ants at large. What labour and research have been employed in endeavouring to ascertain the legal claim of borough men, aldermen, portmen, select men, burgesses, and councilmen; and what confusion has arisen from the complicated operation of clashing charters, from freemen, resident and non-resident, and from the different modes of obtaining the freedom of corporations by birth, by servitude, by marriage, by redemption, by election, and by purchase.' Complicated, however, as these tenures were, there was one characteristic which was common to nearly all of them. The patron exercised an unbounded influence in the borough. In some cases the corporation, in other cases the inhabitants, in others, again, the ratepayers, nominally elected the members. Corporation, inhabitants, ratepayers, were all agreed in voting for the patron's nominee. СНАР. II. A few prominent examples will illustrate the position Close of the old boroughs. Lord Beverley's borough of Beer- borough, alston had only one house in it rated at over 10l. a year; Mr. Bankes' borough of Corfe Castle was a cluster of cottages round a venerable ruin. Lord Calthorpe's borough of Bramber was an agricultural district inhabited by about 100 persons. Lord Monson's borough of Gatton was a gentleman's park. Lord Caledon's borough of Old Sarum was a green mound. Lord Huntingfield's borough of Dunwich had been submerged for centuries beneath the North Sea. The nineteen electors of Helston voted unanimously with the Duke of Leeds.2 There were 310 electors in Arundel, but 195 voted with the Duke of Norfolk.3 At the general election of 1818 Lord Falmouth on the one side, and the Regent on the other, made the utmost endeavour to carry Truro. After a ruinous contest, Lord Falmouth's candidates polled twelve, the Regent's eleven votes. These examples were, at the 1 Ann. Reg., 1793, p. 85. 2 Colchester, vol. i. p. 59. II. CHAP. time, so notorious, that grave men thought that there was nothing ludicrous in gravely stating them. It seems hardly to have occurred to the politicians of that time that there was anything ridiculous in the mention of a contest between twelve electors on the one side and eleven on the other. Their sale. The borough owners disposed of their property in different ways. All of them acted on the blunt maxim which the Duke of Newcastle propounded in 1829'Have I not the right to do what I like with my own? '1 But, though they were probably unanimous in agreeing with the duke, they did not all carry out their theory in the same manner. Some borough owners simply sold their boroughs to the highest bidder. Ten thousand pounds was commonly offered for the two seats during a single Parliament. Other borough owners again sold their seats, at a regular price, to members of their own party. Lord Mount Edgecumbe, for instance, used to receive 2,000l. from each of his candidates for Lostwithiel. Some portion of the 4,000l., which he thus received, was distributed by him as plate money to the twenty or thirty electors of the borough. Another portion was devoted to local objects and to subsidising the borough funds.8 The residue found its way into the patron's own pocket. Other borough owners again placed their patronage at the disposal of their party, or nominated their own relations or their own friends. But the borough owner usually considered that he owed nothing 1 The debate on the Duke of Newcastle's conduct at Newark will be found in Hansard, New Series, vol. xxii. p. 1077. Sir W. Clinton, one of the members for Newark, had displeased the duke by voting contrary to his grace's wish in 1829. He was forced to resign. The duke nominated a new candidate, Sadler, a gentleman who acquired considerable reputation; and Sergeant Wilde had the temerity to II. either to his nominee or to the electors. Brougham, when CHAP. he sat for Camelford, bitterly complained that the Duke of Bedford had sold the borough without giving him any notice of his intention of doing so;1 and Brougham, when he made the complaint, was one of the ablest of the rising members of the Whig party, he was a personal friend of the duke's, and therefore sure of receiving more consideration than an ordinary member. The traffic in boroughs would, in fact, have been impossible if the patron had thought it necessary to consult the wishes of his representative; and the traffic in boroughs went on in the most open manner. An act was, indeed, passed in 1809 to stop the practice, but the practice still continued. It was deliberately stated in a petition to the House of Commons in 1817 that seats were bought and sold like tickets in the opera.2 The best men saw nothing disgraceful in breaking the law and in buying a seat. Romilly declared in 1805 that he had formed an unalterable resolution never to come into Parliament,' unless he held