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Full text of "Structure Of Politics At The Accession Of George Iii"
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DELHI UNIVERSITY LIBRARY SYSTEM 


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THE 


STRUCTURE OF P 

AT THE 

ACCESSION OF GEORu ; III 

L. B. NAMIER 


VOL. i 


MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON 
.1929 



PRINTED IN CREAT BRITAIN 
H* n. at R. CLARK, I.IMITBD, EDINBURGH 



PREFACE 


In 1912 I started work on “The Imperial Problem dur- 
ing the American Revolution ” ; a year later I had to 
enter business, but as this carried me across to America, 
where public libraries are open at night and on Sundays, 
I was not debarred from continuing my studies. I soon 
found, as so many have found before me, that the con- 
stitutional and political formulas of the problem were 
exceedingly simple, and the contemporary discussions of 
it very trite — which usually happens where masses act, 
but are supposed to reason. A re-statement of the argu- 
ments or an analysis of what is called “ public opinion ” 
would not get us much further ; for political problems do 
not, as a rule, deeply affect the lives and consciousness of 
ordinary men, and little real thought is given them by 
these men, whose concerns, none the less, supply the 
basis of the problems and determine the course of their 
deydepmext. 

• As the conflict of 1775 was more closely connected with 
9 everyday life in the American Colonies than in this country, 
America has by now entered as a community into the 
picture of the Revolution, while Great Britain remains 
more or less the figure on our copper coins ; the notion 
of this country in the conflict needs to be humanised. As 
^happens to most students of the American Revolution, I 
concentrated at first on the history of the Colonies ; but, 
when I went to discuss my work with one of the most 
distinguished American historians, he, though friendly and 
helpful, asked me a very pertinent question. <c On this. 



vi PREFACE 

side,” he said, “ there are ever so many of us doing the work ; 
why do you not contribute something from your own 
side ? ” I saw that his remark was just, but took for the 
moment no further notice of it ; still, it stuck in my mind, 
and a few months later, when reading the letters in which 
Edward Gibbon, writing in 1775, described how, while 
destroying the Roman Empire, he “ supported the British ” 
by voting with the Government, I became interested in the 
House of Commons which, in so ill-fated a manner, under- 
took the work of preserving the First British Empire. In 
the early summer of 1914 I returned to England for a 
holiday, and imagined that by the autumn I should be 
able to produce something on the British Parliament during 
the American Revolution. Being very young and deficient 
in sense of time, I did not realise that this would have to 
be the work of many years. 

This first attempt had anyhow to be abandoned in 
August 1914 ; Army training and subsequently service under 
and in the Foreign Office took up the years 1914-20. Next 
I tried to resume my research work as a lecturer and tutor 
at Balliol, my old College. But excellent as our tutorial 
system is for the pupils, it leaves no leisure to the teachers, 
and I had to go once more into business. Looking back 
at the time in the Army, the Civil Service, and in business, 
and at the influence those years hare had on my histories) 
work, I am able to appreciate Gibbon’s dictum that “ the 
Captain of the Hampshire grenadiers . . . has not been 
useless to the historian of the Roman Empire ”. 

By the time I resumed my work, some four years ago, 
I had decided to make it a study of the British “ political 
nation ” during the American Revolution, and to pursue 
it by concentrating on that marvellous microcosmos, tliQ 
British House of Commons. But next I found that were 
I to attempt a narrative, however much of general analysis 
I put into the introductory chapters, lengthy digressions 
*and appendices could not be avoided — too much in 



PREFACE vii 

eighteenth-century politics requires explaining. Between 
them and the politics of the present day there is more 
resemblance in outer forms and denominations than in 
underlying realities ; so that misconception is very easy. 
There were no proper party organisations about 1760, 
though party names and cant were current ; the names 
and the cant have since supplied the materials for an 
imaginary superstructure. A system of non-Euclidean 
geometry can be built up by taking a curve for basis instead 
of the straight line, but it is not easy for our minds to think 
consistently in unwonted terms ; Parliamentary politics 
not based on parties are to us a non-Euclidean system, and 
similarly require a fundamental readjustment of ideas and, 
what is more, of mental habits. A general explanation 
registering the outstanding differences may be understood 
but cannot be properly assimilated ; one has to steep 
oneself in the political life of a period before one can safely 
speak, or be sure of understanding, its language. 

With that purpose in view I have written this book : 
it is, in a way, introductory to my main work. In the 
first chapter on “ Why Men went into Parliament ”, I take 
the reader through the House of Commons as constituted 
about the time of George Ill’s accession, and I try to 
analyse it from the angle of purpose. Here is an ant-heap, 
wiith Ahc AlYiW'cTit writer Auvryiirg' hr Amg' Aiks’ aAmg' Ahfvr 
various paths ; their joint achievement does not concern 
us, nor the changes which supervene in their community, 
only the pathetically intent, seemingly self-conscious 
running of individuals along beaten tracks. In a future 
book I propose to deal in detail with the four Parliaments 
of 1761-1784, but here I mainly study types, and I deliber- 
ately refrain from discussing so-called parties and political 
groups, their meaning or lack of meaning ; the political 
life of the period could be fully described without ever 
using a party denomination. Next, in the essay on “ The 
Electoral Structure of England ”, I take the reader through 



viii PREFACE 

the constituencies, and he must not mind the time spent 
over details — we distinguish trees by considering their 
general shape and their characteristic details, for instance, 
the leaf or the bark ; whilst seemingly more prominent 
features, such as the circumference, the number of branches, 
etc., can be safely disregarded, as can so many things which 
lend themselves best to historical narrative. The short 
essay on “The General Election of 1761 ” serves to show 
the way in which the political transactions of the time are 
frequently distorted in accounts based on a few “ classical 
texts ”, The fourth and last essay in the first volume 
of the book, on “ Secret Service Money under the Duke 
of Newcastle ”, deals with that ill-famed, subterranean 
stream of corruption which, when uncovered and measured, 
proves to have been after all but a small rivulet, not a river, 
and not nearly as dirty as generally supposed ; it was the 
last resort of political beggars in distress, and of opposition 
leaders in search of a topic. 

The second volume supplies further illustrations to 
the chapters on “ The Electoral Structure ” and “ Secret 
Service Money ”. First I take Shropshire, one of the 
most independent counties at that time, with the appear- 
ances of party organisation — but even there they prove 
unreal. Next, I take the notorious Cornish borough^ 
vXiVfuu, hr Bstetifon to the Government, steed st the oppwte 
pole to Shropshire. Lastly, I analyse Harwich and Orford, 
two boroughs under the immediate management of the? 
Treasury. I add at the end a few biographical sketches 
of Members who drew secret service pensions — they show 
once more the charitable character of that very humane 
institution, and the utter unimportance of the acquisitions 
which the Government made through it. 

In an appendix I reproduce the secret service accounts 
of the Duke of Newcastle ; the footnotes will enable the 
reader to gauge the character of these payments. 

When thanking those who have enabled me to do my 



PREFACE 


IX 


work, I have to start with two men who have ' helped 
hundreds of students of history, the late Mr. A. L. Smith, 
Master of Balliol, and Walter John, fourth Earl of 
Chichester. It is difficult for me to speak here about Mr. 
A. L. Smith, who was much more than a teacher to us old 
Balliol men ; he was our friend and guardian to whom we 
turned for help and advice, and who often helped us without 
our asking or even knowing. Blit the particular reason 
why the first place in the work of his pupils is due to him, 
perhaps the best history teacher of our time, is that he 
devoted his life to tutorial work, with the result that he, 
who had the makings of a very great historian, left no 
written record — barring a few essays and lectures — by 
which he would be known and remembered. His work 
has been merged into that of his pupils. 

Lord Chichester, whom I have mentioned together with 
the late Master, in 1886 presented the British Museum with 
some 500 volumes of the Newcastle Papers, one of the most 
valuable collections of political manuscripts in existence. 
But as he has given them to “ whomever they may con- 
cern ”, the gift and the donor are passed over in silence, 
or rather appear anonymously in footnotes as Add. MSS. 
32679-33201. One needs to have been a pupil of Mr. A. L. 
Smith to know how much we owe him, and one needs to 
have spent a few years on the Newcastle Papers to know 
tfip value of Lord Chichester’s gift. 

I am very grateful to the Marquess of Bute, K.T., 
and the Earl of Sandwich, for having in the most liberal 
way given me access to their important collections of 
manuscripts. Comparatively few references to their manu- 
scripts appear in this book ; they will be used more 
extensively in my work on “ The Imperial Problem during 
the American Revolution 

As I mentioned before, I suffer from a very imperfect 
sense of time ; the work on these two volumes has taker 
me much longer than I had expected, and I could hard l j 



X. 


PREFACE 


have completed it without some financial assistance. Two 
years ago the Rhodes Trustees made me a grant for my 
researches, for which my grateful acknowledgment is due to 
them, and my friend Mr. J. W. Wheeler-Bennett offered 
me a loan, which I gladly accepted ; and last year a friend, 
who desires to remain anonymous, further endowed my 
work. 

However much I am indebted to those mentioned above, 
were I to choose one person to whom to dedicate this book 
I should have no doubt to whom that was due. Mrs. Edgar 
Dugdale has helped me at almost every step ; with her 
I discussed every chapter before it was written, and she 
patiently read through the successive drafts down to the 
proofs, and advised me in things big and small. There 
was many a moment when, without the encouragement 
and help which she gave me, I should have had to drop the 
work altogether. How much I owe her, only her friends 
can understand. 

I have to thank Mr. C. G. Stone for having systematic- 
ally gone through my proofs, line by line, and suggested 
innumerable corrections, enforced at critical moments by 
the threat that, if I did not make them, he would not allow 
me to mention his having read the proofs. Miss M. Beer 
and Mrs. Denis Buxton have done for me the laborious 
work of checking the quotations and references in this 
book, a signal act of friendship. Miss C. Le Marinel hpa 
been my secretary, and 1 owe much to her devoted, « 
untiring work. 

In transcribing manuscripts I have, on the whole, 
adhered to the original spelling, but I do not reproduce 
disturbing graphical signs such as “ y c ”, “ y l ”, “ & 
etc., or capitals, of which the eighteenth century was very 
lavish ; nor do I adhere to the original punctuation where 
it interferes with the sense of the letter or document. 

I refrain from adding a bibliography. There can be 



PREFACE 


xi 


none for the life of a community ; I hardly remember 
having come across any contemporary materials, or any 
book reproducing such materials, which did not contribute 
something to my information. 

I wish, however, to mention here works which I have 
used too often to quote in footnotes on separate occasions : 
G. E. C.’s Complete Peerage and Complete Baronetage and 
especially the new edition of the Peerage , one of the best 
works of the kind ever compiled ; the various editions 
of Burke’s Peerage and Landed Gentry ; Joseph Foster’s 
Alumni Oxonienses and Members of Parliament, Scotland ; 
J. and J. A. Venn’s Alumni Cantahrigienses ; W. R. 
Williams’s Parliamentary History of Wales and of Here- 
fordshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, and Worcester- 
shire, Pink’s and Beavan’s Parliamentary Representation 
of Lancashire , J. C. Wedgwood’s Parliamentary History 
of Staffordshire , H. T. Weyman’s essays on Shropshire 
Members in the Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological 
Society ; Haydn’s Book of Dignities, and Beatson’s Political 
Register; and last but not least, the Blue Book of 1878 
giving the lists of Members of Parliament. 


15 Gloucesteb W.alk, London, W.8, 
June 27, 1928, 


L. B. NAMIER. 




CONTENTS 


VOLUME I 

PAGE 

I. Why Men went into Parliament . 1 

Predestination : The Inevitable Parliament Men. 

Honour with Ease ; The Country Gentlemen. 

The Treasury Bench : The Politicians. 

Coronets : The Social Climbers. 

“ Private and Pecuniary ” : Placemen and Purveyors of 
Favours. 

Professional Advancement : The Services and The Law. 

The Soldiers. 

The Sailors. 

The Civil Servants. 

The Lawyers. 

Contracts, Remittances, and Loans : The Merchants and 
Bankers. 

