Much capital was made out of the assertion that Mr Bradlaugh was trying to divide the Liberal vote at Northampton, and so let in a Tory, but it was an assertion entirely without foundation. Over and over again he stated that it was Lord Henley's[115] seat that he was trying to win, and that rather than risk the losing of it to a Tory he was prepared to submit to a decision of a test meeting of the electors. At that time there were 5,729 electors on the register, and of these as many as 3,400 were new voters, so extensively had the new Act affected the voting power in the single borough of Northampton. Mr Bradlaugh's offer to be governed by the decision of a public meeting of the electorate was entirely ignored. "It was in vain," says the writer of the little _Souvenir_ book issued on the occasion of the unveiling of my father's statue at Northampton, "it was in vain that Mr Bradlaugh offered to abide by any fair test that might be devised to settle beforehand which of the two Liberal candidates in the field should go to the poll." A test ballot had been taken at Manchester to decide the claims of Ernest Jones. "If, however," continued the writer of the _Souvenir_, "the Manchester method were unacceptable, Mr Bradlaugh was prepared to agree to any other form of gauging the opinion of the constituency that was equally just to him" and to Lord Henley. But the Whigs seemed afraid to put it "to the touch," and my father's address was rapidly followed by one signed jointly by Charles Gilpin and Lord Henley. The Tories followed considerably later with two candidates, Messrs Merewether and Lendrick, and later still came a sixth candidate, Dr F. R. Lees, well known as a Temperance advocate. Why he came it is a little difficult to say, for before coming he wrote my father that he was not hostile to him; and he publicly declared that if he were elected in Mr Gilpin's place, he would at once resign in that gentleman's favour. Mr Bradlaugh therefore asked him, as it was impossible that both could win Lord Henley's seat, "to at once consent to adopt some course which will avoid division of the Radical strength." At his first meeting amendments were carried in Mr Bradlaugh's favour, but Dr Lees persisted right up to the last day, and abandoned his candidature "only on the day of the poll, when it was too late to prevent nearly five hundred electors recording their votes on his behalf."[116] [Footnote 115: The sitting members were Charles Gilpin and Lord Henley.] [Footnote 116: _Souvenir._]