Welsh Journals

service he can with regard to this election', Meyrick informed Pelham's brother, the duke of Newcastle, on 2 May, when reminding Newcastle that he had promised to secure for him the support of the bishop of Bangor. 'Being but little known to your Grace, I beg leave on this occasion to assure you, that I am and have always been a most steady Whig in principle.'29 Meyrick, however, was always battling against the odds in this election. During the summer Sir Nicholas Bayly carried out a successful canvass, and by October William Morris was forecasting an easy win for Plas Newydd. Bayly had secured the support of a dozen squires, and was spending money freely, whereas Meyrick was not.30 Confirmation of Bodorgan parsimony is found in the estate accounts: in the election year of 1754 itself relevant expenses came to well under £ 100.31 During the winter, Meyrick's prospects were improved by the death of John Owen on 20 February 1754, for his friends were thereby released from their pledges. By then Owen himself was no longer a man of substance. His parliamentary pretensions had been over-ambitious for a middling squire, and within a few years of his death almost the whole Presaddfed estate had been sold to meet his election expenses.32 But although some thought the outcome of the contest now uncertain, a pessimistic report was made to Newcastle early in April by former Whig MP, Thomas Hervey, who had visited on Meyrick's behalf a small estate he possessed in Anglesey. He informed the duke that the local Whigs were split between what were, after all, two Whig candidates. Bayly, although an opposition voter in Parliament, even had the support of some ministerial men, notably Sir William Owen, MP for Pembrokeshire, who held the estate of Bodeon.33 The Tory squires were marshalled in his support by Lady Bulkeley and her father, Thomas Rowlands of Caerau. When the poll took place at the end of April, Bayly triumphed by 231 votes to 126.34 William Morris described this contest as a victory of Plas Newydd over Bodorgan.35 He may have adopted the common practice of referring to squires by their places of residence, but the future course of events in Anglesey demonstrated that Sir Nicholas Bayly had by now succeeded in creating an 'interest' independent of that of Baron Hill. With Bulkeley 29 British Library, Additional MSS. 32731, fo. 110. 30 Morris Letters, I, 259. 31 Bodorgan MSS., no. 1592. 32 Morris Letters, I, 277-78; II, 245. 33 British Library, Add. MSS. 32735, fo. 76. 34 Pantperthog MSS. (National Library of Wales), no. 1113. 35 Morris Letters, I, 285.