REPRESENTATION OF EAST SOMERSET.
To the Editor of the Bath Chronicle.
Sir, —In your publication of Thursday last there is a very judicious article on the future representation of the eastern division of this county. Several gentlemen are reported to have been addressed with applications to allow themselves to be named as candidates on the approaching vacancy; but they appear universally to have declined the hazard of a contest, not so much from prudential motives, as from a consideration of the duties and fatigue involved in a diligent discharge of the demands of the House of Commons.
Encouraged by the zeal and ability with which you have uniformly advocated the cause of Conservatism, may I be permitted, without the imputation of presumption (simply as an individual who has never in the most distant terms consulted any of the parties to whom allusion is made), to suggest through your columns an application in another quarter.
The present inheritor of Mr. Jolliffe’s estates is understood to be professionally excluded from a seat in Parliament, but his eventual successor—the Right Hon. Sir William Hylton Jolliffe—will be invested with whatever influence extensive possessions in Somersetshire can confer. As the popular member for Petersfield (which his ancestors have for long series of years represented) Sir William would naturally feel incapable of dissevering so confidential a connexion; and his eldest son has, in three successive elections for Wells, been honoured by the choice of the voters in that ancient city. May I then be allowed, with all respect, to observe that Sir W. Jolliffe has a very affluent son-in-law, who formerly sat in Parliament for one of the northern counties, from which, under peculiar circumstances, he felt it his duty, however reluctantly, to retire. His principles are strictly and constitutionally Conservative, and although at present a stranger in Somerset, he will by the ties of blood be naturally anxious to promote every measure essentially conducive to its prosperity.
Should that gentleman be invited to come forward, he would probably accept with gratitude the flattering invitation. I should add that these remarks are thrown out with extreme diffidence, the person alluded to has never been consulted on the subject, or received the slightest intimation of the political views and feelings of the majority of the county constituents.
I am, Sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
Frome, Aug. 21st, 1863. SCRUTATOR.