Item 9 - Richard Jones to William Whewell

3 pp.

RJ explains why he will not be voting in Cambridge at the forthcoming election [see RJ to WW, 11 November 1822]: 'to come and help turn out whichever you may elect at the next election and to be able to do this with a clear conscience it is surely best to give no vote at all now - with a view to this good purpose I hope Scarlett may get in - it will be easy to turn him out and not so easy any of the others[.] as to Herschel [John Herschel] he votes merely because he thinks Peacock [George Peacock] takes the thing to heart whatever other views he may talk about'. With regard to the Saints [the Saints candidate is Grant] - 'respectable and well meaning as some of the leading ones are if ever it is your lot to witness the hypocrisy and fanaticism exhibited while living and while dying by a set of people almost invariably the converts of some silly man who fortifies himself in doing mischief because he thinks he has the countenance of Mssrs - Wilberforce[,] Baring[,] Stephens etc. etc. you would I am sure scrupulously avoid helping to place in any situation of conspicuous weight an individual of their class and whoever or whatever he might be in himself - I think with you that Grant personally is by far the most eligible of the four but I earnestly hope he may not be successful'.