Such was Disraeli when, in the summer of 1832, he offered himself as a candidate to the electors of High Wycombe. The expected vacancy had occurred. It was the last election under the unreformed constituency. The voters were only some forty or fifty in number. One seat in the borough had been a family property of the Whig Carringtons; the other was under the influence of Sir Thomas Baring, whose interest went with the Government. Disraeli started as a Radical. He desired generally to go into Parliament as a profession, as other men go to the Bar, to make his way to consequence and to fortune. But he did not mean to take any brief which might be offered him. He was infected to some extent by the general Reform enthusiasm. Lord Grey's measure had taken half their power from the aristocracy and the landed interest, and had given it to the middle classes. There the Whigs desired to stop and to put off the hungry multitude (who expected to be better clothed and fed and housed) with flash notes on the Bank of Liberty. Ardent young men of ability had small belief in the virtues of the middle classes. They were thinking of a Reform which was to make an end of injustice and misery, a remodelling of the world. Carlyle, in the Dumfriesshire Highlands, caught the infection, and believed for a time in the coming of a new era. Disraeli conceived that 'Toryism was worn out, and he could not condescend to be a Whig.' He started against the Carringtons on the line of the enthusiasts, advocating the ballot and triennial Parliaments. For cant of all kinds he had the natural hatred which belongs to real ability. The rights of man to what was called liberty he never meddled with. He desired practical results. His dislike of the Whigs recommended him to their enemies, and half his friends in the borough were Tories. The local newspapers supported him as an independent. But help was welcome from any quarter but the Whigs. Bulwer, who worked hard for him, procured commendatory letters from O'Connell, Burdett, and Hume, and these letters were placarded ostentatiously in the Wycombe market-place.