ay I am all right,
and I often fancy that the more miserably nervous I am in the
ante-room, the better I speak when once on the platform. My second
lecture was delivered on September 27th, at Mr. Moncure D. Conway's
Chapel, in St. Paul's Road, Camden Town, and redelivered a few weeks
later at a Unitarian Chapel, where the Rev. Peter Dean was minister.
This was on the "True Basis of Morality," and was later printed as a
pamphlet, which attained a wide circulation. This was all I did in the
way of speaking in 1874, but I took silent part in an electioneering
struggle at Northampton, where a seat for the House of Commons had
fallen vacant by the death of Mr. Charles Gilpin. Mr. Bradlaugh had
contested the borough as a Radical in 1868, obtaining 1,086 votes, and
again in February, 1874, when he received 1,653; of these no less than
1,060 were plumpers, while his four opponents had only 113, 64, 21 and
12 plumpers respectively; this band formed the compact and personally
loyal following which was to win the seat for its chief in 1880, after
twelve years of steady struggle, and to return him over and over again
to Parliament during the long contest which followed his election, and
which ended in his final triumph. They never wavered in their
allegiance to "our Charlie," but stood by him through evil report and
good report, when he was outcast as when he was triumphant, loving him
with a deep, passionate devotion, as honourable to them as it was
precious to him. I have seen him cry like a child at evidences of
their love for him, he whose courage no danger could daunt, and who
was never seen to blench before hatred nor change his stern immobility
in the face of his foes. Iron to enmity, he was soft as a woman to
kindness; unbending as steel to pressure, he was ductile as wax to
love. John Stuart Mill had the insight in 1868 to see his value, and
the courage to recognise it. He strongly supported his candidature,
and sent a donation to his election expenses. In his "Autobiography"
he wrote (pp. 311, 312):--

"He had the support of the working classes; having heard him speak I
knew him to be a man of ability, and he had proved that he was the
reverse of a demagogue by placing himself in strong opposition to the
prevailing opinion of the Democratic party on two such important
subjects as Malthusianism and Proportional Representation. Men of this
sort, who, while sharing the democratic feeling of the working
classes, judge politi