Immunity ; Robbers, Muddlers, Bastards, and Bankrupts. 

II. The Electoral Structure of England . . .77 

The Distribution of Seats. 

The Counties. 

The Parliamentary Boroughs. 

Boroughs with over 1000 Voters. 

Illustrations : Bristol. 

Nottingham. 

Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 

Canterbury. 

Coventry. 

Boroughs with 500-1000 Voters. 

Illustrations : Maldon. 

Maidstone. 

St. Albans. 

Dover. 

yii 



iv CONTENTS 

Boroughs with about 500 Voters. 

The Narrow Constituencies. 

Patronage. 

The Government Interest. 

Private Patronage. 

Divisions Analysed. 

III. The General Election of 1761 .... 

IV. Secret Service Money under the Duke of Newcastle 

Accounts and Legends. 

Public Pensions and Special Service. 

Secret Service Accounts. 

The General Elections of 1754 and 1761, and the Nursing 
of Constituencies. 

Pensions in the House of Commons. 

The Aristocratic Dole. 

Payments for Services. 

The Friends of Friends, and Others. 

The Hanoverians. 

Summary and Conclusions. 


PAGE 


193 

213 



I 


WHY MEN WENT LNTO PARLIAMENT 




I 


WHY MEN WENT INTO PARLIAMENT 

“ You will be of the House of Commons as soon as you are 
of age ”, wrote Lord Chesterfield to his son, Philip Stanhope, 
on December 5, 1749 ; “ and you must first make a figure 
there if you would make a figure in your country ” Small 
boys play at kings and soldiers, or at riders, engine-drivers, 
chauffeurs, and flying men— the material expression of that 
fancy varies with methods of locomotion. But for several 
centuries the dream of English youth and manhood of the 
nation-forming class has remained unchanged ; it has been 
fixed and focussed on the House of Commons, a modified, 
socialised arena for battle, drive, and dominion. “ To be 
out of Parliament is to be out of the world ”, wrote Admiral 
Sir George Rodney to Lord George Germain from the West 
Indies in 1780, “ and my heart is set upon my being in ” 1 
Democracy, by enlarging the circle of the citoyens actifs. has 
carried this ambition into ever wider circles, and now many 
a small branch secretary of a trade union or local mayor 
thinks of his own future in Lord Chesterfield’s . terms : 
“ You must make a figure there if you would make a figure 
in your country 

So many candidates and only some six hundred seats 
for them to fill— and yet not many men with an enduring 

1 Hisl. MSS. Comm., Ninth Report, part iii. ; Stopford Sackville 
MSS. pp. 102-3. Letter dated Sandwich, St. Christopher’s, August 2, 
1780. Rodney had sat previously in the Hou^c of Commons, 1751-54 
and 1759-74. 


3 



4 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

will to get there fail to enter the House, in which a miracle 
of seats seems to be performed for every generation. 
In the eighteenth century it did not perhaps require 
much of a miracle. About 1 760 in Great Britain certainly 
not more than 70,000 men a year attained majority, and, 
on a very conservative estimate, the yearly average of 
new men entering the House of Commons can be put at 
about fifty ; moreover, of those who attained majority a 
certain number died before realising a reasonable expecta- 
tion of a seat, and still more before losing a less well-founded 
hope. As the educated classes were even percentually less 
numerous than they are now, and men in holy orders — 
deemed ineligible to the House — formed a far higher 
proportion among them, it is hardly astonishing to find 
(e.g. on examining the Newcastle Papers, the biggest 
mass of election correspondence in existence) how very 
few among those who desired to enter the House of 
Commons failed to get a chance. But that it was open 
to all who could reasonably aspire to it had a wonderfully 
unifying and stimulating influence on the nation. 

Men went there “ to make a figure ”, and no more 
dreamt of a seat in the House in order to benefit humanity 
than a child dreams of a birthday cake that others may eat 
it ; which is perfectly normal and in no way reprehensible. 
The “ figure ” of their day-dreams differed with their rank 
and profession, with age, temperament, and circumstances ; 
but sc much was common to practically all — the seat in 
the House was not their ultimate goal, but a means to 
ulterior aims. 

Predestination : The Inevitable Parliament Men 

v 

Those aims were least distinct and pronounced with a 
type which might be described as the “ inevitable ” or 
“ predestined 'Parliament men ” — for whom membership 
of the House was a duty, whatever were their individual 



5- 


AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 

predilections or ambitions. The eldest sons of politically 
active peers had to enter the House of Commons as soon as 
they were of age ; they owed it to their families and to their 
own future position, “ M.P.” after their names being a kind 
of Parliamentary courtesy title, preparatory to the peerage. 
At the general election of 1761 twenty-three eldest sons of 
English peers were returned to Parliament ; 1 the age of 
twenty-one among them, when first elected to the House, 
was twenty-six or below — they had not missed a single 
general election after having come of age ; the remaining 
two were twenty-nine and thirty . 2 

In leading political families — old aristocratic houses or 
families which can best be described as the “ aftermath ” 
of great men — the “ predestination ” of Parliament ex- 
tended even to younger sons. The House of Commons of 
1761 contained — these are examples, not an enumeration — 
five Townshends (one of them brilliant) and three Corn- 
wallises, five members of the Manners family (one of them 
illegitimate) and four Cavendishes (one a Cavendish only 
by marriage and assumed name) ; and three Walpoles and 
four Yorkes. The Walpoles in Parliament were a mere 
“ aftermath ” by 1761 ; with the Yorkes, the schemings of 
the great man were still at work, which places their group, 
as an “aftermath”, on the border-line. In 1761, besides 
four sons, Hardwicke had a son-in-faw, Sir Gilbert Heath - 

1 Tte eldest sons of Scottish and Irish peers are omitted from this 
calculation, even if their fathers sat at Westminster by some English 
title. For in Scotland the eldest sons of Scottish peers were debarred 
from standing for Parliament ; whilst among the Irish peers, one must 
distinguish between the Irish territorial magnates who frequently had 
some English title, but whose sons would more naturally enter the 
Dublin Parliament, at least to begin with, and the pseudo-Irish peers 
Englishmen who were given Irish titles because they were not con- 
sidered of sufficient rank for an English peerage. These usually them- 
selves sat in the Commons. 

2 To make it perfectly clear : this was their age at first entering 
the House, not in 1761 if they had sat in it befbre. 



6 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

cote, and two nephews of his wife, Charles Cocks and 
Sir Wyndham Ivnatchbull, in the House. “ It is ... a 
good thing for you and your fraternity ”, he wrote to his 
eldest son on Knatchbull’s return at a by-election in 1760 ; 
“ for an extensive alliance in the House of Commons is a 
thing of figure and weight in the countrey ”. 1 

Country gentlemen in possession or control of some 
borough or single seat, which they never put up for sale but 
occupied in their own persons, formed another species 
of “ inevitable Parliament men It is impossible pre- 
cisely to state their number, as the type itself cannot be 
precisely defined ; one can merely say who were not of it, 
and give examples of those who were. Clearly the younger 
sons of peers must not be included, nor members of Cornish 
families which professionally dealt in boroughs and filled 
one or two seats themselves, nor men with no real tradition 
behind them, nor, lastly, knights of the shires whose tenure 
of seats was of a very different character ; but families such 
as the Listers of Clitheroe and the Leghs of Newton 2 
(Lancs), the Whitmores of Bridgnorth and the Foresters of 
Wenlock, the Burrards of Lymington and the Barringtons 
of Newton (Hants), the Drakes of Agmondesham, the 
A’Courts of Heytesbury, the Rashleighs of Fowey, etc. etc. 
Most of these, though by no means all, sat for burgage- 
boroughs, and found themselves in the House because a seat 
in it happened to form part of their inheritance ; very 
roughly their number can be put in 1761 at about twenty- 
five to thirty. 

Still, even men who entered the House without design, 
once they were in it and on the side of Administration, had 
to profit by it in one way or another, almost as if they had 
gone there for the purpose (after a month in the army there 
is no difference between conscripts and volunteers). As 

1 Add. MSS. 35352, f. 139. 

2 These are, of course, the “ Legh9 of Lyme ”, but here in each case 
I name th e constituency and not the estate of the family. 



7 


AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 

the exhilarating Parliamentary game between party -teams 
was not played in 1761, and men do not go into politics 
for their health, clearly some other ratioiial aim had to be 
provided ; and if a man after a certain term in Parliament 
had nothing to show for it, one was forced to conclude that 
he was an insignificant and neglected person, “ not an 
object worthy of consideration The only people who 
were under no such obligation to profit were the “ Tories ” 
or “ country gentlemen ” in the reign of George II, and 
the Opposition and “ country gentlemen ” in the reign of 
George III. 

Honour with Ease : The Country Gentlemen 

Two distinct types are included above under “ pre- 
destined Parliament men ” : members of political families, 
who were bom to hunt with certain Parliamentary 
“ packs ”, and the country gentlemen, with seats for heir- 
looms, who had not as a rule their course mapped out to 
the same extent. These, as they sat “in their own right”, 
could go whichever way they chose, and some of them 
adhered in a more or less disinterested manner to “ the 
main Corps of the Whigs ”, others carefully cultivated their 
own interests, whilst most ranked under George II as 
“ Thrift? ”, ssd by .as^isJ standing .but .s.lyo by 
their bearing in Parliament, linked up with the group 
known par excellence as “ the country gentlemen ”. 

What was the exact meaning of that designation ? 
After all, the vast majority of the House of Commons was 
composed of men of that class. The emphasis was on the 
word country— they were the “ Country Party ” as con- 
trasted with that of the Court. To these men alone the 
House was not as a rule “ a means to ulterior aims ”, 
though it was not their “ ultimate goal ” either. They 
would not have accepted a seat in it at random, merely to 
be seated. What mattered to them was not so much 



8 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

membership of the House, as the primacy in their own 
“ country ” attested by their being chosen to represent 
their county or some respectable borough. The Commons 
were the communitas communitatum, originally a quasi- 
federation of shires and boroughs ; the knights of the shire 
in the eighteenth century were the consuls of the county 
republics. This primacy in most cases rested on a tradition, 
and therefore the seats were in that sense hereditary. 
Still, any substantial country gentleman who had gained 
the respect of his neighbours had a reasonable chance, 
while over-emphasis of a hereditary claim was liable to 
injure a candidate, for he would lay himself open to the 
accusation of disrespect to his neighbours in treating the 
coimty as if it was a pocket borough. Similarly in Parlia- 
ment county members had to avoid all appearance that 
anything counted for more with them than the approval 
of their constituents. 

This type has therefore to be distinguished even from the 
most independent representatives of hereditary boroughs. 
It was in men of this type that Pitt found his “constituency ” 
in the House, and to them he used to pay the greatest 
attention. “ Mr. Pitt ”, complained Newcastle to Hard- 
wicke on March 15, 1760, “ by his situation and consequence 
is at the head of the House of Commons, of which the Tories 
suavct? iTft&b? if si: itdflr pent ,■ ami 1 cra'/uyhidfaud iVnsmmr ik 

to be agreed and concerted with them, without any notice 
taken of our friends, ■who compose the majority of the 
House of Commons. ...” 1 A list of the country gentle- 
men in the eighteenth-century Parliament reads like a 
register of “ county families To give just a few examples 
taken at random — to that type belonged the Courtenays, 
Bamfyldes, and Rolles of Devonshire ; the Cholmondeleys 
and Egertons of Cheshire ; the Ishams, Knightleys, and 
Cartwrights of Northamptonshire ; a Lambton or Tempest 
from Durham or a Sir Walter Blackett from Newcastle- 
1 Add. MSS. 32903, f. 297. 



9 


AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 

upon-Tyne ; also Sir George Savile, of Yorkshire, though 
in mind and outlook he was far superior to the average of 
his class and type. 

