Mr. Paull had started at the top of the poll. But as the days wore on, the others gained slowly upon him, until, at the close, he was left in a small minority. It was found, however, upon an analysis of the voting, that Paull had polled 3077 plumpers, against Sheridan’s 955, and Sir Samuel Hood’s 1033, whilst the coalition of the two latter had given them each 3240 split votes. Paull’s total was 4481. These figures were solemnly put upon record by the friends of reform (as they now called themselves), in order to show “the manner in which Mr. Paull had been defeated.” An interesting conflict ensued, between Cobbett and Sheridan, which must not go unnoticed. When the former was attacked by Sheridan in parliament, in August, 1803 (as before related), it was a wilful and unnecessary throwing down of the gauntlet. Mr. Sheridan was not the man who should find fault with another’s popularity-hunting, much less another’s inconsistency; and Mr. Cobbett proceeded to give him the inevitable “Series of Letters,”[2] with which he usually favoured the objects of his animadversion. Mr. Sheridan, now crowing on the Westminster hustings, imputes _low birth_ to his opponents; Mr. Paull’s father was only a tailor, and, as for his bottle-holder, why all the world knows his story. And all the world (except Mr. Sheridan) might have guessed what would have come of that. “Whence came the Sheridans? From a play-actor! from a member of that profession, the followers of which are, in our wise laws, considered and denominated _vagabonds_.” And Mr. Cobbett proceeds further, and wants to know what are the public services of these persons, Sheridan and his son Thomas, that they should be receiving between seven and eight thousand pounds of the public money? So Tom Sheridan offers to fight, according to a speech of his own at a Sheridan dinner:-- “This man, for his roughness and vulgarity towards my father (whom I think I may fairly describe as the person in whom eloquence may be said to preside), I had intended to thrash, and for that purpose I went down to his house with a cane, but he was not at home. I afterwards thought it best to offer him a pistol, and wrote to him for the purpose, but this valiant Mr. Cobbett answered me by saying that he never fought duels.” Of course, the only utility of this sort of thing, was to provide material for satire; and Cobbett, on his part, never failed to remind Sheridan of his foibles, nor ceased to look upon his “statesmanship” with the contempt it deserved. * * * * *