been adverse
to religious persecution, whether it takes the form of direct penal
laws, or of civil disabilities.

Now, having said so much upon measures, I hope you will permit me to
say something about men. If you send me as your representative to
Parliament, I wish you to understand that I shall go there determined
to support the present ministry. I shall do so not from any personal
interest or feeling. I have certainly the happiness to have several kind
and much valued friends among the members of the Government; and there
is one member of the Government, the noble President of the Council, to
whom I owe obligations which I shall always be proud to avow. That noble
Lord, when I was utterly unknown in public life, and scarcely known even
to himself, placed me in the House of Commons; and it is due to him
to say that he never in the least interfered with the freedom of my
parliamentary conduct. I have since represented a great constituent
body, for whose confidence and kindness I can never be sufficiently
grateful, I mean the populous borough of Leeds. I may possibly by
your kindness be placed in the proud situation of Representative of
Edinburgh; but I never could and never can be a more independent Member
of the House of Commons than when I sat there as the nominee of Lord
Lansdowne.