For the distinguishing characteristics of the “ country 
gentlemen ” were as a rule neither political acumen and 
experience, nor Parliamentary eloquence, but an inde- 
pendent character and station in life, and indifference to 
office. Most of them were accounted “ Tories ” under 
George II, only to find themselves once more in opposition 
under George III, as his reign gradually convinced them 
that by whatever names courts and administrations go, 
their essence remains the same. In fact, the country 
gentlemen were practically in a standing opposition, and 
Henry Penruddocke Wyndham, himself one of them, in 
his introduction to Bubb Dodington’s “Diary”, in 1784, 
addressed to them a few words of warning and spoke of that 
“ restless aversion to all government, so prevalent amongst 
them, and against which, the best Minister is no more 
secure than the worst ”. Had their type numerically 
predominated in the House before discipline was estab- 
lished through party organisations and party electorates, 
although no Englishman would ever have gone the way 
of the Polish gentry and their anarchical Diets, yet the 
activities even of the English country gentlemen would not 
have proved conducive to the formation of a strong and 
stable Government. Fortunately their number, though 
.sufficient to supply an independent leaven to the House 
and a respectable lead in important divisions, and thereby 
to retrieve to some extent its character, was not such 
as could have disturbed its every-day work. About 
1760 their number was something like sixty to eighty, 
most of them representing comities or considerable 
boroughs. 

Moreover, their attendance on political business was 
naturally much less regular than that of office-holders and 
of interested, professional politicians. 0n September 8, 1741, 



1-0 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

Lord Chesterfield, writing to Bubb Dodington, pointed out 
how necessary and how impossible it was to get the Opposi- 
tion to meet before Parliament assembled : “I have been 
these seven years endeavouring to bring it about, and have 
not been able ; fox-hunting, gardening, planting, or in- 
difference having always kept our people in the country, till 
the very day before the meeting of the Parliament ”. Five 
years later Sir Edward Turner, M.P., wrote about country 
gentlemen (in a bantering letter to a friend) : “ Persons 
of that denomination seem to have forgot public affairs. 
Few of their representatives have appeared at the House 
this session.” 1 Nor did Newcastle find it any easier to 
secure their regular attendance when in opposition. 2 
Critical but “ of little efficiency in public business ”, these 
men were no real politicians. As, however, they seldom 
suffered from ebullitions of wit or spasms of originality, 
once party organisations had arisen, they were easily 
absorbed by them, forming a body both respectable and 
reliable, in Houses anyhow superior in moral tone to 
those of a naively corrupt and very amusing age. 

The Treasury Bench : The Politicians 

Dreams of office and power as motives of action — the 
Treasury Bench and the “ Marshal’s stick ” — what is 
there to be said about them 1 These dreams are almost 
universal and usually unavowed ; who has not dreamt 
them 1 And what a long time it takes before such 
dreams leave men's fancy ! This is matter for biography 
such as is never written, but hardly for a history of the 
House of Commons ; for these dreams do not change into 
demands until near realisation, which is, of course, of rare 
occurrence. 

1 December 6, 1746. See An Eighteenth-Century Correspondence 
(1910), edited by L. Dickins and M. Stanton, p. 124. 

2 See, e.g., pp. 364-5.* 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 11 

What should, however, be noted is that even in eight- 
eenth-century England, dreams of attaining the highest 
positions in the State could be entertained by any member 
of what may best be described as “ the political nation 
A wide class of active citizens was raised above the masses ; 
and though this high plateau had not the even outline, 
say, of the Athenian political community, anyhow it was 
not overtowered by inaccessible peaks. Undoubtedly a 
courtesy lord had a marked advantage (as he has even now) 
in obtaining a seat and office, but the difference in the start 
has never been such that others could not have overcome 
it by superior ability and merit. In fact, personality, 
eloquence, debating power, prestige, counted for more 
in the eighteenth-century House of Commons (which at 
all times contained a certain number of Members whose 
votes could be turned by the debate) than it does 
now, unless the “ whips ” are taken oS, an exceedingly 
rare event. General elections, however big the apparent 
majorities they yielded, did not settle the event of the 
sessions — witness Newcastle’s worries in September 1754 
when he had no first-class leader to put at the head of his 
enormous majority ; and Lady Yarmouth, voicing the 
opinion of the Court, told him then that “ they all ” 
applauded his conduct “ in the choice of Parliament, but 
that somebody must take the lead in the House of 
Commons ”. 1 A year later, having received little or no 
* support from Pitt, Fox, or Legge, Newcastle wrote to 
Holdemesse, who was with the King at Hanover : 

His Majesty has certainly as great a majority in the present 
House of Commons as ever was known. But the misfortune is 
that persons in the first stations there, in His Majesty’s service, 
have not supported the King’s measures in the manner they ought 
to have done ; and, if they were to be remov’d, none could be found, 
whose talents and Parliamentary abilities would enable them to 

1 Newcastle to William Murray, September 28, 1754 ; Add. MSS. 
32736, fi. 591-4. 



12 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

carry orr the King’s business with case and success against such an 
opposition. 1 

“ Talents and Parliamentary abilities ” were required to 
conduct the business in the House itself — generalship in 
the field, not gifts of calculation far behind the front. 
Newcastle’s surrender to Pitt shows what chances the 
eighteenth-century Parliament offered to personality. 

Some ten years later, when the Rockingham Govern- 
ment was tottering to its fall, a meeting was held of the 
“ King’s friends ”, “ of gentlemen who could discourse in 
confidence with each other on the present state of affairs 
In reviewing the state of parties, they thus described their 
own group and position : 

Those who have always hitherto acted upon the sole principle 
of attachment to the Crown. This is probably the most numerous 
body and would on trial be found sufficient to carry on the publick 
business themselves if there was any person to accept of a ministerial 
office at the head of them, and this is all they want. This defect, 
however, makes it necessary that they should be joined if it be 
possible to some one of the other parties. 2 

Thus the position of 1756 was reproduced in 1766 — the 
influence of the Crown could secure and command numbers, 
but not leaders ; and the real leader coimted for at least as 
much in the scales as the “ voting herd ”. George III had 
to surrender to Pitt, as his grandfather and Newcastle had 
done before him. 

Yet Newcastle and Pitt (and Burke) are quoted by 
historians to prove the close oligarchic character of the 
eighteen tli -century Parliament ; and so widely accepted is 
this legend that it cannot be here ignored, though I must 
defer to another occasion any full treatment of the 
subject. 

Newcastle’s rise to a post to which he was not equal, is 


1 July 11, 1755 ; Add. MSS. 32857, ff. 37-9. 

2 AdA. MSS. 38339, fl. 307-10. 



13 


AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 

ascribed to bis vast borough influence, and the fact is over- 
looked that only a very small part of it was truly his own, 
whilst most was derived from his official position under the 
Crown. Indeed, at the close of his life, after he had sacri- 
ficed a large part of his fortune to electioneering, and more- 
over for more than forty years had used the resources of 
the Crown to strengthen and extend his own Parliamentary 
interest, the total number of seats to which he could 
nominate was about twelve, and even in some of these his 
influence was mainly personal (the Yorkshire boroughs of 
Aldborough and Boroughbridge alone, Newcastle could 
describe as “ my own two boroughs ” ; 1 to these four seats 
can be added another four in Nottinghamshire, where in 
each constituency— the county, Nottingham, Newark and 
Retford — he could by compromise and arrangement with 
other people nominate one Member ; and similarly about 
four in Sussex, in the county and the boroughs of Lewes, 
Seaford, and Rye .) 2 Newcastle was a skilful, untiring 
election manager, prepared to devote his time and to 
sacrifice his ease to work of a most unpleasant character, 
and ready to contribute to its expense from his own 
purse. If his rank and wealth distinguished him among 

1 See. e.j7 v his paper nn elections. December 19. 1767.; Add. MSS. 
32987, 2. 341-2. 

2 This must be treated as merely approximate, but if anything 
it rather over-states than under-estimates Newcastle’s command of 
seats in 1768. Having quarrelled with his nephews, Lord Lincoln 
and John Shelley, Newcastle in 1768 had to agree to give up Newark, 
where, in 1760, he had transferred his estate to Lincoln, whilst at 
Lewes he lost the candidate who could more particularly be described 
as his own. Had the local manager at Rye, Thomas Lamb, gone 
the way of Edward Milward at Hastings, Newcastle would have lost 
Rye also ; and had the Duke of Grafton exerted himself, as Fox or 
Grenville would have done in his place, Newcastle might possibly have 
lost even Seaford. On the other hand, he had a certain “ contribu- 
tory ” influence in other Sussex boroughs and some boroughs in the 
counties adjoining Notts and Sussex, though it nowhere amounted to 
a “ command 



14 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

borough-mongers, his disinterested, single-minded devotion 
to tedious and even dirty business no less distinguished 
him. among ministers and dukes. It was this (not ducal 
grandeur as such) which condemned him to his position. 

About Pitt it is often alleged that he was handicapped 
by lack of borough influence ; but, in truth, he did not care 
to cultivate it ; and without assiduous application no one 
could rise to importance in that species of politics. Had 
Pitt known how to work with other men, the materials for 
an extensive borough interest were not lacking even in his 
own family. His elder brother, Thomas, commanded three 
or four seats : two at Old Sarum, one at Okehampton, and, 
together with Hawkins, one at Grampound ; his cousins, the 
Pitts of Strathfieldsaye, usually held two seats in Dorset ; 
his relatives by marriage, the Grenvilles and Lyttletons, had 
several in Buckinghamshire and W orcestersliire. And when 
Pitt became the idol of the nation, even strangers offered to 
accept his nomination to their boroughs. It was Pitt’s 
intractability and the way he had of offending men, 
including George II, not his being short of Old Sarum, 
which hampered his career. In fact, borough influence 
alone counted for less in attaining ministerial office than 
is usually supposed. Edward Eliot, of Port Eliot, who 
commanded first four and subsequently six seats in 
CfomwaH, ws ts eleven years' in Parlisinea t before, by dint 
of continuous and insistent solicitation, he managed to 
obtain from Newcastle a seat at the lowest Board, that 
of Trade. 

Burke is often quoted to prove that high office, in his 
time, was reserved to the well-born. But his party was 
nearly always in opposition ; and in 1782, he, who had 
never held office before, clearly could not have been made 
First Lord of the Treasury or even Secretary of State, 
whilst the office he was given, of Paymaster of the Forces, 
was far from being a small one in the eighteenth century ; 
Henry Fox had held it at the close of a long and not un- 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 15 


successful career. But if Burke was in a way looked down 
upon by his own associates, this was due not so much to the 
contempt which the “ nobly born 55 felt for his origin, 
as to the admiration which he had for theirs ; for clearly 
no one can treat as an equal a man so full of respect and 
veneration. 

That in the eighteenth century a rise from a compara- 
tively humble position was not impossible for a man even 
of merely good average abilities, who was prudent in the 
choice of party and assiduous in application, is seen by 
many examples ; perhaps best of all in the case of Charles 
Jenkinson, who commenced his career in no higher position 
than Burke, and in 1761 thought himself very happy when 
made a “commis” (Under-Secretary) by Bute; but he 
gradually rose to Ministerial rank, and died as first Earl 
of Liverpool. During a debate in the House of Commons 
on February 7, 1770, “ Tommy ” Townshend, a Rockingham 
Whig, remarked to him that his “ pompous manner ” did 
not become “ a gentleman risen from the situation he has 
done ”. Jenkinson replied : “ My rise is from as old a 
family as his own. I have risen by industry, by attention 
to duty, and by every honourable means I could devise.” 
Whereupon Sir Walter Blackett, an old Tory, interposed : 
“ Every man carries his honour in his own hand. 
Afgnr 6s nothing ; ft shaft never have any wefgiit 
with me.” 1 

This was neither a doctrine nor an empty phrase ; 
it expressed a natural and unavoidable concomitant of 
English gregarious existence. A House, just as a team, has 
a joint personality, superior to that of the individuals who 
compose it ; and whilst its purpose dominates them, there 
can be little regarding of men ; neither in the scrum nor in 
argument can his Lordship’s pedigree add to his weight. 
The principle established in France by the Great Revolution 
and theoretically proclaimed in Germany in 1918 — “ a fair 
1 Sir H. Cavendish, Debates of the House of Commons, vol. i. p. 448. 



