A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering 42

A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering 42

The more impartial-minded of the people began to dread the attempted

revival of despotic and irresponsible government and of those evils

which had been guarded against by great exertions, firmness, and no

slight sacrifices in the past. The spirit of resistance was abroad,

and ministers for their own purposes disguised by every means the true

condition of affairs from the head of the State. As the violation of

popular liberties recalled the struggles which marked the later Stuart

era, so were the means taken to resist these encroachments compared

to the conduct of the people and their tribunes under the same trying

circumstances. Petitions and remonstrances began to make ministers

tremble lest the sympathies of the throne might be turned to their

proper channel, the people.

 

Another election for Middlesex occurred in 1769, _vice_ Wilkes; the

results were that Wilkes was returned at the head of the poll, while

his opponent (with a quarter of his votes) was declared duly elected.

On the subject of Colonel Luttrell’s admission to the House much

was said which must have been unpalatable to the Court. The _Oxford

Magazine_ printed a list of those members who were so patriotically

inclined as to resist this brazen violation of the constitution,

as “the Minority who voted 1148 in preference to 296;” while those

members who servilely voted for the right of the ministers to impose

a defeated candidate on the Commons were described as “the Majority

who preferred 296 to 1143.” A list is given of these placemen,

pensioners, and courtiers, with particulars against their respective

names which account for their lack of principle, all being in receipt

of State patronage, or emolument of one kind or another, sufficient to

prove that self-interest was their guiding principle, and that their

consciences were closed by the greed of preferment. The despotic action

enforced by the administration, in defiance of the principles of the

constitution,--a common practice in the reign of George III.,--provoked

a very pertinent disquisition upon the potentiality of the bulwark of

popular rights. The great Lord Bacon, somewhere talking of the power

of parliaments, says, there is nothing which a parliament cannot do;

and he had reason. A parliament can revive or abrogate old laws,

and make new ones; settle the succession to the Crown; impose taxes;

establish forms of religion; naturalize foreigners; dissolve marriages;

legitimate bastards; attaint a man of treason, etc. Lord Bolingbroke,

indeed, is of a different opinion, and affirms there is something which

a parliament cannot do: it cannot annul the constitution; and that if

it should attempt to annul the constitution, the whole body of the

people would have a right to resist it. It is natural, too, to think

that Lord Bacon limited the power of parliament, great as he believed

it, to those things which do not imply a physical impossibility.

Modern ministers, however, have shown that a parliament is able, at

least in appearance, to effect even such impossibilities. Sir Robert

Walpole was wont to boast that he had “trained his fellows,” as he

called his venal majority in the House of Commons, “in such a manner,

and brought them to such exact discipline, that were he to desire them

to vote Jesus Christ a Gildon” (_i.e._ the head of an infidel sect,

Gildon being a deistical writer in Walpole’s day) “he was sure of their

compliance.” The ministry then in office (the Grafton administration),

as will appear by the list referred to above, had assumed a power no

less arbitrary and equally unreasonable, by persuading their servile

majority to vote in defiance of the constitution on the question of

Colonel Luttrell’s qualifications to sit in the Commons--that the 296

suffrages (recorded for Luttrell) were preferable to the 1143 polled

for Wilkes.

 

The ministerial conduct on the case of Wilkes and upon the events

arising therefrom, joined with their ill-advised manœuvres on behalf

of their own chosen candidates, produced a marked effect on the

constituencies elsewhere, and, as Horace Walpole writes to his friend,

Sir H. Mann (March 23, 1769), towns began to break off from their

allegiance to the administration in power, and sent instructions

to their members to oppose the measures of the Court party. “As

the session approached, Lord Chatham engaged with a new warmth in

promoting petitions.” In opposition alike to the “Remonstrances,”

and to those who questioned the policy of turning a deaf ear to the

petitions of the nation--loyal to the throne, but earnestly set upon

the reform of abuses and the extinction of “grievances,”--the ministers

encouraged their adherents to secure addresses approving their acts,

and praying the throne to disregard petitions for rights. The public

prints satirized these servile __EXPRESSION__s, manufactured to order,

while the wits and caricaturists mercilessly exposed the _modus

operandi_ of fabricating these illegitimate addresses. According to

Horace Walpole, Calcraft and Sir John Mawbey “by zeal and activity

obtained a petition from the county of Essex, though neither the High

Sheriff, the members, nor any one gentleman of the county would attend

the meeting.” It was the old story of the Essex petitions over again,

as already set down in the group of “Election Ballads” under Charles

II., when the same county made itself conspicuous in a similar fashion:

“It was thought wise,” wrote Walpole, “to procure loyal addresses, and

one was obtained from Essex, which being the great county for calves,

obtained nothing but ridicule.” A pictorial version sets forth the

situation (March 6, 1769) as “The Essex Procession from Chelmsford to

St. James’s Market, for the good of the Common-Veal.” The engraving

represents a street ending in the archway of St. James’s, towards

which are progressing two carts, drawn by donkeys tandem-wise, and

filled with bleating calves. The cart is driven by Rigby, the Duke of

Bedford’s factotum, a supporter of the Court, much interested in the

petitions presented to the king at this period: this political agent

is travestied as an ass; he is crying, “Calves’ Heads à la daube!

