fray; and I rejoice--I will not say much more because here my
expectations were so high--but I rejoice not less when I think how
extraordinary has been the manifestation thus far of Scottish feeling
in the only three contests that have taken place--in the city of
Perth, in the city of Aberdeen, and in the city of Edinburgh, where we
certainly owe some gratitude to the opponent for consenting to place
himself in a position so ludicrous as that which he has occupied.
But at the same time we are compelled to say, on general grounds of
prudence and of justice, that it is a monstrous thing that communities
should be disturbed with contests so absurd as these, which deserve
to be censured in the old Parliamentary language as frivolous and
vexatious.

One word upon your past. I have no doubt the great bulk of you
are Liberals, but yet I shall be very glad if some of you are
Conservatives. Are Conservatives seriously considering with the
gravity which becomes the people of this country--the responsible
people of this country--what course they shall take upon the coming
occasion? Great things have been done in the last three days, and
these things are not done in a corner. The intelligence, limited, but,
I think, intelligible, has been flashed over sea and land, and has
reached, long before I address you, the remotest corners of the earth.
I can well conceive that it has been received in different countries
with different feelings. I can believe that there are one or two
Ministers of State in the world, and possibly even here and there a
sovereign, who would have eaten this morning a heartier breakfast if
the tidings conveyed by the telegraph had been reversed, and if
the issue of the elections had been as triumphant for the existing
Administration as it has been menacing, if not fatal, to their
prospects. But this I know, among other places to which it has gone,
it has passed to India--it has before this time reached the mind and
the heart of many millions of your Indian fellow subjects--and I will
venture to say that it has gladdened every heart among them. They have
known this Government principally in connexion with the aggravation of
their burdens and the limitation of their privileges. And, gentlemen,
I will tell you more, that if there be in Europe any State or country
which is crouching in fear at the feet of powerful neighbours with
gigantic armaments, which loves, enjoys, and cherishes liberty, but
which at the same t