“The election cry”, wrote the first Lord Colchester to his friend Lord Amherst, after the general election of 1826, “has been upon the Corn Laws, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Roman Catholic claims.” Not dissimilarly, the Annual Register reported that the subjects most canvassed in the election were the corn laws and Roman catholic emancipation. Croker found attention concentrated on what he called “the three C's”, corn, currency and catholics. On the other hand, Peel, observing more precisely, not merely recognised the widespread interest in the catholic question, but also was equally impressed by the importance in the various contests of personal and local rivalries. For parliamentary elections when contested were still, as in the eighteenth century, determined very largely by local loyalties, although national issues begin to play a larger part.