Who’ll buy my veal?” One of the victimized calves in the cart is

bleating, “This is a Rig-by-Jove;” another exclaims, “How we expose

ourselves!” The other charioteer is intended for C. Dingley, author of

the “Saw-mill” experiment at Limehouse, and who was an influential

projector of the new “City-road;” he was a creature of the Duke of

Grafton, a prominent ally of the Court faction against Wilkes and the

patriots, and was generally obnoxious to the more constitutionally

minded of the citizens. Dingley is transformed into an ox, and he

is made to declare to his special consignment of calves, “Friends

and Countrymen, you shall not be misrepresented.” One of the calf

contingent, mindful of slaughter, is bleating, “I hope they won’t

drive us to St. George’s Fields,” the place of slaughter--otherwise,

the scene of the recent wanton attacks of the Scottish soldiery on the

people; while another of Dingley’s followers is expressing a wish that

the famous saw-mills, which were the cause of a riot in which they were

demolished, might prove the destruction of the speculator himself. In

opposition to the “foolish Essex address,” it was, as described in

the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, “resolved at a meeting of gentlemen held

at Chelmsford, December 15, 1769, to support the right of election to

Parliament, and to petition the king for a dissolution of Parliament.”

 

The Essex address was followed up, on the part of what were entitled

London merchants, by a similar production, which was chiefly promoted

by Charles Dingley; a version of this transaction is entitled “The

Addressers.” It appears that “officious tools,” and interested, if not

bribed, citizens, designated as “the Merchants of London,” attended,

March 8, 1769, at the King’s Arms Tavern, Cornhill, at the invitation

of Dingley and his followers. One shilling was charged at the door to

keep away the crowd, ostensibly to defray the expense of the room; and

one Lovell, having complied with this, found Dingley with a few others

assembled. Mr. Muilmann, a German or Dutch stockbroker, professionally

nicknamed “Van Scrip,” gave Lovell a copy of the address to read,

and told him he could sign the original then on the table; but on

Lovell’s expressing that “he did not approve of the address,” Dingley

ordered him out; but, having paid his shilling, he stood on his

right to remain. Then followed Reynolds (who was Wilkes’s attorney),

and having paid his shilling, and refusing to sign the address, was

also asked to leave, but elected to enjoy the privilege of remaining.

Vaughan and others did the same. The room being then filled, when Mr.

Charles Pole was invited to take the chair at the suggestion of the

anti-addressers, their opponents “opposed all order,” repeating the

cry of “No chair!” with the utmost fury, and threatening to “turn

down stairs all who called for any chairman.” The chair itself became

an object of contention between the hostile parties; one secured the

seat, another the frame, and the “abhorrers of disorder” triumphed

until another chair was obtained. The ticklish office of president

was at last accepted by Mr. Vaughan. Attorney Reynolds was standing

near the chairman, when Dingley, enraged at the success of this

counter-demonstration, addressing him as a “d----d scoundrel,” struck

him a violent blow in the face; on which provocation, Reynolds, being

of commanding size, knocked Dingley down. “Many were the efforts made

to dispossess Mr. Vaughan of the chair, strokes were aimed at him with

canes and sticks, but the blows were warded off by his friends.”

 

Such is the disturbance set forth in the satirical engraving of “The

Addressers” (March 8, 1769), in which is represented the _fracas_

at the King’s Arms Tavern consequent on this insidious attempt to

manufacture a bogus address. Attorney Reynolds’s wig is awry, from

the blow inflicted by Dingley; he is knocking the latter out of the

chair, and exclaiming, “I’ll make you pay for this.” Dingley is

saying, “For this £2000 more;” while, in falling, from his pocket

drops a paper, “Saw-mill, £2000.” “Van Scrip,” Muilmann, alluding to

the cash considerations held out by the ministers to their allies, is

extending his hand, and crying in dismay, “We shall lose this scrip!” A

spectator, armed with a riding-whip, is asserting, “You’ll be Jockey’d,

Mynheer.” The persons in the crowd are demanding, “A chair! a chair!”

while others shout to the contrary; the chair itself is mounted on

a table placed in the middle of the room. Mr. Apvan (Vaughan) is

occupying this perilous distinction. “Why _address_, Gentlemen?” is

his question to the meeting. A slight fencing-match is going on; the

chairman holding his own, while those who attack him cry “Order.”

A clergyman--no other than the “Brentford Parson” in person--is

suggesting the propriety of “an Address to keep the streets clean,”

the condition of the thoroughfares in London being the subject of

complaint at this time. From the report of these proceedings published

in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, it appears that a speaker asserted that

the “proper functions of such an assembly were to order the scavengers

to clean the streets, and beadles to remove vagrants from them.” The

fragments of the chair first dismantled, as described, are in the

hands of some of the company by the door. A man has gone down in his

exertions “to stand up for the Address.” The incendiary document in

question is carried off by one Mr. Phelim O’Error, who is declaring,

“I’ll take it to the Merchant Seamen’s Office,” to which it was removed

on the next stage of its career.

 

Another version of these proceedings appeared, March 8, 1769, as “The

Battle of Cornhill;” an engraving given in the _Town and Country

Magazine_, with a short pa