"MY DEAR SIR,--With respect to your quitting us for more private retirement, permit me to say with the truest sincerity, and in accordance I am persuaded with the unanimous sentiment of the whole House, that we shall feel we have lost one of our brightest ornaments, and whatever may be the honest variance of opinion on political questions, I know we must all be of one mind in regretting the absence of one as distinguished for every moral virtue as for the brilliancy of his talents. "That retirement into more private life may contribute largely to your personal ease, and to the entire restoration of your health, is, my dear sir, the sincere wish of your most faithful and respectful "Friend and servant, "C. MANNERS SUTTON." Lord John Russell's answer to Wilberforce's anti-bribery suggestions at the time of the first Reform Bill is given below. It is marked "kind and pleasing" by Wilberforce. _Lord John Russell to Mr. Wilberforce._ "SOUTH AUDLEY STREET, "_June 3_. "MY DEAR SIR,--I was very much gratified at receiving your letter, not only for the kind sentiments personally expressed towards me, but still more for the high testimony of your authority in favour of the course I have been pursuing. The resolutions I lately moved were directed against the very practice of which you complain in your letter; only instead of an election committee I propose a separate public committee for the purpose. The expenses of an election committee are such as to deter any from seeking that remedy but a candidate who has hopes of acquiring the seat himself, and the public is wronged for want of some one bound over to prosecute these offences. "After all, we must trust more to the frequent canvassing of the question, and the improvement of moral feeling, which may be expected from education, than to the letter of any law that we can frame. "I showed your letter to Mr. Pitt and Mr. Wynne, and should have been glad to have read it to the House, but I did not like to do so without your permission. Wishing you many years of happiness in your retirement, enhanced by reflecting on the usefulness of your past life, "I remain, yours faithfully, "J. RUSSELL." Wilberforce writes on the same subject in October, 1831, to an old friend:--