16 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


field to ability ” — was realised, without reasoning, in the 
eighteenth-century British Parliament ; and there was no 
place where men of minor rank and means could exert their 
personal strength and abilities more freely and to better 
advantage than in the House of Commons. “ The most 
august of assemblies ” was also the fairest of tribunals — 
which was a cogent reason for men with a good conceit of 
themselves to wish to bring their case before it ; hence the 
number of those who dreamt of a seat in the House of 
Commons. 


Coronets : The Social Climbers 

Social advancement, more easily realised than political 
ambitions, was, and remains to those who need and desire it, 
an obvious incentive for entering Parliament. Membership 
of the governing body necessarily distinguishes the man, 
certainly in his own circle, and opens doors which would 
otherwise remain shut against him — it “ occasions for him 
a more enlarged sphere to move in With what pride 
did old “ Rio ” Gulston, a mid-eighteenth-centuiy Brazil 
merchant, refer to his nephew, Joseph Gulston, M.P., as 
“ the Member ” 1 And even the prim, old-spinsterly 
governess assured Joseph Gulston s daughter that her 
father “ was very rich, a Member of Parliament, and though 
he was a merchant, a man of great consequence ’h 1 But 
only twenty years ago, a small man who had lost his seat 
in Parliament, complained bitterly to one of his junior 
leaders that now no one asked him out to dinner. Indeed, 
the House of Commons has at all times been one of the great 
uplifting influences in English social life. 2 

1 See John Nichols, Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eight- 
eenth Century , vol. v. pp. 1-60, “ The Gulston Family ”. 

2 Still, a rarefied atmosphere testa a man’s endurance, and a stout 
heart is required for the period of acclimatisation. Here is the story 
of a failure described by Elizabeth, daughter of Benjamin Heath, town 



17. 


AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 

In the eighteenth century the House of Commons was, 
as it is now, a convenient stepping-stone to the House of 
Lords — though each successive generation thinks that 
there must have been once a golden age of the Upper 
House, when there were no beginners and all its members 
were truly patrician (like the lady who, having seen a new 
play, remarked that it was not bad, but not good enough 
for a first night). Then, as now, peerages were given to 
tired statesmen and ex- Premiers, to Lord Chancellors and 
Chief Justices, to generals and admirals ; owners of Parlia- 
mentary boroughs (Lords Falmouth, Edgcumbe, Eliot, etc.) 
filled the place now taken by owners of the popular press ; 
and scores of Members faithfully served the Government 
in Parliament and in the constituencies in hope of a 
peerage, and solicited it with an importunity which cannot 
be surpassed even now — Irish peerages and baronetcies 
serving as consolation prizes in these climbing com- 
petitions. 

In 1755 Lord Chetwynd, M.P. (an Irish peer), when 
asking the King for a British peerage, wrote, after having 
mentioned his services in 1745 : 

The same zeal, Sir. hath been exerted ever since at a constant and 
considerable expence in supporting the Government interest through- 
out the county [of Stafford] in opposition to a disafected party and 
in procureing the return of two of my familly to sit in the present 
Parliament, and this, without solliciting Your Majesty’s Ministers 


clerk of Exeter, in a letter to her brother John, on March 22, 1768 : 

Mr. Spicer, who was chose . . . for the remainder of the last session 
[at Exeter, on December 19, 1767], declined standing for the General 
Election after having taken his seat in the House where, I suppose, he 
soon found that his consequence was not so great there as he expected, 
that his money which was his only qualification had not weight enough 
to command respect from the other members, but that they rather 
looked down upon him, so that he was not desirous of purchasing a 
station for a longer time which he did not find himself fitted for . . 
(Sir W. 11. Drake, Heathiana (1882), p. 15). 

VOL. I 



18 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

for any employment or other consideration ; it having been my sole 
ambition to serve Your Majesty in a manner to deserve the honour 
I now aspire to. . . J 

Similarly, Sir John Rushoufc, M.P. S wrote to the Duke of 
Newcastle on January 24, 1756 : 

I have never troubled your Grace tor any great, much less, for 
any lucrative employment ... for my fortune is sufficient for me, 
in any station of life, but my whole ambition centers in the hopes of 
a peerage for my family. 2 

And Thomas Holmes, M.P., though he had a yearly allow- 

Arr m&netgttg the tknse uonwgis in the Isle of Wight, 
thus argued (successfully) his case for at least an Irish 
peerage : 

. . . Were I to communicate to yo U r Grace the estates I have 
in England, Ireland, and Wales, besides money in the stocks and 
other securitys, you would see my fortune is equal to those honors; 
the anual thing I asked as I have no employment was only to repay 
me the money I am out of pocket in the several services we support, 

[ never meant it should tie me down from receiving some honorable 
mark of distinction for having brought .-j, factious part of the country 
over to His Majesty’s interest ; every one knows I have a greater 
weight in the Island of Wight then any Governor or any other person 
ever had ; my gratitude for the favour^ my brothers 3 have received 
from you and your family will oblige me to secure the borroughs for 
your interest, but shall not chuse to Concern my self in any other 
affairs unless what I have requested is granted, for I think the person 
that is first in interest and fortune o U ght not to be the lowest in* 
rank and quality. 4 

In fact, peerages were an essential commodity for 
satisfying claims from the House of Commons ; so much so 
that when in 1760, on the eve of the general election, 

1 Add. MSS. 32854, f. 152. 

2 Add. MSS. 32862, IT. 218-19. 

3 General Henry Holmes, M.P. for Yarmouth (Isle of Wight), and 
Admiral Charles Holmes, M.P. for Newport (I. o. W.). 

4 Add. MSS. 32906, a f. 241. 



19 


AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 

George II showed himself obdurately German in his ‘' blue 
blood ” prejudices, Newcastle told him that “ if His 
Majesty expected that I should be employed in choosing a 
new Parliament, I could not do it if I had not the power to 
oblige the first gentlemen in the countries ’V It was easier 
to create peers than to raise money for places and pensions. 
When in 1755 Newcastle did not know what to do with 
Legge, he considered making him a peer, and wrote to 
Holdernesse : “ . . . something must be done for him ; and 
how can we get off so cheap any other way ? ” 1 2 3 

By 1784 the House of Commons was universally 
regarded as a high road to the House of Lords. The 
announcement published at the end of the Fox's Martyrs 
of 17 84, 3 and here reproduced on the next page, well 
expresses that view. And when in 1790 Sir Gerard 
Vanneck, a leading London merchant and M.P. for 
Dunwich, 1768-90, offered himself as candidate for the 
county of Suffolk, an election squib thus (correctly) 
gauged his ambitions and future : 

For twenty long years I have been independent, 

In the Senate a silent and constant attendant, 

If to me for such service your votes you accord, 

I shall first be your Member, and then be a Lord. 4 

1 The Duke of Newcastle to Lord Hardwicke, March 4, 1760 ; Add. 
MSS. 32903, f. 81. Merchant M.P.’s had as yet to be content with 
baronetcies, e.g. James Colebrooke, Ellis Cunliffe, Samuel Fludyer, 
*nd John Major; and some twenty years later with Irish peerages, e.g. 
William Mayne, Lord Newhaven, Gerard Vanneck, Lord Huntingfield, 
John Henniker, Lord Hcnniker, etc. Smith-Carrington was the first man 
actually engaged in trade whom George III, with much repugnance, 
was persuaded to make an English peer. Although George III gloried 

m the name of Britain ”, he still clung to certain German court 
prejudices. 

2 Add. MSS. 32857, f. 362. 

3 A satirical book commemorating the followers of Charles James 
Fox who lost their seats in the general election of 1784. 

4 See K. F. Doughty, The Betts of Wortkam in Suffolk, 1480-1905 
(1912), p. 249. 



In the Pre/s and fpeedily ax.ill be pubhjhed. 


HUMBLY INSCRIBED TO 

THOMAS WILLIAM, {'ometime Earl of Dover , 1 

And now Candidate for the firfl. Vacancy at the Borough 
of King’s Lynn, 

A 

COMPANION 

TO T H F 

EXTINCT PEERACE OF ENGLAND. 

CONTAINING 

THE MELANCHOLY HISTORY OF THE MANY 

DUKES, MAR&UISSES, EARLS, VISCOUNTS, AND BARONS, 
Who were cruelly flifled in their Birth 
During the late Bloody Persecutions. 

Quos dulcis vitse exfortes, et ab ubere raptos 
Abftulit atra dies, et funere merfit acerbo ' 

VjRG. 

Snatched from the Sweets of Life’s forthcoming Day, 
Behold them call to gloomy Death a Prey I l ' 


1 Undoubtedly meant for Thomas William Coke, of Holkham, who lost 
his eea+.for Norfolk ; he duly finished as a peer. 



THE STRUCTURE OE POLITICS 


21 


“ Private and Pecuniary ” : Placemen and 
Purveyors of Favours 1 

Governor Pitt wrote to his son Robert, the father of 
Chatham, from Fort St. George on January 16, 1705/6 ; 

If you are in Parliament, show yourself on all occasions a good 
Englishman, and a faithful servant to your country. If you aspire 
to fame in the House, you must make yourself master of its pre- 
cedents and orders. Avoid faction, and never enter the House 
pre-possessed ; but attend diligently to the debate, and vote accord- 
ing to your conscience and not for any sinister end whatever. I 
had rather see any child of mine want than have him get his bread 
by voting in the House of Commons. 2 

This was written after a century of Parliamentary 
contests over causes which had moved the conscience of 
men and for which they had “ died on the scaffold and the 
field of battle Fifty years later the nation was at one 
in all fundamental matters, and whenever that happy but 
uninspiring condition is reached, Parliamentary contests 
lose reality and unavoidably change into a fierce though 
bloodless struggle for places (only mitigated occasionally 
by “ collusion between the front benches ”). In a House 
dominated by party organisations, such struggles assume 
Vue 'kbcuivas terms ol whoiesate transactions, gWrifred n oy 
the mutual loyalties and the common joys or sorrows 
% of the contending teams. In the eighteenth century the 
transactions were carried through individually or by small 
groups, and were therefore as sordid as solitary drinking. 
Three sets of circumstances tended to aggravate their 
extent and character. In the first place, the idea that the 
politically active part of the nation had a claim to 

1 Andrew Mitchell, M.P., Minister to the Court of Prussia, in 1756 
marked a letter to Newcastle : “ Private and Pecuniary ” (Add. MSS. 
32865, f. 227). The best part of the correspondence addressed to the 
Duke by Members of Parliament deserves this Jieading. 

2 See Hist. MSS. Comm., Fortescue MSS., vol. i. p. 18. 



22 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

maintenance on the State was generally accepted, even if 
it remained sub-conscions ; 1 secondly, appointments in the 
Civil Service and even in the fighting services were made 
at pleasure and not under competitive regulations, and 
were therefore exposed to Parliamentary influence and 
patronage — nepotism and favouritism prevailed, 2 sncli 
as now distinguish this country only in the world of 
business ; thirdly, the majority of seats in the House 
had a quasi-proprietary character — they were a valuable 
inheritance or a costly acquisition, from which proper 
returns were expected. At all times a system of spoils 
and benefits necessarily obtains in governing representa- 
tive bodies where sharp contrasts of ideas and interests 
or strong party organisations do not pre -determine the 
vote of the individual Member, and do not reduce him to 
a mere pawn in the Parliamentary game. If personal 
disinterestedness is expected from independent Members, 
they have at least to secure benefits and advantages for 
their constituents ; and where the constituents are too 
numerous to be benefited individually, it becomes a ques- 
tion of a commercial treaty, a tariff or bounty favouring 
some local industry, of public works in the district, etc. 
But a system of Parliamentary spoils, when established, 
tends to grow worse, especially if it affects every stratum 
of the political pyramid, from the First Minister down 
to the most insignificant voters. To destroy it, a true 
political interest is required of sufficient moment to pro-° 

1 Cf. pp. 277-8. 

2 A letter from Lord Sandwich to Lieut. Forth well illustrates the 
eighteenth-century view of nepotism in official appointments : “ ... as to 
Sir William Burnaby's making his son a Captain ", he wrote on August 
14, 1764, “ it was very natural for him to do it; if he is under age, it 
rests with the Admiralty board to confirm him or not, as they think 
proper; but I am satisfied in my opinion that no one has a right 
to complain that he has given his son the preference over every 
recommendation ” (Sandwich MSS. at Hinchinghrooke, Private Letters, 
vol. i. p. 165). 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 23 

duce mass movements, to divert the energies and 'atten- 
tion of men to a real political purpose, and seriously to 
divide a nation shaken by passions or distress. For Parlia- 
ment is not like the ghost in Dickens's Christmas Carol 
which appears with a crown of flames round his head and 
a big extinguisher under his arm ; the flames of political 
passion no longer illuminate the scene when they can be 
extinguished at pleasure. 

