between the Earl of Derby and his combined Peelite and ultra-liberal opponents. This was, indeed, a pitched battle between parties; and the field was Liverpool. Lord Derby sent one of his own lieutenants to fight it, and in conjunction with an eminent, and very able, and highly-respected resident supporter at Liverpool; the opponents being an equally honourable Liverpool resident, and Mr Cardwell, the late member, and favourite lieutenant of the late Sir Robert Peel. All parties admitted that the issue of this contest, especially if of a decisive character, would be of immense political importance; and the general impression undoubtedly was, that the Ministerial candidates had undertaken too much for their strength. All other elections were thrown into the shade while this was pending; the result of which was conveyed hourly to London, during the London election, by the electric telegraph. The result dismayed our opponents. Lord Derby’s candidate headed Mr Cardwell by 1130 votes, and his other opponent by 1467 votes; while the other Ministerial candidate, Mr Turner, headed Mr Cardwell by 1446 votes, and Mr Cardwell’s comrade by 1783 votes! Such was the decision deliberately pronounced by the great and enlightened constituency of Liverpool; and it has been, and will be, attended by consequences of magnitude. Mr Cardwell’s defeat at Liverpool has been followed by the signal discomfiture of that small party in the late House of Commons, of which he had been a distinguished member—Mr Green, Mr Smythe, Mr Roundell Palmer, (an amiable and most accomplished man, who, after an arduous canvass, fled without a struggle,) Mr Pusey, Mr Townley, Mr Tollemache, Mr Mackinnon, Lord Mahon, Lord Norreys, Sir C. Douglas, Sir George Clerk, and others—as though there had been a sort of political murrain among them; and the _Morning Chronicle_ has had to gnash its little teeth, day after day, in despair, as its friends disappeared; declaring, at length,[12] in a solemn, funereal strain—“A competent Ministry might be formed from the candidates who, at the present election, have been rejected principally in consequence of their political honesty and intellectual superiority!”