A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering 28

A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering 28

According to the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, “amidst this mirth, one Mr.

Williams, Master of the ‘White Horse’ in Piccadilly, being observed to

make memorandums with a pencil, gave such offence that he was severely

cuffed and kicked out of the company.” It appears that a Jacobite

complexion was given to the rather forcible __EXPRESSION__ of public

contempt bestowed upon the Ministerial notetaker, who was branded as

“the Spy.” A spirited version of this incident, executed closely in

the manner of Hogarth, if not by that master, to whose portrait of

Lord Lovat it in style approximates (the artist was himself one of the

free electors of Westminster), exhibits the ignominious ejectment of

“the Spy,” whose detection is further indicated by the paper he has

dropped on the ground, marked “List of the persons, etc.” The pictorial

view of an episode to which undue importance was attached, owing to the

excited relation of parties at the time, is accompanied by a quotation

from “Hudibras” appropriate to the subject:--

 

“Honour in the Breech is lodg’d

As wise philosophers have judged;

Because a kick in that part more

Hurts Honour than deep wounds before.”

 

[Illustration: MEETING OF THE ASSOCIATION OF INDEPENDENT ELECTORS OF

WESTMINSTER: THE SPY DETECTED. MARCH, 1747.

 

[_Page 109._]

 

A few days later a second entry shows that it was seriously entertained

at that emergency to carry the matter farther; in any case--although

they do not seem to have eventually made anything of it--the complaint

was taken up by the Commons, and referred to the managers of Lord

Lovat’s trial, then just concluded. On the 24th of March--

 

“Complaint being made to the House that John Williams,

keeper of the ‘White Horse Inn’ in Piccadilly, was on

Thursday last, in a public assembly, assaulted and severely

treated, upon a public assertion made by some persons in

that assembly--‘_that_, Fraser, _said by them, to be one of

the principal witnesses against the Lord Lovat, was in his

custody_’ ORDER’D. That a committee be appointed to

enquire into the matter of this complaint, and examine persons

in the most solemn manner; that this committee be the managers

against Lord Lovat.”

 

The whole matter is obscured by party misrepresentations. One

James Fraser, who was pronounced a Jacobite, was active against

the Ministerial candidates at the Westminster contest of 1749,

where all opponents of the Court were denounced as Jacobites, while

the “patriots,” “country party,” and “independent electors of

Westminster,”--as they indiscriminately christened themselves--retorted

upon Earl Gower, through his son, Lord Trentham, the Ministerial

candidate for that city, the accusation of Jacobite leanings:--“_Ask_

Lord Trentham _who had his foot in the stirrup_ in the year 1715.”

 

The parliamentary dissolution followed in June, 1747, when the

favourite manœuvre of those in power was to recklessly accuse their

opponents of belonging to the Stuart faction. The odium attaching to

the suspicion of Jacobite tendencies was sufficiently strong to place

the “Independent party” in a smaller minority than at the previous

election, and thus the outbreak in favour of the Pretender served to

recruit the strength of the Court party, which had been jeopardized at

the 1741 election, and had shown signs of declension before the rising

in 1745. The Government candidates for Westminster, Admiral Sir Peter

Warren and Lord Trentham, were again chosen from the Admiralty. Lord

Trentham was the son of that Earl Gower who was for some time the head

of the Opposition, and at this juncture was one of the recent recruits

of the Court party.

 

“See Gower, who the Court had opposed thick and thin;

Was out, then was in, then was out and now in;

He kiss’d hands, then look’d pensive--as much as to say,

“I can’t judge which is best, to go or to stay.

Derry Down.”

 

(_Place Book for the Year 1745._)

 

[Illustration: WESTMINSTER--THE TWO-SHILLING BUTCHER. 1747.]

 

Lord Trentham’s selection as a lord of the admiralty occurred somewhat

later (1749). The second candidate was Admiral Sir Peter Warren, who,

as usual, was supported by a mob of Jack Tars, or of ruffians dressed

in sailors’ clothes for the occasion, a common party subterfuge at the

Westminster elections. The candidates put forward for the suffrages

of the “Independent Electors,” and who came out of the contest

ingloriously, were, as first announced, Sir Thomas Clarges (one of the

stewards of the association) and Sir John Phillips (who was a steward

in 1744); after a ten-days’ canvass the latter declined to proceed in

his candidature, on the plea of ill health, and Sir Thomas Dyke was put

up in his stead. Early in the contest a well-executed caricature, in

the manner of Boitard or Gravelot, both artists being contemporary with

Hogarth, was offered to the public under the title of “The Two-Shilling

Butcher.” It was at this election that the highest personages

canvassed. The Duke of Cumberland and the Prince of Wales appeared

in support of the rival factions. In the pictorial view of this

situation, Lord Trentham, a dandified person dressed in the extreme

of French taste, is in conference with his “backer” the “Two-Shilling

Butcher,” who has been supposed by Thomas Wright and other authorities

to represent the “Culloden Butcher,” _i.e._ the Duke of Cumberland.