With Governor Pitt's exhortation to his son may be 
contrasted the speech which, half a century later, Edward 
Gibbon, the historian, put into the mouth of his father, to 
whom he wrote some time in 1760 : 

When I first returned to England . . . you were so good as to 
give me hopes of a seat in Parliament. This seat, according to the 
custom of our venal country, was to he bought, and fifteen hundred 
pounds were mentioned as the price of the purchase. This design 
flattered my vanity, as it might enable me to shine in so august an 
assembly. It flattered a nobler passion ; I promised myself that 
by the means of this seat I might be one day the instrument of 
some good to my country. . . . 

Still, he soon perceived that he was not suited to a Parlia- 
mentary career, and it was not false modesty, “ the meanest 
species of pride ”, which made him think so. 

Bat I ke&ryov say It is not necessary that every man shoufti enter 
into Parliament with such exalted hopes. It is to acquire a title the 
most glorious of any in a free country, and to employ the weight 
► and consideration it gives in the service of one’s friends. Such 
motifs, tho’ not glorious, yet are not dishonourable ; and if we had 
a borough in our command, if you could bring me in without any 
great expence, or if our fortune enabled us to dispise that expence, 
then indeed I should think them of the greatest strength. . . - 1 

1 Private Letters of Edward (ribbon (17HS-9L), edited by It. E. 
Prothero (1896), vol. i. pp. 23-4. When, fourteen years later, Gibbon 
entered Parliament, he found it “a very agreeable coffee-house ” 
(ibid. p. 248), “an agreeable improvement in my life, . . . just the 
mixture of business, of study, and of society, which I always imagined 
I should, and now find I do like ” {ibid. p. 2&3). 



24 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

As, however, their fortune was not great, he asked that 
his allowance should much rather he increased, to enable 
him to undertake a journey to Italy. 

In 1706 it was “ faithful service to your country ” ; 
in 1760 “ service of one’s friends *\ The community had 
become atomised and individualised, and when another 
half-century had passed and the idea was proclaimed that 
the greatest common good is to be reached by every man 
pursuing his own individual advantage, this was not so 
much a eulogy of egotism as an apology for an existing 
practice. In the eighteenth century that practice had 
required no justification ; now an excuse was provided 
which in time was bound to change into an acid test. 
However important the part which economic considerations 
and theories played in the rise of that doctrine, the 
moral implications must not be overlooked ; they go far to 
explain why this apparent glorification of self-interest came 
to such a marked extent from the most public-spirited, 
thoughtful, and moral set of men, the Evangelicals and 
Dissenters. 

In eighteenth-century France the Chevalier des Grieux, 
whenever he found himself without private means or 
provision from State or Church, could think of nothing 
better than card-sharping, or else his lady-love, Manon 
Lescaut, had to sell herself to the highest bidder. In 
Great Britain the range of employment for gentlefolk was 
much more extensive. Gentlemen went into trade, to 
the colonies, to India, etc. Still, the choice and possi- 
bilities were not what they are now, and even in re- 
gard to non-official appointments, political “ interest” was 
serviceable— an Administration in which everything was 
done by favour had considerable influence, even in business 
circles. But the most natural thing for “a pretty young 
man ” of gentle birth and small means was to look for 
provision directly to the State. If the family was sufficiently 
great or had borough influence, he would be returned to 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 25 

Parliament and, on the strength of his seat in the House, 
would seek and obtain some place under the Government — • 
quelque chose de par le roi , as it used to be called in pre- 
Re volutionary France. If his connexions or means were 
not sufficient for him to start in “ his own bottom ”, he 
surely knew some one in Parliament ready to employ 
his “ weight and consideration ... in the service of his 
friends 

Daniel (Finch), second Earl of Nottingham and seventh 
Earl of Winchilsea, had by his second wife, Anne, daughter 
of Christopher, first Viscount Hatton, thirty children (the 
burden on the State was not, however, quite as heavy as on 
the mother — seven were still-born and ten died young). 
The f'.urth son, Henry Finch, educated at Christ’s College, 
Cambridge, became a Fellow of the College, but after ten 
years at the University, having met with disappointment, 
had to look out for some other settlement in life. His 
father seems to have taxed him with idleness, but his eldest 
brother, Lord Finch, in a letter dated February 11, 1723/4, 
strongly pleaded his case : 

... I do desire he may be in the way of fortune in some manner or 
other, for I cannot agree that because he has no profession he there- 
fore will never be able to live. Lett him be tryed as others have been 
before him and if he fails he cannot be worse than in the way he is . 1 

From a subsequent letter, of which the date is not given, it 
•appears that the question was debated in the family whether 
Henry should be sent abroad to “ learn languages ” and 
rub off the accademical improvements and habits which 
m the course of ten years he must have made and con- 
tracted ”, or whether “ a provision out of Parliament ” 
would be “ most agreeable to his circumstances ”. Ulti- 
mately both expedients were adopted : he was sent for 
some time to The Hague, and on a vacancy occurring in 
-May 1 724 at Malton, a pocket borough of his brother-in-law , 

1 P. Finch, History of Burley-07i-the-HiJj, vol. i. pp. 266. 



26 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


Thomas Wat son- Wentworth, Henry Finch was chosen for 
it ; he retained the seat till his death in May 1761. In 
1729 he was made Receiver-General of the Revenues of 
Minorca; in 1743 Surveyor-General of His Majesty’s Works 
(£1000 p.a.), and when, in December 1760, “ the sudden 
and positive order ” was given for replacing Henry Finch 
by Thomas Worsley, a friend of George III and Lord Bute, 
due regard was paid to him and to his nephew and patron, 
Lord Rockingham 1 — he was given a secret service pension 
of £900 p.a. 2 He had, indeed, achieved “ a provision out 
of Parliament 

It seems superfluous to multiply examples of this kind ; 
they will be foimd in practically every essay in this book. 
On the higher and more profitable posts or sinecures in the 
Civil Service, if compatible with a seat in Parliament, its 
Members had a lien, otherwise their friends. Newcastle’s 
remark with regard to the office of Keeper of the Records 
in the Tower is characteristic — “ All the earth could not 
make the King give this place out of the House of 
Commons ”. 3 There were no party fimds from which to 
cover election expenses, and secret service money did not 
go far in this matter. Offices and sinecures (or contracts 
in the case of merchants) were therefore used to compensate 
faithful adherents of Government for their electoral ex- 
penses and to reward their services. Thus in 1756 John 
Frederick, M.P. for West Looe, when applying to Newcastle 
for office, pleaded “ seventeen years implicit obedience to 1 " 
His Majesty’s service attended with great expence and 

1 See in the “ Register of Correspondence of the Earl of Bute ”, Add. 
MSS. 36796, f. 62, the summary of a letter from Count de Viry to Lord 
Bute, December 23, 1760 : “ Lord Rockingham will resign on his 
arrival if Mr. H. Finch is not employed. Recommends a hint to this 
effect being thrown out to Newcastle or Hardwicke.” 

2 See pp. 269 and 568. As the “ land-tax ”, normally reckoned at 
2s. in the £, was not levied on secret service pensions, these £900 
were an equivalent for the previous £1000. 

3 See p. 310. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 27 

attachment to you and your family in every instance ’V 
Similarly Hardwicke, when urging the claim of his wife’s 
nephew, Charles Cocks, M.P. for Reigate, to some office, 
wrote on November 14, 1757 : “ He has now been in 
Parliament ten or eleven years, and allways behav’d there 
very diligently and very steadily, notwithstanding tempta- 
tions to the contrary”. 1 2 And when Philip Stanhope was 
returned to Parliament on April 17, 1754, Lord Chesterfield, 
writing to Newcastle op April 29, plumed himself on his 
moderation in not asking anything for him : “ I am not 
fashionable enough to ask for a place for him to-morrow 
because he came into Parliament yesterday, but should he 
deserve your Grace’s favour I am sure you will show it him 
at a proper time. . » 3 

Lastly, the various Commissionerships of Customs, 
Taxes, Excise, and Stamps, most of them worth £1000 p.a., 
offered a suitable retreat for Members who for some reason 
or other bad, or wished, to leave Parliament — for men 
broken in health or disappointed in their bolder hopes and 
ambitions. Thus Chief Justice Willes, finding that the 
health of his eldest son “ will not permit him to attend the 
House of Commons as he ought ”, asked that he be made 
Commissioner of Customs. 4 No seat being available for 
John Frederick is J 7 £2, he was gives ess si these £W>- 
missionerskips, 5 When, early in 1765, Henry Grenville, 
M.P. for Thirsk, returned from his Embassy to Con- 
stantinople, he too was given a Commissi on ership of 
Customs, “ which, as it would oblige him to vacate bis 
seat in Parliament, would exempt him from involving 
himself in the unhappy differences in his own family ”. 6 

1 March 31, 1756 ; Add. MSS. 32864, f. 113. 

2 Add. MSS. 32875, f. 501. 

3 Add. MSS. 32735, f. 207. 

4 Willes to Newcastle, March 23, 1758 ; Add. MSS. 32878, 1 316. 

6 See pp. 404-7. 

B George Grenville’s “ Diary ”, Grenville Papers, vol. iii. p. 117. 



28 


the structure oe politics 


Again it seems superfluous to multiply examples of which 
many more will be found in the other essays in these two 
volumes. So much only be said, that from a seat in 
Parliament one could always move to the easy-chair of 
some place or sinecure, snug and genteel, “ and not un- 
worthy any gentleman's acceptance though incompatible 
with a seat m Parliament 

There were, however, also Members— and a fair number 
of them— m such a way in the world as to have little or 
no occasion to trouble ” Ministers “ with demands ” 1 But 
then they had relatives, friends, or constituents, whose 
claims they had to urge. Here is a letter to Newcastle, 
dated July 19 1765, from one of the most upright and 
independent Whig Members, James Hewitt, M.P. for 
Coventry, 1761-66 (and subsequently Justice of the King’s 
Bench and Lord Chancellor of Ireland) : 


Serjeant Hewitt who has nothing to ask of Government for him- 
self and who has never received any beneficial mark of public 
favour, begs leave to recommend his brother, Mr. William Hewitt 
for somet mg at home or abroad which may carry some publick 
mark of respect to the serjeant and therein do him credit. . . 


Here, again, is the description given in Bute’s list of the 
House of Commons of 1761, of Thomas Sergison, M.P. for 
Lewes, a small man who, after having unsuccessfully con- 
tested the seat as an Opposition candidate in 1734 and 
1741, took Newcastle’s <! livery” in 1747, and from then 
onwards represen ted the borough till his death in 1766 : 3 * 


Jins P rase is used about himself by James Duff (subsequently 

MSS" 32737, fl. 292-3. ^ 6 > 1754 ^ Add ' 

2 Add. MSS. 32972, f. 300. 

s Thomas Sergison was the son of Thomas Warden of Cuckfield 
Sussex, by Prudence, niece of Charles Sergison, M.P., Commissioner of 
the Navy , on succeeding to his estate, Thomas Warden, jun., took the 
name of Sergison About Charles Sergison, see D.N.B . ; about Thomas 

vriv n3 p n 266:Ind™,: Society, 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 


29 


Has two brothers, one in the Navv receiving pay but ndfc serv- 
ing, the other quartered upon Mr. Shelley, Auditor for South Wales, 
half the salary, and likewise two sons in law, one of them, Charles 
Langford, had a private pension till lately, the other is Mr. Tomlin- 
son, Member for Steyning, 1 

There bad been no need for Newcastle to buy the vote of 
Sergison, who depended on the Duke for his seat. But it 
would have been contrary to the decencies of eighteenth- 
century politics if the Duke had failed to exercise his 
power and patronage in favour of the relatives of a 
faithful follower. As a matter of fact, Sergison remained 
with Newcastle even when that came to entail the loss of 
Court favour. 

