marrow-bone and cleaver men, wearing
white waistcoats and cockades; it closed
with the state carriages of duchesses,
followed by seventy-eight mounted livery
servants. In the evening, a dinner took place
at Willis's Rooms, at which fifteen hundred
sat down. At night, almost all the houses in
the principal streets were illuminated.

It had been the policy of the government
to keep Fox unseated. This had been foreseen,
and provided for by his return for the
Kirkwall Burghs; so that the high-bailiff's
unconstitutional refusal to make a return to
the writ for Westminster until after the
scrutiny, was of small moment to Fox. The
House of Commons was several times in hot
debate respecting the scrutiny. In an
affidavit made to the high-bailiff and read
to the House, it was declared that persons
were placed at the corners of streets to
conduct strangers to the hustings to poll for
Fox, and that upwards of four hundred
persons' names appeared upon the poll-books
out of two parishes, as having polled for Fox,
not one of whom could be found or was
believed to be in existence. We have in a
former article referred to this extraordinary
scrutiny, which was at last abandoned.

Of course, in placards and newspapers there
was a liberal supply of election squibs, but an
exploded squib is not worth looking at. We
pass, therefore, over the remains of what once
counted for a brilliant display of wit.

In seventeen hundred and eighty-eight, the
contest of the purse was again renewed
between Lord Hood, who had accepted office as
one of the Lords of the Admiralty, and Lord
John Townshend, son of the Marquis of
Townshend, the glorious successor of Wolfe,
at the siege of Quebec. By an Act of Parliament,
passed after the forty days' struggle,
the poll was not closed until seven at night,
and was restricted to fifteen days. It was then
considered that a great measure of reform in
Parliamentary elections had taken place, and
that an end had been put to bribery, intimidation,
expense, and disturbance. The first
contest under the new act dispelled the
illusion; for, in many respects the struggle of
seventeen hundred and eighty-eight was more
bitter than its predecessors. As soon as the
writ was moved for, a meeting of the
independent electors was held at the Shakespeare
Tavern, at which five hundred attended. At
this meeting Mr. Fox observed that, it was
the desire of several of the electors, as well as
his own wish, to nominate a member of the
house of Bedford; but, Lord John Russell
was engaged in a county with which he was
connected, and Lord William was under age.
Lord John Russell thanked the meeting for
the flattering opinion it entertained of his
family, and nominated Lord John Townshend.
Mr. Pitt (the Prime Minister) and
his colleagues at once accepted the challenge
of the Whigs, and spared no expense or effort
to return Lord Hood. Indeed, the open and
outrageous manner in which the government
influence was avowed and brought to bear,
exceeded all comparison of past example. Every
engine of power was applied, every figure of
authority was pushed conspicuously forward,
to awe and intimidate the electors. Mr. Pitt
was himself canvassing in broad day from door
to door. In the mean time, his brother, Lord
Chatham, the new naval minister, suspended
all public business at the Board of Admiralty,
and the clerks were used as election agents.
The junior lords were running up and down
the streets, with half-pay lieutenants and
midshipmen, distributing cockades and
canvassing electors. The crews of men of war
were brought from Portsmouth and Sheerness
to assist Admiral Hood, and, as will be
seen, paid dearly for their interference. The
influence of the East India Company was
also exerted to the utmost in support of Lord
Hood. Lord Chatham wrote to a spiritual
peer of considerable sway in Westminster,
"that he had instructions to desire his lordship
would exert himself in favour of Lord
Hood, and make a return of his canvass
every morning." No placeman was allowed
even the miserable refuge of neutrality. The
personal friends of Lord John Townshend
were compelled to vote against him. As the
election proceeded and was found to be against
Lord Hood, the increasing necessity of the
court party naturally produced a proportionate
increase of effort. Ten guineas were
then given in the lower parts of Westminster
for any vote in favour of Lord Hood. Lord
John Townshend's average price for a non-
independent elector would sometimes outbid
that of the crown. Trifling as the article of
cockades may appear, the cost of it to both sides
was enormous. Lord Hood himself and the
ministers, scattered them from their chariots
as they passed among the populace, and his
friends dispersed them with unsparing liberality
from the hustings. Lord Townshend's
friends were not a jot behind-hand in this
lavish expenditure. Lord Hood's committee
publicly mentioned it as a matter of exultation,
that they had forced Lord Townshend's
committee to spend, in one week, on the single
article of ribbon, fifteen hundred pounds
more than they had originally allotted for
that service. The number of houses opened
for the government candidate's friends was
on the same scale of munificence. During
the election the public-houses used as
committee-rooms, or refreshment houses, were at
least three to one in favour of Hood, and,
how little regard was paid to economy
in this particular, one fact may sufficiently
exemplify.

A public-house in the lower part of
Westminster, whence large bodies of electors
had proceeded to vote for Lord Townshend,
being shut, on Friday, before the close of the
poll, the friends of Lord Hood offered one
hundred guineas in advance to have the
house opened for the two remaining days.