A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering 5

A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering 5

CHAPTER XII.

 

The “royal” Duke of Norfolk an enthusiastic

“electioneerer”--Wilberforce’s electioneering experiences--His

contest for Hull--The price of freemen--The great fight for

Yorkshire, 1807--“The Austerlitz of Electioneering”--The

candidates, Wilberforce, Lord Milton and Lascelles--The

Fitzwilliam and Harewood interests--Three hundred thousand

pounds expended--The voluntary subscription to defray the

expenses of Wilberforce’s candidature--The poll--The county

in a state of ferment--Election wiles; false rumours;

“Bruisers”--All the conveyances bespoke--Wilberforce’s

victory--His motives for the contest--“Groans of the

Talents”--Personation--Female canvassers under false

colours--Travelling expenses of electors--Carrying cargoes

of freeholders by water--Kidnapping--The caricaturists on

elections--Customary episodes of a Westminster election,

delineated by Rowlandson and Pugin--George Cruikshank as

an election caricaturist--The “Speaker’s Warrant” for

committing Burdett to the Tower, 1810--“The Little Man in

the Big Wig,” 1810--“The Election Hunter,” 1812--“Saddle

White Surrey for Cheapside”--Southwark election, 1812--“The

Borough Candidates”--“An Election Ball,” 1813--The Westminster

election, 1818--“The Freedom of Election: or, Hunt-ing

for Popularity and Plumpers for Maxwell,” 1818--“Hunt, a

Radical Reformer”--“A Political Squib on the Westminster

Election,” 1819--“Patriot Allegory, Anarchical Fable, and

Licentious Parody”--Major Cartwright, an unsuccessful

candidate--Cartwright’s Petition to the House of Commons

on the needful reform of a corrupt representative

system, 1820--Statistics of borough-mongering--“Sinks

of corruption”--“353 members corruptly imposed on the

Commons”--The coming elections of 1820--John Cam Hobhouse--His

imprisonment--“Little Hob in the Well”--“A Trifling

Mistake--corrected,” 1820--Radicals--“The Root of the King’s

Evil; Lay the Axe to it,” 1820--The Riot Act--“The Law’s Delay.

Showing the advantage and comfort of waiting the specified time

after reading the Riot Act to a Radical Mob; or, a British

Magistrate in the Discharge of his Duties, and the People

of England in the Discharge of Theirs,” 1820--“The Election

Day”--Dissolution of Parliament, 1820--“Coriolanus addressing

the Plebs,” 1820--“Freedom and Purity of Election! Showing the

Necessity of Reform in the Close Boroughs,” 1820--“Radical

Quacks giving a new Constitution to John Bull,” 1820--Burdett

and Hobhouse as Radical Reformers 324

 

 

CHAPTER XIII.

 

The last parliament of George IV.’s reign--The country

clamorous for retrenchment--The Tory _régime_ growing

irksome--The king’s illness, 1830--John Doyle’s caricatures

upon public events (HB’s “political sketches”)--“Present

State of Public Feeling Partially Illustrated,”

1830--Death of the king--“The Mourning Journal: Alas! Poor

Yorick!”--“The Magic Mirror; or, a Peep into Futurity”--The

Princess Victoria--Accession of William IV.--Whig

prospects reviving--Brougham, “A Gheber worshipping the

Rising Sun”--Wellington, a “Detected Trespasser”--Party

intrigues--“Anticipation; or, Queen Sarah’s Visit to

Bushy”--The old campaigner--“_Un_-Holy Alliance; or, an

Ominous Conjunction”--The general election, 1830--“Election

Squibs and Crackers for 1830. Before and After the

Election”--Caricaturists, as politicians, usually above party

prejudices--W. Cobbett returned for Oldham--“Peter Porcupine”

an M.P.--“A Characteristic Dialogue”--Changes of seats--“The

Noodle Bazaar”--Heads for Cabinets--John Bull and the

_Times_--“The man that is easily led by the nose”--“Resignation

and Fortitude; or, the Gold Stick”--“The Rival Candidates;”

Boai and Grant--Wellington’s leadership threatened: “The

Unsuccessful Appeal”--The popular will--Attacks upon the

Wellington and Peel Ministry--Results of the general election

unfavourable to the Cabinet--“A Masked Battery”--“A Cabinet

Picture”--“Guy Fawkes; or, the Anniversary of the Popish

Plot”--Defeat foreshadowed--“False Alarm; or, Much Ado

about Nothing”--The Eastern Question fatal to Wellington’s

Ministry--“Scene from the Suppressed Tragedy entitled the

Turco-Greek Conspiracy”--“His Honour the Beadle (William IV.)

