A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering 35

A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering 35

It is said the figure of the chief personage is intended for that

of the Duke of Newcastle; the Duke of Marlborough was also actively

engaged on the Tory side: while the back of another, wearing a broad

ribbon, is possibly meant for Lord Winchilsea. Among the artist’s

fugitive sketches, as published at his widow’s, Leicester Fields,

in 1781, are the two caricatures--engraved by Bartolozzi, from the

Earl of Exeter’s collection of Hogarth’s originals--representing Bubb

Dodington (very like “Punch”), and the back view of Lord Winchilsea;

both these studies might have been made for the plate of “Chairing the

Members.” These figures are also included in a caricature entitled “The

Recruiting Sergeant” 1757 (the design of which was ascribed to the Hon.

George Townshend), while that of Lord Winchilsea, who was at the head

of the admiralty, is reproduced with scarcely any alteration, excepting

the position of the paddle shown over his shoulder, in the “Triumph of

Neptune.”

 

[Illustration: GEORGE BUBB DODINGTON (LORD MELCOMBE-REGIS) AND THE EARL

OF WINCHILSEA. BY HOGARTH. 1753.]

 

Other multifarious incidents are given in the fourth plate of the

“Election.” A soldier with the Buff colours is washing the wound

received on behalf of his employers; his sword is snapped across the

blade. A pig-driver, flourishing a formidable flail, is doing battle

with a bear-leader, who is armed with a bludgeon. The backward swing

of the flail is imperilling the security of the new member’s seat,

while wounding the chair-bearers. Bruin is helping himself from the

offal pail of a passing ass--the patient animal stopping to munch a

thistle by the wayside; the driver is belabouring the bear over the

head, to the alarm of a monkey equipped _à la militaire_ and riding on

the brute’s shoulder. In the monkey’s fright, a musket at his side is

discharged in the face of a little chimney-sweep, who, raised aloft

on the wall, is stooping forward to ornament a sculptured skull or

effigy of death, placed above the church gate, with a pair of huge

round spectacles, in imitation of those worn by Lord Winchilsea. This

burning of powder, like the other episodes, has its significance; for,

according to the account of Nichols, who claims to have discussed the

hidden meanings of these pictures with Hogarth himself, it was “during

the contested Oxfordshire Election in 1754 an outrageous mob in the

‘Old Interest’ had surrounded a post-chaise, and were about to throw

it into the river (occupant and all), when Captain T----, withinside,

shot a chimney-sweeper who was most active in the assault. The captain

was tried and acquitted.” Among the items in these election bills

it will be observed that more or less mortality has generally to be

reckoned, “death by misadventure” having been sufficiently prominent

in most contests of the kind during the turbulent times of the past.

Private property was held in small respect while rioting was rife; for

instance, Hogarth has, in the scene of the chairing, shown a mansion

partially demolished, intending to imply that the house had been

wrecked by the riotous mob in the course of their eccentric diversions:

it will be noted that the wilful destruction of houses and furniture

was another recognized feature of election times.

 

The diary of George Bubb Dodington, Baron of Melcombe-Regis, does

not, it is true, contain any enlightenment upon the subject of the

Oxfordshire election as depicted by Hogarth, yet the writer is

circumstantial in his account of the elections of April, 1754. The

records, however, deal with other contests in which the diarist was

active, and notably one which brought Dodington much perplexity of mind

and loss of cash. The accounts are nearly all set down as recitals of

long interviews with the Duke of Newcastle, who was then trying to

strengthen his hands by giving away places to those whose allegiance

was doubtful; while Dodington, upon whose influence and assistance

he could reckon, reaped nothing but mortification, being in fact an

intriguer who was for once played upon for ends other than his own by

a more astute and less scrupulous diplomatist than himself. The heads

of the alliance are set down as under discussion. Bubb was to furnish

his interest towards the electing the new parliament (the dissolution

was then an affair of hours), claiming to return six members on his

own account. “I did it,” he writes, “in the county of Dorset, as far

as they pleased to push it. I engaged also specifically to choose two

members for Weymouth, which he desired might be the son of the Duke of

Devonshire and Mr. Ellis of the admiralty.” The candidates nominated

by the Duke of Newcastle, Lord J. Cavendish and Mr. Ellis, were

successfully returned by Dodington’s influence in the sequel. Further,

there was opposition in Bridgwater, where Bubb was expected to return

two members. Lord Egmont was putting up for that place against the

Court, and it was the royal pleasure that Dodington should sacrifice

himself to keep the Tory candidate out, as signified through Pelham;