Mr. F. G. Stephens, who has described all the early caricatures in

the Hawkins Collections with the utmost pains and minutiæ, sets down

this personage as Mr. Butcher, the agent to the Duke of Bedford,

whose residence is introduced in the rear. However, the figure in the

present version corresponds with similar representations of the stout

Cumberland Butcher; moreover, an allusion to cattle put into the mouth

of this personage strongly indicates, by analogy with other caricatures

on “horned cattle,” that none other than the duke is meant. The results

of the election were at this time uncertain. The affected lordling,

also satirized as Sir Silkington, is drawling, “Curs me! you’d buy

me, ye Brutes, at 2_s._ p. Head _Bona fide_?” to which the figure

travestied as a butcher, with apron, knife, and steel, is responding,

“My Lord, there being a Fatality in ye Cattle, that there is 3000

above my Cut, tho’ I offered handsome.” The “3000” presumably refers

to the Association of Independent Electors, who, at the previous poll

(1741), registered for the “patriot” candidates (Vernon and Edwin), but

were found wanting in 1747, as the figures at the close of the poll

demonstrated. The Duke of Bedford’s residence is introduced to recall

the circumstance that he and the candidate were close matrimonial

connections, the duke having married the eldest daughter of John,

Earl Gower. In front of this building, with the “bustos” of sphinxes

above the posts of the gateway, is another important personage, who

is bribing rival canvassers with gold openly filched from the pockets

of Britannia, who is highly indignant at the proceeding; she is made

to exclaim, with reason, “Ye Gods, what pickpockets!” The people seen

in the dark transaction of being bribed were defectors from “Phillips

and Clarges,” demoralized by the spell of gold; another voter is

hastening away, denouncing the venality of these persons. One of the

sphinxes is exclaiming--“We can’t decoy them in!” while labels, carried

through the air by pigeons, record “The Independent has it,” and “For

Yorkshire.” On the opposite side is shown the front of St. Paul’s,

Covent Garden, with its dial and the motto “So passes ye glory of ye

world.” Before its portals stand the rival candidates, Sir Thomas

Clarges and Sir Thomas Dyke; they are showing their contempt for mere

“placemen representatives” by trampling upon government bribes: “Places

in Exchequer we tread on,” and “No lucrative Employment.” Near them

are the poll clerks, and the returning officer, with the poll-book

under his charge. Beside the “independent” candidates are shown their

supporters: one of these, bearing in his hand the cap of liberty, is

pressing the latter on the acceptance of the electors, and assuring

them, “Those candidates will serve you!” while a scroll, borne above

the heads of the voters, carries the warning, “No Trentham!”

 

[Illustration: THE HUMOURS OF THE WESTMINSTER ELECTION; OR, THE SCALD

MISERABLE INDEPENDENT ELECTORS IN THE SUDS. 1747.

 

[_Page 113._]

 

Other caricatures appeared on the same subject, which excited, as

usual, the largest share of public interest during the elections

throughout the country. One of these first appeared, in compliment

to the Scottish Rebellion, the latest novelty of the time, as “The

Jaco-Independo-Rebello-Plaido.” In this version the business of the

election is represented to take place before Westminster Hall, as a

further allusion to the Jacobites and Lord Lovat’s trial there. The two

parties and their respective head-quarters, established at taverns,

are represented, and above all hovers the power of Destruction, always

pictured as an important agent of “the other side,” according to the

respective allegations of the contending parties. The Devil, in the

present instance, is made “to take care of his own,” and has a stock of

halters and axes for the rebels. “I have the Fee in my hands,” saith

the Evil One. One side is appropriated to Ministerialists at the sign

of Jolly Bacchus and the (Rabbit) Warren. Two persons are leaning from

the first-floor window, and exhorting those with votes to “Give the

Devil his due”--_i.e._ the Jacobites. The most prominent figure is a

butcher; and no doubt, according to Mr. F. G. Stephens’s suggestion,

the person thus implied is Mr. Butcher, the Duke of Bedford’s agent,

and a less distinguished person than the “Cumberland Duke” pictured in

the “Two-Shilling Butcher.” He is waving a scroll endorsed, “Trentham

and Warren.” The butcher agent is surrounded by partisans; Admiral Sir

Peter Warren’s sailors (a Lascar among them) are asserting “bludgeon

law;” the people are pushing to the Governmental head-quarters, crying

“No independency” and “No Pretender,” as if the terms were synonymous;

a Frenchman may be identified in the crowd; and a person is offering

the butcher a paper, “They squeak.” The head-quarters of the opposite

party is shown as a Jacobite house. The flag displayed is adorned with

the figure of an owl dressed in a full wig and a counsellor’s bands,

and indicates “Morgan’s Ghost,” the Morgan thus favoured having been

a Jacobite barrister who had the misfortune to be implicated in the

abortive rising of 1745 in the interests of the Pretender, which cost

Morgan his life. The adherents rallying round this questionable house,

intended as a reflection upon the Association of Independent Electors

of Westminster, who were stigmatized as friends of the Jacobites,