“If Mrs. C. can possibly let you come for a few weeks, for God’s sake do come! It is morally certain you can come in for L’pool. . . . If you don’t come in there, you are out altogether, with some other good men—as Mackintosh, Ossulston, &c., and, for anything I know to the contrary, myself. For who can answer for a county like Westmorland, where there has been no contest for 50 years? and where I have all the parsons, justices, attorneys, and nearly all the resident gentry (few enough, thank God! and vile enough) leagued agt. me, besides the whole force of the Government. The spirit of the freeholders, to be sure, is wonderful, and in the end we must beat the villains. Govt. complain of L[onsdale] for getting them into it, and he complains of them for not dissolving. My satisfaction is that he is now bleeding at every pore—all the houses open—all the agents running up bills—all the manors shot over by anybody who pleases.”