a public office, but by a popular election or by paying the common price for his seat.3 by increas The traffic in boroughs was indirectly promoted by Promoted the progress of the country during the eighteenth century. ing wealth. The conquest of India and the extraordinary impulse which was given to industrial enterprise created two new classes of wealthy persons. Men, who had gone out to India with younger sons' fortunes, returned home as wealthy nabobs. Men, who had devoted themselves to industrial pursuits at home, amassed large sums of money as cotton spinners, as potters, or in pursuit of some other trade. Nabobs and merchants were both anxious to secure their own position in society and promote their own influence in politics; and social distinction and political influence could equally be secured by a seat in Parliap. 528. 2 Hansard, vol. xxxv. p. 310. Romilly, vol. ii. p. 118. 1 Brougham, vol. i. CHAP. Bribery. ment. The borough owners found, in consequence, that there were new classes of purchasers for their property with longer purses than the country gentlemen or the political managers who had previously been their chief supporters. The price of boroughs accordingly rose in the market, and the rise in their value made any reform of Parliament more and more difficult. It was hardly to be expected that a borough owner would readily consent to sacrifice a property, bought with his own money, which was worth, on an average, 2,000l. a year. The whole of the boroughs, however, were not at the disposal of any patron. In some places the constituency was free to return a candidate of its own choice. A few of the largest towns really prided themselves on securing the success of what was called a popular candidate, but even these places were disgraced by scenes which could hardly be witnessed now in Ireland. Lord J. Russell openly stated in the House of Commons in 1831 that if an intelligent foreigner were taken to a great and opulent town, Liverpool for instance, he would see bribery prevail to the greatest extent: he would see men openly paid for their votes.'1 An election at Westminster involved a fortnight of riot and drunkenness. When Brougham stood for Liverpool it was recorded that two or three men were killed, but that the town was quiet.2 A riot, in which only two or three men lost their lives, was thought hardly worth noticing. By long established custom the single vote of a resident elector at Hull was rewarded with a donation of two guineas; four were paid for a plumper; and the expenses of a freeman's journey from London averaged 10l. a piece. The letter of the law was not broken, because the money was not paid till the last day on which election petitions could be presented.' The price of votes (at Maidstone) was as 1 Ann. Reg. 1831, p. 7. 2 Brougham's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 63. 3 Wilberforce, vol. i. p. 16. II. regularly fixed as the price of bread-so much for a CHAP. single vote and so much for a plumper.'1 There were about 240 electors at Abingdon, seventy of whom took money. Lord Cochrane openly avowed in the House of Commons that, after his return for Honiton, he sent the town crier round the borough to tell the voters to go to the chief banker for 10l. 10s. each. In 1766, Sudbury shamelessly offered itself for sale. In 1768, the corporation of Oxford sold the representation of the city to the Duke of Marlborough and Lord Abingdon.5 'I doubt not,' wrote Wilberforce, that the bribery of all sorts and forms, and the drunkenness, which attend our present system, are the evils which call by far the loudest for reform.' It The bribery and drunkenness, which Wilberforce deplored, were encouraged by the law which protracted the taking of the poll. Rapid polling was indeed impossible. In 1807, for example, the poll clerk at Horsham had to take down the description of every burgage tenement from the deeds of the voters.' Only seventy-three electors were polled, but the complicated process necessarily occupied the greater part of two days.6 may easily be imagined that in larger constituencies a process of this kind must have taken not days but weeks: and the law allowed the poll to be open for weeks. At the general election of 1784 the contest for Westminster continued for upwards of six weeks, and was followed by a scrutiny which lasted for the best part of a year. But the scandals connected with this election were even too great for the unscrupulous politicians of the eighteenth century. A law was passed 'limiting every poll to fifteen days, and closing a scrutiny within thirty days after the 1 Greville, vol. iii. p. 184. 2 Colchester, vol. i. p. 55. Hansard, 1st Series, xxxv. 92. Horace Walpole's Memoirs of VOL. I. L George III., vol. i. p. 42. 5 Ibid. vol. iii. P. 153. Ann. Reg. (1784-5), pp. 174-180. |