To what an extent providing for the families of Members 
out of the “ King's money ” had become the custom, can 
be seen in a letter addressed to Newcastle by Mr. Bayntun 
Rolt, M.P. for Chippenham, to whose election both in 
1747 and 1754 the Treasury had contributed £800, 
and who naturally expected another such contribution 
in 1701 ; who, in short, was not sufficiently independent 
to bargain for favours. Still, having a sister who had 
remained a widow without suitable provision, he asked 
Newcastle to give her a pension of £300 per annum ; 
and when the matter was delayed, as was Newcastle’s 
habit, Bay-lit cm Rolt wrote to him on August 13, 
1760 : 

I have too many obligations to your Grace to presume to take 
offence ; yet allow me to complain and remind you, that my poor 
sister Prideaux has continued above a year, in the most miserable 
situation. As your Grace’s sincere friend and humble politician, I 

1 Add. MSS. 38333, f. 100. The list was drawn up about 
December 20, 1761, but this marginal remark was obviously added 
some time after Newcastle’s resignation, for Langford continued in 
receipt of the secret service pension so long as Newcastle was in office. 
The list seems to have remained with Charles Jenkinson, and was used 
till November 1763. 




30 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


have a sort of right to press this matter upon you and flatter myself 
you will excuse me. . . .* 

Indeed, so universal was the plaguing of Ministers on 
behalf of friends and relations that in 1760 a tender 
mother who washed to see her son in Parliament thought 
it useful to point out to Newcastle that her son would have 
no such requests to make : 

Mrs. Boothby Skrymsher’s compliments attend upon the Duke 
of Newcastle. 

She understands the Duke of Rutland has done her son, Mr. 
Charles Boothby Skrvmsher, of Tooly Park in the county of Leicester, 
the honor to mention him to his Grace as a person desirous at his 
own expence 

to come into the next parliment under the guidance and pro- 
tection of the Duke of Newcastle. 

Mr. Boothby Skrymsher is of age and returns from his travells 
next autumn, by principals and education is zealously attached to 
His Majesty’s Person and Administration, as is well known to the 
Duke of Rutland and Lord Granby. 

Mrs. Boothby Skrymsher can with strict truth assure the Duke 
of Newcastle that her son has no relations to sollicit favors for, or 
any veiws, further than an opinion that parlimentary busness is a 
proper employment for the mind of a young man at his first enter- 
ance into life. 

His Grace, the Duke of Newcastle may depend upon his integrity, 
and that he will obey his commands, and with true gratitude, 
acknowledge the great obligation confered upon him who will 
certainly prove a faithful humble servant to his Grace. 1 2 

1 Add. MSS. 32910, f. 11. It should, however, be added that 
Elizabeth Prideaux was the widow of a Brigadier -General killed at 
Niagara, on July 19, 1759 (see Maclean, History of the Deanery of Triqq 
Minor (1876), vol. ii. p. 232). 

2 Add. MSS. 32902, f. 141 ; the letter is undated, but seems to 
have been written in February 1760. 

Charles Boothby Skrymsher failed to obtain a seat in 1761 ; came 
forward as candidate for Leicestershire in March 1762, but withdrew 
from the contest (see Add. MSS. 32935 and 32936), and committed 
suicide in 1800, without ever having improved his mind in Parliament. 
Later in life his ambitions were social, and not political. The obituary 




AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 


31 


Professional Advancement : the Services and 
the Law 

The Soldiers. — On February 3, 1741, Lord Chesterfield, 
speaking in the House of Lords against a proposed increase 
of the army, descanted on the dangers that would arise 
from the larger number of commissions which— as was said 
in the protest subsequently entered by him and others in the 
Journals of the House— “ may be disposed of with regard to 
Parliamentary influence only ” 1 : “ What numbers [of 
officers] ”, he exclaimed, “ are there in the other House ! 
and how have they increased within few years ! For it is 
the known way to military preferment. . . .” 2 

I am not in a position to state how many army officers 
sat in the House of Commons at that time. An analysis 
of the Parliament of 1754, preserved in the Hardwicke 


note in the Gentleman s Magazine (1800, vol. ii. p. 800) states that he 
was “ a very respectable gentleman, and ... in the habits of intimacy 
with the first noblemen in this country ”. “ Mr. Boothby was the 

person supposed to be alluded to by Foote in one of his farces, as dis- 
tinguished by his partiality to people of rank, and inclined to leave 
one acquaintance to walk with another of superior dignity. Hence 
arose his denomination of Prince Boothby.” 

His mother, Anne, daughter of Sir Hugh Clopton, Bart., and a 
cousin of Horace Walpole’s mother, is described by him as “ not . . . 
,the most amiable person in the world ” (see letter to Horace Mann, 
April 10, 1761). Her letters to Charles Jenkinson justify the descrip- 
tion ; she herself seems to have been aware of the terror she inspired. 
On July 19, 1761, she thus prefaced a letter asking him to procure for 
her tickets for the Coronation : “ Be not terriffied, dear jenkey, with 
the sight of so sudden an answer to your obliging letter . . .” (Add. 
MSS. 38197, f. 220). And again on October 23, 1762 : “ Dear jenky, 
do not be dismayd at the sight of a letter from me and fancy I want to 
ask you questions touching State affairs, no, wee country country [sic] 
gentry have not that wicked curiosity . . .’’(Add. MSS. 38200, ff. 56-7). 

1 Journals of the House of Lords, vol. xxv. p. 586. 

2 Seeker MS., Add. MSS. 6043, f. 62. * 



32 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

Papers, 1 puts their number at fifty, including them all 
among those who were “ for the Government ; whilst at 
the general election of 1761, sixty-four army officers, 

1 Add. MSS. 35876, f. 1. The paper bears no date, but a pencil 
mark on the MS., apparently made when these papers were arranged 
at the British Museum, suggests for it the date of January 1739/40, 
and Mr. A. S. Turberville, in his book on The House of Lords in the 
Eighteenth Century (p. 482) refers to it as a “ contemporary analysis 
of the composition of the Commons’ Chamber in 1740 ”, which would 
make it the very same of which Chesterfield spoke on February 3, 
1741. Unfortunately these suggestions are devoid of all foundation. 
The outstanding features of the analysis whereby it can be dated are 
these : 

(1) It puts the number of Members for the Government at 366, 
against it at 152, and the doubtful at 34 ; i.e. it gives the Govern- 
ment a majority of 214. 

(2) It states that four Members were chosen simultaneously for 
two places, five were dead, and for six seats there were double 
returns. 

To stand simultaneously for two places was a method of hedging 
used at general elections by those who, whilst contesting doubtful 
seats, were able to re-insure by having themselves at the same time 
returned for pocket boroughs. But obviously in 1740, six years after 
the general election, four men could not have been returned for eight 
seats, at by-elections. It is clear that this is the analysis of a newly 
elected Parliament. 

It cannot, however, refer to the Parliament elected in April and 
May 1741, in which Walpole seemed at first to have a small majority, 
and soon found himself In a minority. A “ computation ” of that 
House in the same volume of the Hardwicke Papers (Add. MSS. 35876, 
ft. 138-9) puts the number “ for the Court ” at 284, “ against ” at 270, 
which yields a majority of 14, and not of 214. Moreover, it speaks of 
only “ 4 double returns ”, whereas in the analysis six are mentioned ; 
lastly, an inspection of the returns shows that at the general election 
of 1741, ten and not four men were returned simultaneously for two 
seats. 

But all the statements in the analysis fit the House of Commons 
elected in 1754. Newcastle wrote in his “ Memorandums for the 
King ”, on May 20, 1754 (Add. MSS. 32735, f. 298) : “ Majority in 
Parliament 213 — doubtful 37. . . These figures are so near to 214 
and 34 that they can be treated as identical. The four men chosen 
simultaneously for two places in 1754 were : W. Beckford (London and 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 


33 


actually in the service, were elected , 1 including the best 
known generals of the time — Field-Marshal Lord Ligonier , 2 
Lord Granby, Sir John Mordaunt, H. S. Conway, Robert 
Clive, and George Townshend ; and some who were soon 
to acquire prominence — John Burgoyne, William Howe, 
Charles Cornwallis, etc. One only among the sixty-four 
whom I place on the “ army-list ” sat for a Government 
borough , 3 whilst every one belonged to a family of social 
standing, and almost half were sons of peers. None the 


Petersfield), R. Nugent (Bristol and St. Mawcs), C. F. Scudamore 
(Hereford and Thetford), and L. Watson (Kent and Boroughbridge) . 
Four names were given in the returns for Oxfordshire and Wareham, 
and three at Salisbury and Bury St. Edmunds ; which makes six 
“ double returns As for the five dead, four died within a month of 
their elections (V. Knightlcy, J. French, R. Herbert, and Sir John 
Strange), and one wonders whether it was the strain and excitement 
which accounted for this exceedingly high mortality. The fifth 
(J. Halliday) died on June 3. As another seat was vacated on Septem- 
ber 3, by George Compton succeeding to the earldom of Northampton, 
and this is not mentioned in tho analysis, we are enabled to fix the date 
of the paper at the summer of 1754. 

1 In this calculation I do not include officers who had sold out, e.g. 
Robert Fairfax, Cecil Forester, etc., or a man like Lord George Sackville, 
who had been dismissed from the Service, or men who had served in 
their youth or in times of emergency but were no longer in the army 
(e.g. Sir James Carnegie, Bart., who had served at Fontenoy and 
Culloden, or Edwin Lascellcs, who had fought at Minden) ; but only 
professional soldiers, actually in the Service. 

2 It seems, in fact, to have been considered necessary for the 
Commander-in-Chief to be in Parliament. This at least appears to 
have been Pitt’s view. On December 1, 1757, be protested to New- 
castle against Ligonier being given only an Irish peerage : 

. . . indeed, my Lord, it shou’d have been, on all accounts, an 
English peerage, and I trust this will be only a leading step to that 
proper and almost necessary dignity . . . his age and value to the 
Kingdom ought to put him instantly in a situation, that woud 
exempt him from the drudgery of a House of Commons . . . 
(Add. MSS. 32876, fi. 197-8). 

3 Henry Holmes, M.P. for Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight, where his 
brother. Lord Holmes, was the manager of the Government interest. 