to which Bubb replied, “that I desired him, when next these matters

came to be discussed, to lay me at the King’s feet, and tell him that,

as I found it would be agreeable to his Majesty, I would spare neither

pains nor expense to exclude him; and thus it became my engagement to

do it if I can.” “Lord Egmont’s successful return,” he writes, “need

not affect my election, though it might destroy the Whig interest in

Bridgwater for ever.” Poor Bubb, oblivious of the royal antipathies to

the friends of the Prince of Wales, was hoping to secure his old post

of treasurer of the navy, but the leadership of the House of Commons

had fallen upon the Pelhams, and, as the party must be strengthened

there, it was hinted that the Duke of Newcastle would have to buy

supporters by giving away to waverers the offices which rightly were

due to his friends; to which Dodington replied without sophistication,

“that he considered himself as useful there as his neighbours, and,

considering his age, rank, the offices he had held,” and, “adding

to that, choosing six members for them at my own expense, without

the expense of one shilling from their side, I thought the world in

general, and even the gentlemen themselves, could not expect that their

pretensions should give me the exclusion.” The duke remarked that “the

ease and cheapness of the election of Weymouth had surprised him, that

they had nothing like it;” and Bubb considered again “that there were

few who could give his Majesty six members for nothing.” Newcastle then

took the stout future Baron Melcombe in his arms and kissed him twice

(!) “with strong assurance of affection and service;” moreover, notes

of all Bubb had said were written out for the king’s pleasure. A week

later, Dodington sets down, “Dined at Lord Barrington’s, and found

that, notwithstanding the fine conversation of last Thursday, all the

employments are given away.”

 

Nevertheless, he valorously went to work to try and return two members

for Bridgwater, though rather against his inclinations; unfortunately,

although the doings of each day are set down, the details of the

election have been abbreviated by the editor of the diary, Henry

Wyndham.

 

“1754. April 8th. Arrived at Eastbury.

 

“11. Dr. Sharpe and I set out from Eastbury at four o’clock

in the morning for Bridgwater, where, as I expected, I found

things very disagreeably framed.

 

“12. Lord Egmont came, with trumpets, noise, etc.

 

“13. He and we walked the town: we found nothing unexpected as

far as we went.

 

“14, 15, 16. Spent in the infamous and disagreeable compliance

with the low habits of venal wretches.

 

“17. Came on the election, which I lost by the injustice of the

Returning Officer. The numbers were--for Lord Egmont 119, for

Mr. Balch 114, for me 105. Of my good votes 15 were rejected: 8

bad votes for Lord Egmont were received.

 

“18. Left Bridgwater for ever. Arrived at Eastbury in the

evening.”

 

Altogether Dodington places his expenses at £2500, later on at £3400,

and finally, when the king had thrown him over, at nearly £4000 spent

in this affair. According to an accepted political axiom, what a man

buys he may sell; Pelham admitted to Dodington that he possessed “a

good deal of marketable ware (parliamentary interest), and that if I

would empower him to offer it all to the king, without conditions, he

would he answerable to bring the affair to a good account.” In this

instance the vendor sold himself for “just nothing at all,” as is shown

in the diary. The king disliked Bubb as the adviser of his son, whom he

hated.

 

“April 26. I went to the Duke of Newcastle’s. Received with

much seeming affection: thanks for Weymouth, where I had

succeeded; sorrow for Bridgwater, where I had not.

 

* * * * *

 

“I began by telling him that I had done all that was in the

power of money and labour, and showed him two bills for money

remitted thither, before I went down, one of £1000, one of

£500, besides all the money then in my steward’s hands, so that

the election would cost me about £2500. In the next place, if

this election stood, the borough was for ever in Tory hands;

that all this was occasioned by want of proper support from the

Court, and from the behaviour of the servants of the Crown.”

 

The truth was that the Court had really defeated Dodington. Lord

Poulett, a lord of the bedchamber, “had acted openly against him with

all his might;” and this action on the part of the higher powers had

carried the Government employees, so that “five out of the Custom-house

officers gave single votes for Lord Egmont.”

 

“The next head was--that, in spite of all, I had a fair

majority of legal votes, for that the Mayor had admitted eight

bad votes for Lord Egmont, and refused fifteen good ones for

me; so that it was entirely in their own hands to retrieve

the borough, and get rid of a troublesome opponent, if they

pleased; that if the king required this piece of service, it

was to be done, and the borough put into Whig hands, and under

his influence, without any stretch of power.”

 

The intricacies of electioneering are supplanted by those of statecraft

from this point; Bubb’s diary rehearses--spread over four months--the

reasons for and against petitioning for a just return; but it peeps

out, and therein lies the rub--that Dodington has inflamed the Tories