1835—JANUARY—(General Election.)—Sir Charles Cockerell again came forward as a candidate; but Mr. Hudson retired at the last moment, being opposed by Mr. Peter Borthwick, the unsuccessful candidate at the previous election. However, Mr. Rudge was put in nomination in his absence by the Liberals, and a poll demanded on his behalf; the show of hands being in favour of Sir Charles and Mr. Borthwick. On the hustings Mr. George May charged Mr. Borthwick with having failed as a bookseller in Dalkeith, and having been excommunicated by the Scotch United Secession Church. Mr. Borthwick denied it, and said it was a relative whose debts he had paid for him. Mr. Rudge eventually declined to stand the poll, and Sir Charles Cockerell and Mr. Borthwick were declared duly elected. In June a dinner was given to Mr. Borthwick in the Guildhall, the chair being taken by Lieutenant Amherst; and a party of 160 sat down. The charge made against Mr. Borthwick having been repeated in the _Bath Guardian_, near which town he then lived, he commenced an action against the proprietors for libel, which was tried in April, 1836, and ended in a verdict for Mr. Borthwick on some counts of the indictment, with £100 damages; but the jury held it proved that Mr. Borthwick had been a bookseller in Dalkeith—had failed—had been in gaol—and had been a professional, but unsuccessful, performer on the stage of the Surrey Theatre. 1837—FEBRUARY—(Election in consequence of the death of Sir Charles Cockerell.)—The candidates were Lord Marcus Cecil Hill, brother of the Marquis of Downshire, on the Liberal interest, and George Rushout Bowles, Esq., nephew of Lord Northwick and the Dowager Lady Cockerell, on the Conservative side. On the hustings, Lord Hill was proposed by Mr. Benjamin Workman and Mr. T. N. Foster; and Mr. Bowles by Mr. Thomas Blayney and the Rev. Joseph Harling. The Mayor declared the show of hands to be in favour of Mr. Bowles, though his decision was questioned. The contest was a close one, ending in Mr. Bowles’s election; the numbers being—Bowles, 165; Hill, 140. About 60 electors did not vote.