Welsh Journals

I Merthyr Tydfil 18 Nov. 1868. My dear Sir, I am deeply mortified and humiliated at the result of our election, as far as you are concerned. The base and scandalous acts used against you, combined with the terrible ignorance of a large portion of your constituency, were too much for us. Nothing can save us, in the future, but the school master, planted over the country, without stint, to the very utmost extent that the people will bear him. Pray don't despond over it. Remember the return that Aristides had for his rectitude, and Socrates for his wisdom. Their names live in the hearts of all good men, and their persecution got the execration of all, and so it will be with your name, and that before very long. The immoraly (sic) way in which the contest was waged on the day of nomination has disgusted even our opponents' adherents and Mr. I's speech at the declaration of the poll was in part in very bad taste, endorsing, as it did, one of the hateful slanders used against you. I do hope that some kind friend will inthevene (sic) in your favour, tho' I know [it is] too much to expect, especially in a Parliament peculiarly constituted from a new constituency as this is. There is not a man of character and feeling in Merthyr whose best wishes do not go with you, but, alas, alas, the poll has shewn that men of character and feeling are not a numerous race in Merthyr. Believe me to remain, my dear sir, Yours sincerely, Chas. H. James The Rt. Hon. H. A. Bruce. C. H. James (1817-90) was a solicitor and prominent civic figure in Merthyr and Aberdare who himself represented the constituency in Parliament during 1880-8. Ironically, in 1868 he headed the newly-formed Representation Society, whose organisation of nonconformist political opinion achieved the nomination of Henry Richard as one of the candidates for the Merthyr seat. It was this nomination that sealed the fate of H. A. Bruce. James was mortified and humiliated by the election result presumably because Richard Fothergill, and not Bruce, had been returned with Henry Richard. See The Dictionary of Welsh Biography down to 1940 (London, 1959), pp. 420-1. II The bishop of Llandaff, Alfred Ollivant, wrote to Bruce more combatively over a week later, on 27 November. Despite his earlier differences with Bruce, he was equally outraged by the Merthyr result. He judged that 'It is a disgrace to the people of that place to have acted with such ignorance and ingratitude towards one who had so faithfully represented them. They did not deserve to have you, and will ere long find out their loss. For the Merthyr people I wish nothing worse than deep repentance for their folly.' Alfred Ollivant (1798-1882) was bishop of Llandaff from 1849 to 1882. His relations with Bruce later on were such that when the bishop was presented with