"Maryland is, as you are aware, the theatre for the operations of a ring not unlike that which you hate in New York.
"This ring is under the control of Gorman, Colton, and two or three others, with Governor Carroll as a subordinate but confidential copartner.
"Carroll is violent in his hostility to you, and equally violent and unreasoning in his devotion to Bayard.
"These gentlemen, though at one time committed to you, came over to this city last winter and 'pledged' the State to Bayard.
"Bayard himself, I have occasion to know, designated some of the delegates and advised the defeat of others. Five days before the convention assembled he visited the residence of Governor Carroll, where about a hundred and fifty men of that particular Congressional district were invited to meet him.
"Carroll resides in the same county in which I reside—viz., Howard.
"I was a candidate in that district for the position of delegate against a ring ticket. I carried the district and secured, of my friends in the convention and others not known to me, but instructed to vote for me by the conventions that appointed them, more than enough to elect me.
"But Carroll and his associates induced a sufficient number of those who had been instructed openly to violate their obligation of good faith and personal honor to defeat me. I confidently believe that of the people of the district I had two to one in my favor as against the Bayard ring ticket.
"Bayard and his friends seem to cherish a personal bitterness to you and those interested in having justice done to you, which is as blind as it is stupid.