VOL. I D 


34 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


less, it was taken for granted that their professional 
interests counted with them for a good deal, and whilst 
the Duke of Cumberland was at the head of the army, 
Newcastle, at that time no friend of his, “ did not 
seem ... to approve of choosing military men [to Parlia- 
ment] ’V But when Fox was Secretary of State in 
Newcastle's Administration, the Duke of Cumberland, his 
patron, acted as “ whip ” for the officers in the House. 
“ I spoke to the Duke this morning ”, wrote Fox to New- 
castle on March 20, 1756, “ who most cordially assur'd me 
that he would have ev’ry officer apply ’d to that he could ” ; 1 2 
and two days later : “ . . . the officers attended very 
well ”. 3 Again, when in March and April 1759 the 
Government to be formed on the death of George II was 
discussed by Leicester House, Count de Viry reported to 
Newcastle that the Prince of Wales had declared he would 
always show due regard to the Duke of Cumberland, but 

the Duke was not to expect to have any share in affairs. To which 
I ask’d, whether that Telated to the army — my friend seem’d to 
think, it did ; as the army would give great power in the House of 
Commons. 4 

In November 1745, Pitt, when invited by Pelham to 
join the Government, named among his conditions t£ the 
extension of the Place-Bill, to exclude from seats in Parlia- 
ment all officers of the Army under the rank of lieutenant- 
colonel, and of the Navy, under that of captain ” 5 ; and 
Chesterfield, consulted by Newcastle concerning Pitt’s 
conditions, replied that he thought this point “ a good 
one ” because of “ the great advantage that will result 
from it, both to fleet and army, by hindering young 

1 Add. MSS. 32884, ff. 397-8. 2 Add. MSS. 32863, f. 398. 

3 Ibid. f. 437. 

4 Memorandum of April 3, 1759 ; ■ Add. MSS. 32889, fi. 348-9. 

5 See letter from the Duke of Newcastle to Lord Chesterfield, 

November 20, 1745 ; Add. MSS. 32705, ff. 319-20. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 35 

subaltern puppys from forcing themselves by their seats 
in Parliament, into higher posts, than they are . . . fitt 
for ’V But, in fact, their exclusion would not have made 
much difference — colonels were no less keen on promotion, 
and naturally could, as a rule, point to a longer Parlia- 
mentary service in support of their claims. Major-General 
Lord John Murray, fifteen years after having obtained 
the rank which under the regulations suggested by Pitt 
would have admitted him to the House, when asking 
Newcastle for promotion in the service, emphasised that he 
had ct constantly given his attendance every session of 
Parliament for these nineteen years ” except when ordered 
to Ireland . 1 2 When in 1754, William A’Court, M.P., 
Lieutenant-Colonel in the Coldstream Guards, asked to be 
made a colonel, he pleaded his twenty-eight years in the 
service and nine years as lieutenant- colonel, and concluded 
his Memorial by pointing out that “ his family and himself 
have ever been steady supporters of His Majesty’s interest 
in Parliament. , . .” 3 And when Lord Howe was killed 
at Ticonderoga, and Lord Gage, M.P., asked that Howe’s 
regiment be given to his brother, Thomas Gage , 4 Newcastle 
wrote to him : 

... I will do my best for Gage if my nephew George Townshend 
cannot have it. But as he is so much an older officer than your 
brother, and may be of great consequence in the House of Commons, 
I am persuaded that neither your Lordship nor Gage himself can 
disapprove of George Townshend’s having it. . . . 5 


1 See letter from the Duke of Newcastle to Lord Chesterfield, 
November 20, 1745; Add. MSS. 32705, f. 381. 

2 June 23, 1753 ; Add. MSS. 32732, ff. 93-5. 

3 Add. MSS. 32736, ff. 55-6 ; see also his application for another 
promotion, March 5, 1759 — “if you think near 33 years unexception- 
able service as an officer, and my family Parliamentary connections 
with your Grace ever since you have been in Administration gives me 
any title to it ” (Add. MSS. 32888, f. 344). 

4 August 23, 1758 ; Add. MSS. 32883, i. 64. , 

& August 27 ; ibid. f. 131. 



36 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

Lord Gage replied : 

Without entring into a discussion on Mr. Townshend’s right to a 
regiment as an officer ; I think as a Member of Parliament, his 
abilities and connections give him a claim to favour. 1 

John Calcraft, the army agent, had a younger brother, 
Thomas, a captain in the army, and was a close friend 
of Colonel Sandford, a cousin of Lord Kildare. On 
November 1, 1760, in view of the approaching general 
election, he wrote to Kildare about Sandford : 

... In the present critical juncture I want to know whether in 
case an opportunity cou’d be found he wou’d choose to be at the 
expence of coining into the English Parliament ; I wanted also to 
ask, whether, as my brother is likely to continue on the Irish estab- 
lishment, it might not be desirable for him to get into that Parlia- 
ment and if he cou’d put him in the way. 2 3 

Clearly in the choice of Parliament, the regiment and its 
establishment had to be considered. ' 

Of the “ two golden rules ” which governed the services, 

“ interest and seniority,” the former was infinitely the 
more important, and men who had no one in Parliament 
to back their most equitable “ pretensions ” were apt to 
share the fate of the officer in Tom Jones 3 who, having 
for distinguished service been made a lieutenant by Marl- 
borough, continued as such for the next forty years, one 
reason of “ this ill-success in his profession ” being that 
he had “ no friends among the men in power ”. 4 “ What 3- 

1 August 29 ; ibid. f. 164. 

2 Calcraft’s Letterbook, Add. MSS. 17495, f. 166. Calcraft, who 
in 1761 acted as regimental agent for no less than 49 colonels (see The 
Court and City Kalendar . . . for the year 1761), and until April 1763 
w r as closely connected with Henry Fox, was a frequent channel for 
political correspondence with army-Members, as is shown by his 

Letterbooks. 

3 Book vii. chapter xii. 

4 See, e.g., Barre’s letter to Pitt, written from New York on April 28, 

1760, Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. pp. 41-3. “ For want of friends, 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 37 

interest has he ? ” was the foremost question in the 
eighteenth century. 

If you talk to ... an old stager, either by sea or land, and men- 
tion a young fellow who has given proofs of his ability or genius, 
and being fit for such and such a command, he will tell you, it is 
impossible he should have it. . . . You may as well talk of making 
me Great Mogul of the Tartars. ... In the first place, he has no 
interest ; and in the next place, he has no standing in the Service 
to pretend to such a command. . . J 

The one saving circumstance for the army was that the 
Hanoverian dynasty, though it adjusted itself to English 
political conditions, none the less retained a strong German 
predilection for the parade-ground, which it would not 
unreservedly sacrifice to the Parliamentary arena. It was 
a standing grief with the Duke of Newcastle that army 
patronage was withheld from him, even after the Duke of 
Cumberland had fallen into disgrace because of Closter- 
seven ; for henceforth appointments were made by George 
II himself, on recommendations from Lord Ligonier. I 2 
Similarly George III as a rule refused to subordinate the 
essential interests of the army to vote-catching in the 
House of Commons. 

The Saafors. — In 1733 Henzj* Pelham, when asking 
Captain Trelawny, R.N., to defer standing for Parliament, 

^ as it would have interfered with some of his arrange- 
ments, promised Trelawny to take care in the meantime 
that by doing so he lost no ground in his profession. 3 No 
attempt was made to disguise very obvious connexions. 

“ Most of our flag officers are in the House of 

I bad lingered a subaltern officer eleven years, when Mr. Wolfe’s 
opinion of me rescued me from that obscurity.” But now Wolfe was 
dead — “ By the neglect I have since met with, I am apprehensive that 
my pretensions are to be buried with my only protector and friend.” 

1 The London Chronicle , January 12-15, 1760. 

2 See pp. 314-15. * 3 See p. 402. 



38 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

Commons, ...” 1 said the Duke of Argyle in a speech, 
on February 3, 1741 . The statement seems amply justified ; 
take, e.g., the list of admirals as it appears in the Court 
and City Kalendar for 1761 — I add their constituencies 
and the years of their service in Parliament : 


Admirals of the White 

George Clinton, M.P. for Saltash, 1754-61 (died July 10, 1761). 
Sir William Rowley, M.P- for Taunton, 1750-54, and Portsmouth, 
1754-61. 

Isaac Townsend, M.P. for Rochester, 1757-65. 

Lord Anson, M.P. for Redon, 1744-47 (when made a peer). 


Admirals of the Blue 

Henry Osborn, M.P. for Beds., 1758-61. 

Thomas Smith. 2 

Thomas Griffin, M.P. for Arundel, 1754-61. 

Sir Edward Hawke, M.P. for Portsmouth, 1747-76. 

Charles Knowles, M.P. for Gatton, 1749-52. 

John Forbes (in the Irish Parliament, 1751-63, but declined a 
seat at Westminster). 3 

Edward Boscawen, M.P. for Truro, 1742-61 (died January 10, 
1761). 

Vice' Admirals of the Red 
George Pococke, M.P. for Plymouth, 1760-68. 


1 Seeker MS., Add. MSS- 6043, f. 67. 

2 The King intended to have him returned for Rochester vice Byng 
(see Add. MSS. 32870, ff. 285 and 297), but finally Admiral Isaac 
Townsend was elected and Thomas Smith never entered Parliament. 

3 He consented to enter the Irish Parliament, “ the first time to 
preserve peace in the county ; and the second, to support family 
interest ; for he was ever disinclined to be in Parliament, and there- 
fore made it a condition, when he accepted a place at the Admiralty 
Board, which for some time he declined, that he should not be brought 
into the British Parliament” ; see J. Forbes, Memoirs of the Earls of 
Granard (1868), p. 175. J 



AT THE ACCESSION OE GEORGE III 


39 


George Townshend. 1 

Francis Holburne, M.P. for Stirling Burghs, 1761-68, and Ply- 
mouth, 1768-71. 


Vice-Admirals of the While 

Thomas Cotes, M.P. for Great Bed win, 1761-67. 

Sir Thomas Frankland, M.P. for Thirsk, 1747-80 and in 1784. 
Lord Harry Powlett, M.P. for Lymington, 1755-61, and for 
Winchester, 1761-65. 

Harry Norris. 2 


Vice-Admirals of the Blue 
Thomas Broderick. 

Sir Charles Hardy, M.P. for Rochester, 1764-68, and for Ply- 
mouth, 1771-80. 

The Earl of Northesk (a Scottish peer). 

Sir Charles Saunders, M.P. for Hedon, 1754-75. 


Rear-Admirals of the Red 

Thomas Pye, M.P. for Rochester, 1771-74. 
Charles Stevens (died May 17, 1761). 

Philip Durell. 


Rear-Admirals of the White 

Charles Holmes, M.P. for Newport, 1758-62. 

Samuel Cornish, M.P. forShoreham, 1765-70. 

Francis Geary (stood for Rochester in 1768, but was defeated). 

Rear-Admirals of the Blue 

Smith Callis. 

G. B. Rodney, M.P. for various constituencies, 1751-54, 1759-74, 
and 1780-82. 


1 A half-brother of the third Viscount Townshend. It seems incom- 
prehensible how as a Townshend and an admiral he escaped Parliament ; 
but he did. 

2 His father, Admiral Sir John Norris, sat for Rye, 1708-21 and 
1734-49; his brothers John and Matthew, 17^7-33 and 1733-34; his 
nephew John Norris, 1762-74. 



40 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

Thus of these thirty officers, twenty at one time or 
another sat in Parliament, whilst one was a Scottish peer. 

Or again, take the Council of War held on board 
H.M.S. Neptune off the Isle of Aix, on September 25, 1757. 
There were present : 

Admiral Sir Edward Hawke, M.P. for Portsmouth, 1747-76. 

General Sir John Mordaunt, M.P. for various constituencies, 
1730-34, and 1735-68. 

Vice-Admiral Charles Knowles, M.P. for Gatton, 1749-52. 

Major-General H. S. Conway, M.P. for various constituencies, 
1741-82. 

Rear-Admiral Thomas Broderick. 

Major-General Edward Cornwallis, M.P. for Westminster, 
1753-62. 

Captain G. B. Rodney, M.P. for various constituencies, 1751-54, 
1759-74, and 1780-82. 

Colonel George Howard, M.P. for Lostwithiel, 1761-66, and for 
Stamford, 1768-96. 

Thus seven out of eight members of that Council at various 
times sat in Parliament, and four were actually Members 
on that day ! 

