| C. Gilpin | 2632 |
| Lord Henley | 2105 |
| C. G. Merewether | 1625 |
| W. E. Lendrick | 1378 |
| C. Bradlaugh | 1086 |
| Dr F. R. Lees | 485[123] |
After the public declaration of the poll the various candidates were supposed to "return thanks" for the support given them, but three only—Mr Gilpin, Lord Henley, and Mr Bradlaugh—appeared on the hustings. Mr Gilpin in a short speech said: "I turn to Mr Bradlaugh, and I say to him that since I met him in Northampton I have had prejudices removed in reference to himself, and I say unreservedly, when I observed the peace of this town, after the exciting scenes that we have had, I feel, and I should not be an honest man if I did not acknowledge it, it is owing to Mr Bradlaugh having used his influence to obtain it." These generous words of Mr Gilpin's were received with much cheering, and when it came to the Mayor's turn to speak he too said: "I feel it my duty to acknowledge my obligations to Mr Bradlaugh, because he not merely endorsed the sentiments I uttered,[124] but from the balcony of his hotel he backed them up by all the power of argument he possesses in urging you to comply with my wishes. I knew the appeal that was being made to you was made under the most exciting circumstances, and I felt the way in which it was conducted might leave an impression on the people of this country for a long time to come."
Charles Gilpin did more than speak favourably of Mr Bradlaugh from Northampton platforms. A day or two after the election he wrote to the Morning Star:—
"Sir,—I observe that several papers continue to reflect in strong terms on the candidature of Mr Bradlaugh at Northampton, and it is not of course for me to defend him; but I think it should be known that at the declaration of the poll, the Mayor publicly thanked him for his successful efforts to preserve peace and good order in the borough during an unusually exciting contest, and from my own observation I can fully endorse the observations of the Mayor.—I am, sir, yours truly,
Charles Gilpin.
November 20."
Mr Gilpin, moreover, undeterred by the furious onslaught made upon John Stuart Mill, sent a donation of £10 towards Mr Bradlaugh's election expenses, and in the March before he died he recommended Mr Pickering Perry, his own agent, to vote for him.
The extracts from Mr Gilpin's and the Mayor's speeches I have taken from the Northampton Mercury, a paper then thoroughly hostile to Mr Bradlaugh, and I confess to a feeling of shame that it should be necessary at this time of day to thus bring forward "witnesses to character"; yet, while there are many now willing to concede that my father was in his later years an honourable, temperate, law-abiding, and even "distinguished" man, they add that he was not all this in his early years: then he "was coarse, violent, and vulgar." If the word of the Mayor of Northampton in 1868 counts for anything, and if the manly testimony of one of Northampton's most honoured members, the Quaker Charles Gilpin, has any weight, men will find that they must still further revise their opinion of Charles Bradlaugh, and admit that the change has been in themselves and not in him, that the qualities they grant for him in 1890 were his in 1868, and from the very outset of his career. There was no greater change in him than comes to us all through the mellowing touch of time; in truth, he changed less than would most men, and in spite of being a Radical and Reformer of a very advanced type, he was in many ways extremely conservative. He clung to old friends, to old habits, and to precedent. He formed his opinions not hastily but yet rapidly, and after due deliberation, deliberation which included a really marvellous power of putting both sides of the question before himself and others. His judgment once formed, he was extremely slow to alter it, and a course of action once entered upon, he was rarely if ever diverted from it.
My father left Northampton, followed to the station by such an enormous crowd of sorrowing men and women that his defeat was grander than many a victory; he could never, he said, forget those whose hot tears dropped on his hands on the day he left the borough, and as he wrote those words we may be sure that his own tears dimmed his eyes and blurred the page. Hard as iron to opposition, he was acutely sensitive to every token of affection or kindly feeling.