But there is another consideration of a nature less substantial though not less important, and the decision of which must lie chiefly within your own breast. So far I have argued upon the plain and broad basis of facts, upon a comparison of physical strength, in which there can be no deception, since the refutation is easy & simple. With respect then to the mere arithmetic of the case, you see the balance is against you, and the rules of common policy should induce you to decline. Such being the state of the case it remains for you to consider, whether as the son of the Duke of Northumberland commanding many borough seats, & able if willing to sit for either of the two great counties of Middlesex and Northumberland, you would chuse to expose yourself to the certainty of a defeat in such a voluntary contest. Should you therefore find the resolve to attack me, it may in my opinion safely be predicted, that although you might so far undermine me as to prevent my success, you would not be able to preserve yourself from a complete overthrow, and your only consolation would be, that although a third candidate carried off the prize, you had involved me in your fall. Moreover, not to mention that it is an unpleasant thing for a candidate to be opposed by the members of his own College, I do not conceive that you would be able to make up the deficiency by your success in the smaller colleges in which I apprehend that I have perhaps more the start of you than in St John's. But the ground upon which you must begin to open your trenches, I have already preoccupied, and from the number of actual promises which I have received from our common friends at St John's, I am convinced that the majority of the College would be against you. No man can entertain any rational hopes of success at Cambridge unless he be heartily supported by his own College, and consequently unless you should have the majority of the Johnians to form the basis of your strength you could never expect a successful combat with a Trinity candidate. But let us consider what the probable result would be. If then you should determine to stand there must be a contest between us an event which I can assure you independently of all interested motives, I should from the regard I feel for you most sincerely lament. The support which I received at the last election, and that which was promised me at the present had not motives of delicacy prevented me from availing myself of it, was of a nature so respectable in itself and so flattering to me, that I should consider myself as in some degree deserting my friends, and certainly doing an injustice to myself, were I to omit seizing the first fair opportunity of again urging my claims to the representation of the University. In the first place then I am anxious to have it clearly understood that from the connexion I have already formed with the University it is impossible for me to retire in favor of any other candidate. 1806, Horner Papers, British Library of Political and Economic Science.) So after Percy had left for the west, Palmerston took the precaution of sending a long letter to Alnwick to await his return:Īs you did not appear when last I saw you to have come to any final determination respecting your future plan of conduct relative to Cambridge I avail myself of the privilege given me by the habits of intimacy in which we have hitherto lived to submit to you certain considerations, to which in the decision you are about to make, I should wish now to direct your attention. There followed some sort of public ‘scene’ between them and an apparently inconclusive promise from Percy to consult his father again. Percy arrived in Cambridge on 24 Oct., just as Palmerston was leaving. But Percy stopped en route in Cambridge, with a view to the General Election according to his father, but with an eye to the seat Lord Euston would one day vacate, Palmerston rather feared. When Sheridan offered himself to the electors of Westminster the Duke of Northumberland withdrew his son from that unequal contest and sent him westwards on another search. The particular danger they had in mind was Lord Percy's coming forward. note 2 Malmesbury had advised such a precaution.
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