October 14, 1908.

* * * * *

I may perhaps add that on the day Sir Joseph Yorke was drowned, Miss
Manningham, the sister of Mrs. Charles Yorke, was at one of the Ancient
Music concerts in the Hanover Square Rooms, and during the performance
fainted and was carried out. On coming to herself and being questioned
as to the cause, she said she had seen before her the dripping form of a
man whose body was covered with a naval cloak, and although she could
not see his face, she knew it to be the body of Sir Joseph Yorke. There
were of course neither telegraph nor daily posts in those days, and the
news of his death only reached the family some two days later, when it
was found that the day and hour corresponded with the vision Miss
Manningham had seen.

From certain remarks in his letters from Sweden it appears that Captain
Yorke had long the intention of entering politics so soon as there was
any interruption of his active service at sea, and shortly after his
arrival in England in 1831, he carried out this intention by offering
himself as candidate for Reigate, for which borough he duly took his
seat. In October of the same year, however, a vacancy occurred in the
representation of Cambridgeshire upon the resignation of one of the
sitting members, Lord F. G. Osborne. Captain Yorke at once decided to
offer himself as the representative of a county with which his family
had been long and closely associated. His opponent was Mr. R. G.
Townley, who was the Ministerial candidate and had the support of Lord
John Russell on his committee and at the hustings.

The politics of those strenuous times of the Reform Bill are well known,