driving the Wagabonds out of the Parish”--The adoption of

liberal progress--Preliminary skirmishing--“The Coquet”--The

ministry thrown out--“Examples of the Laconic Style”--“A

very Prophetical and Pathetical Allegory,” 1831--Reform on

the road--“Leap-Frog down Constitution Hill,” 1831--Another

appeal to the country--“Anticipated Radical Meeting”--The

dissolution--“Great Reform” Specialists; John Bull and his

constitutional deformity--“Hoo-Loo-Choo, _alias_ John Bull,

and the Doctors”--“May-Day”--“Leap-Frog on a Level; or,

Going Headlong to the Devil”--The Reformers having it all

their own way--A swinging pace--Political squibs on the

elections of 1831--The great battle of Lord Grey’s Reform

Bill--“The New Chevy Chase,” a poetical version of the reform

struggle--“Votaries at the Altar of Discord”--“Peerless

Eloquence”--Slaughter of the Innocents--“Niobe

Family”--Extinction of pocket boroughs--Reform at a breakneck

pace--“John Gilpin”--William IV. carried away by the old

Grey--“The Handwriting on the Wall: ‘Reform Bill!’”--A warning

to reformers--Grey and “Brissot’s Ghost”--“Macbeth” and “The

Tricoloured Witches”--Grey, Durham, and Brougham--Althorp and

Russell--A tub to a whale--“A Tale of a Tub, and the Moral

of the Tail”--Renovations at the King’s Head: “Varnishing--A

Sign (of the Times)”--“The Rival Mount-o’-_Bankes_; or, the

Dorsetshire Juggler”--Root-and-branch reform--“LINEal Descent

of the Crown,” a hint from Hogarth’s works, 1832--Hobhouse in

office--“The Cast-off Cloak”--Radicalism over-warm--“Mazeppa”

(William IV.): “Again he urges on his wild career”--“Ministers

in their Cups” 343

 

 

CHAPTER XIV.

 

John Doyle, a Tory Caricaturist--The Tories out in the

cold--“The Waits,” 1833--Grey and the king--“Sindbad the

Sailor and the Old Man of the Sea,” 1833--Parliamentary

reform not carried far enough--Burdett, Hume, and O’Connell:

“Three Great Pillars of Government; or, a Walk from White

Conduit House to St. Stephen’s,” 1834--“Time running away

with the Reform Bill”--General election, 1834-5--Party

competition--“The Opposition ’Busses”--“Original Design

for the King’s Arms, to be placed over the New Speaker’s

Chair,” supporters, Burdett and Cobbett--“Inconveniences that

might have arisen from the Ballot”--Bribery and violence

discounted--General election of 1835--Broadside squibs on the

Windsor election--Tory view of the decline of the British

constitution, “A New Instance of the Mute--ability of Human

Affairs,” 1837--Appeal to the Constituencies in 1837--“Going

to the Fair with It: a cant phrase for doing anything in an

extravagant way”--Contortions of statesmen to keep in place:

“Ins and Outs”--“Fancy Ball: Jim Crow Dance and Chorus,”

1837--Conversion of Sir Francis Burdett from Radicalism to

Toryism--“A Fine Old English Gentleman, one of Olden Time,”

1837--A bye-election for Westminster--Burdett opposed by

Leader--“Following the Leader”--“May-Day in 1837”--Whig

gambols--Sir Francis Burdett invites the verdict of his

Westminster constituents upon his change of front--Thackeray’s

pictorial squib on the event--“The Guide”--“The Rivals; or,

Old Tory Glory and Young Liberal Glory,” 1837--Sir Francis

Burdett re-elected--His valedictory speech at the Westminster

hustings, 1837--His quarrel with Daniel O’Connell, the

Liberator--Defeat of Leader--“The Dog and the Shadow”--“Race

for the Westminster Stakes between an Old Thoro’bred and a

Young Cock-tail; weight for age. The old ’un winning in a

canter,” May, 1837--“Taking up a Fare: All the World’s a

Stage”--Burdett’s attack on Democracy--“The Last and Highest

Point at which the unheard-of Courage of Don Quixote ever did,

or could arrive, with the Happy Conclusion”--“An Old Song to

a New Tune”--“The Raddies”--Fate of Leader--“A Dead-horse:

a sorry subject; what was once a Leader in the Bridgwater

Coach”--“The Three Tailors of Tooley Street. We, the People

of England”--“Reorganizing the (Spanish) Legion”--Burdett

for North Wilts--“Grinding Young”--Lord Durham--“The Newest

Universal Medicine”--“The Rejected of Kilmarnock”--Joseph Hume

defeated at Middlesex--“Figurative Representation of the Late

Catastrophe!”--Dan O’Connell providing the rejected candidates