Autograph Letter Signed ('Edgar A. Bowring') to Thomas Flood.

12mo: 4 pp. On lightly creased paper, with spotting and some staining to the verso of the second leaf of the bifolium. Apologises at length for not being able to attend 'the next General Public Meeting [...] of the Committee for Sir E. W. Watkin's [Sir Edward William Watkin (1819-1901), railway entrepreneur] Election'. 'It is unnecessary for me to inform the Committee how anxious I am for the success of the Liberal cause on this as on all other occasions [...]'. He is at present 'quite unequal to any violent exertion or excitement & certainly could not make a speech to a large meeting. I had great difficulty in screwing up myself to speak at our late meeting at the Victoria Hall'. He is 'as eager now for the triumph of the Liberals as I wasin 1868 when I was myself a Candidate. I have hitherto always found myself much benefited by the air of Brighton & in a few days I shall hope to be much stronger & able to travel down to Devonshire. [...] I suppose the Election will be in between 2 & 3 weeks from the present time - that is assuming that Sir J. Coleridge [the Attorney General, Sir John Duke Coleridge, who became Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in November 1873, being raised to the peerage as Baron Coleridge the January of the following year] formally accepts the office without delay. [...]'