Of the famous naval commanders of the Seven Years’ 
War and the American Revolution practically every one 
sat in Parliament : Anson, 1 the unfortunate Byng, Bos- 
VftTWfcm, Vv/twkt:, ¥w«Ye, VihliTy , Pto&Zrtf? , mlic 

Keppel, Palliser, Cornwallis, Alexander and Samuel Hood 
Jervis, and Elphinstone, besides such as Rowley, Town 
send, Cornish, Pigot, Mulgrave, Shuldham, etc., who helc 
important commands but did not reach the first rank of 
fame. Seats in the Admiralty boroughs were among the 
prizes due for distinguished service in the profession : 
44 1 hope my rank and long services will entitle [me] to 

1 Also at least five of the officers who had gone with him round the 
world — Sir Charles Saunders, A. Keppel, Sir Piercy Brett, Peter Denis, 
and M. Michell ; a sixth, E. Legge, was returned for Portsmouth in 
1747, but unseated on petition. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 41 

an Admiralty borough”, wrote Rodney in 1780. 1 Of 
twenty-one naval officers returned in 1761, nine sat on the 
Government interest, 2 and fourteen received Newcastle’s 
“ circular letter ” requesting their attendance at the 
opening of the session — to nine of them it was significantly 
sent through Anson, the First Lord of the Admiralty ; 3 
of the seven who did not receive the letter, five were away 
on active service — some naval Members of the House were 
absent for years— and two were Scotchmen who had to be 
left to Bute (but had both been on the list of candidates 
fixed by Newcastle and the Duke of Argyle in June 
1760). 4 

The close connexion between the Navy and Parliament 
raised naval debates in the House to a remarkable level, 
but when party feeling ran high, introduced political dis- 
sensions into the Service. In 1782 Lord Rodney declared 

that so violent was the spirit of party and faction in his own 
fleet, as almost to supersede and extinguish . . . every patriotic 
sentiment in the bosoms of many individuals serving under him. 
. . . There were . . . officers of high rank and of unquestionable 
courage, who nevertheless bore so inveterate an animosity to the 
Administration then existing, particularly to the First Lord of the 
Admiralty, the Earl of Sandwich, as almost to wish for a defeat if 
it would produce the dismission of Ministers. 5 


1 August 2, 1780 ; Hist. MSS. Comm., Ninth Report, iii. pjn 102- 
* 103, Stopford SackmUe MSS. 

2 Sir Piercy Brett at Queensborough, Sir Edward Hawke at Ports- 
mouth, Charles Holmes at Newport, Sir George Pococke at Plymouth, 
Sir Charles Saunders at Hedon, and Isaac Townsend at Rochester. 
Peter Denis’s tenure of a seat at Hedon, Lord Howe’s at Dartmouth, 
and G. B. Rodney’s at Penryn, were not quite in the same category 
as those of the senior admirals, personal elements entering into the 
selection ; still, even their tenure was of a “ Service ” character. 

3 Add. MSS. 32929, ff. 303-11. 

4 Add. MSS. 32999, ffi 15-17. 

6 Sir Nathaniel Wraxall. Historical and Posthumous Memoirs, vol. 
ii. p. 324. 



42 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

To these men the House of Commons offered a tribune 
from which to vent their griefs, political and professional, 
against their chiefs or colleagues. When on February 7, 
1782, Sheridan in the House of Commons attacked Lord 
North’s Government for having driven the most distin- 
guished naval commanders from the Service, he remarked 
that 

there were several of these officers . . . present in the House, and 
he hoped they would now rise . . . and explain fully and clearly, 
the reasons which they had for withdrawing. . . . Admiral Pigot, 
after some pause, evidently intended for Lord Howe, rose, and stated 
in a manly and clear manner the conduct of the First Lord of the 
Admiralty towards him . 1 

It is difficult to say exactly for how much political 
interest counted in naval appointments, but, on the whole, 
it would seem that it was not more than a contributory 
element, important but not decisive ; after all, the Govern- 
ment, the Admiralty, and individual commanders stood 
to lose more by wrong appointments than any political 
advantage could compensate, and probably political 
interest, like noble birth, helped more at the start and in 
the lower grades than in reaching the top rungs of the 
ladder. From its very nature, the Navy was a com- 
paratively democratic Service. 

A man like Anson tried hard to restrict political inter- 
ference in the Service — “ he withstood recommendations * 
of interest or favor more than any First Lord of the 
Admiralty was ever known to do ”, wrote in 1771 Philip, 
2nd Earl of Hardwicke. 2 But he had to battle therein 
both with Newcastle and with his own commanders, who, 
if Members of Parliament or candidates for it, frequently 
let themselves be guided by election interests in their 

1 See The Parliamentary Register, February 7, 1782, vol. 22, p. 419. 

2 “ Memorial of Family Occurrences from 1760 to 1770 inclusive ” ; 
Add. MSS. 35428, f. 4. 11 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 


43 


recommendations . 1 The following correspondence between 
Newcastle and Anson seems worth recording : 2 


The Duke of Newcastle to Lord Anson, June 15, 1759. 3 
My dear Lord, 

I beg your Lordship would attend seriously to this letter. 

The interest of the borough of Oakhampton (where Mr. Potter 
is now chose) absolutely depends upon it. The King expects that 
I should keep up his interest in boroughs : I can’t do it without I 
have the assistance of the several branches of the Government. 

Lieutenant Hunt (whom I formerly recommended to your 
Lordship,) is so strongly insisted upon by the Corporation is lost 
and with it one, or perhaps two Members. 

I state the case as it is. . . . 

Lord Anson to the Duke of Newcastle, Admiralty, June 15, 1759. 4 
My Lord Duke, 

I had the honour of your Grace’s letter this morning, and al- 
wayes do attend seriously to whatever your Grace recommends to 
me, and shall whenever the borrough of Ockingham becomes vacant 
by the death of Mr. Potter (and I hope you will not wish it sooner) 
promote Mr. Hunt to a command. — I must now beg your Grace 
will seriously consider what must be the condition of your Fleet if 
these borrough recommendations, which must be frequent are to be 
complyed with ; I wish it did not at this instant bring to my mind 
the misery pear Pouuc&r that exceUent officer Suuer’u Aucrr the 
misbehaviour of captains of that cast, which has done more niischeif 
to the publick (which I know is the most favorite point with you) 
than the loss of a vote in the House of Commons. My constant 
method since I have had the honour of serving the King in the station 
I am in, has been to promote the Lieutenants to command, whose 
ships have been successfully engaged upon equall terms with the 

1 See, e.g., pp. 156, 390, and 396. 

2 It has been previously published in W. V. Anson’s Life of Admiral 
Lord Anson (1912), pp. 114-16. The text of the letters as reproduced 
above differs in a few details from that given by Captain Anson, but 
follows exactly the MSS. in the Newcastle Papers. 

3 Add. MSS. 32892, f. 94. ' 4 Ibid. f. 96. 




44 


THE STRUCTURE OP POLITICS 


enemy’, without having any freind or recommendation ; and in 
preference to all others, and this I would recommend to my suc- 
cessors if they would have a Fleet to depend on. 1 

Naval history is a vast subject which requires highly 
specialised knowledge, and I can do no more than call 
attention to the close connexion which in the eighteenth 
century existed between the Navy and the House of 
Commons. I conclude with an illustration, for which I 
choose the case of a worthy, good naval officer who did 
much hard work and honest service in his life, but in 
whose career political influence proved, to say the least, 
opportune. 

Paul Henry Ourry was the son of Huguenot refugees 
settled in the Channel Islands ; his father, naturalised in 
1713, had held a commission in the British Army since 
1707 ; his eldest brother, Lewis, was also an army officer ; 
another brother, Isaac, was in the service of the East 
India Company ; a third, George, like Paul Henry, in the 
Royal Navy. 2 Made a lieutenant in 1742, Paul Henry 
Ourry subsequently served under George Edgcumbe, with 
whom he was still in the encounter oft’ Mahon, on May 20, 

1 About “ Joe ” Hunt, see also p. 156. In fairness to Hunt, it 
Bhould, however, be noted that he appears to have been a good and 
gadkirV i/iffcm— eveir dumb Jau 1 Ar irauvtf- Ar “pu-Armage- ” wihnr every ‘ 
body was doing it. Having been made a commander on June 18, 1759 
(three days after the above correspondence), and a captain on Novem- 
ber 21, 1760 (on the eve of the general election), Hunt was killed in a 
successful engagement off the Penmarks, on January 11, 1761 ; “ . . . 
while the surgeon, and his attendants were busily employed in attending, 
and endeavouring to succour him, one of the seamen, less dangerously 
wounded than himself, was brought down also, he immediately for- 
bade all farther attention being paid him, saying that he feared his own 
case was a desperate one, and positively insisted they should proceed 
to take proper care of the man” (see Charnock, Biographia N avails, 
vol. vi. p. 400). 

2 About the Ourry family, see Miscell. Gencal. et Herald., third 
series, vol. v. pp. 12-16. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 45 

1756, when Byng withdrew before the French fleet. In 
1749 Ourry married Charity, daughter of George Treby, 
M.P., 1 whose family had electoral influence at Plympton 
in Devonshire ; the chief interest in that borough was, 
however, with the Edgcumbes, who, like the Boscawens, 
blended Parliamentary interests and naval service into 
one harmonious whole. Plympton formed henceforth an 
interesting link between P. H. Ourry and his commanding 
officer, Commodore George Edgcumbe. 

On March 24, 1754, Isaac Ourry wrote to his brother 
Lewis about the cordial reception he had from Lord 
Edgcumbe and his brother, the Commodore, and the general 
promises they gave him “ of serving the family in anything 
in their power ” : 

They are very f uU of business at present to carry some necessary 
point to strengthen their interest in regard to some boroughs in 
disputes since the last election [primarily St. Michael in Cornwall] 
and to optain some favours and places for their familly and borough 
friends, after which I am very well persuaded they will have a regard 
to yours when any thing offers they can serve you in. . . . Just after 
an elextion representatives have many friends to return obligations 
to, which must have the preference to any other person. . . . 2 

And again from Spithead on April 7, 1755 : 

The contested elextion of St. Michell is determin’d in favour of the 
persons they had put up, they are now on the scent to gett a better 
place for the Sq. and the Comd. [Commodore Edgcumbe] con- 
tinu’d in his command with a stronger squadron if possible ; that 
and others of the like nature to strengthen their interest in the 
Government takes up their attention ; it would be a pity to trouble 
them at such time, once they have succeeded they will be better 


1 About the Treby family, see William Cotton, Some Account oj 
the Ancient Borough Town of Plympton St. Maurice, or Plympton Earl 
(1859). 

2 Add. MSS. 21643, f. 3. A collection of family correspondence of 
the Ourrys is preserved in that volume of the Haldimand Papers. 




46 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


able to' serve their friends, but their dependants and such as they 
have obligations to, must be consider’d first. . . , 1 

Paul Henry Ourry had by now spent three years in the 
Mediterranean, whilst his wife looked after his professional 
and political interests ; she wrote to Major Lewis Ourry, 
on June 6, 1755 : 

The death of one of the aldermen at Plympton gives the Edg- 
cumbes an oppertunity of showing their intentions of serveing Mr. 
Ourry, if they do not chuse him, I shall be convinced they are not 
his friends. My brothers’ interest Mr. Ourry is sure of ; but they 
have only two voices, I am not a little anxious on this head, nothing 
like interest in a borough, it carrys every thing ; dont mention this 
to any one, for should Mr. Ourry not succeed 1 should not care to 
have it known that we applyed for it. . . . 

I am very bussy hay making, my farmering goes on well, the 
first field of grass cut in the parish, my little girl and myself have 
had colds but are better. . . . 2 

In 1758 Ourry served in the expedition against 
Cherbourg, in 1761 against Belleisle, in 1762 against 
Martinique. In 1763 the family of Treby became extinct 
in the male line, Charity’s two brothers, who successively 
represented Plympton, having died unmarried, and Captain 
Ourry was now a candidate to their political inheritance 
and also to promotion in his profession. Lord Sandwich, 
at that time Secretary of State, on September 20, 1763, 
wrote to his friend Captain Hervey, R.N. : 

I am very glad to hear you give so good an account of Captain 
Ourry’s political disposition, in consequence of which if he will 
apply to Lord Egmont for a guardship at Plymouth I am well 
assured he will meet with success, and have one of the first ships 
that is commissioned. . . . You may likewise inform Captain 
Ourry that his friendly language has saved him from another in- 
convenience, as there was a candidate ready for Plympton, who 
will now be stopped. . . , 3 

1 Add. MSS. 21643, f. 28. 

3 Sandwich MSS. 


2 Ibid. fi. 34-5. 




AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 


47 


Ourry very soon got a guardship at Portsmouth 1 and 
represented Plympton, 1763-75, when he was made Com- 
missioner of the Dockyard at Portsmouth, a place which 
could not be held with a seat in Parliament. 

The Civil Servants . — It was but very slowly that the 
Civil Service acquired its present corporate structure, 
independence, and aloofness. About 1760 the “ commis ” 
in the office of the Secretaries of State (who would now 
be Permanent Under- Secretaries) and the Secretaries to 
various Government departments were personal dependants 
of the Ministers, but at the same time frequently Members 
of Parliament. Both the dignity and inferiority of the 
chaplain or curate at a big country house attached to their 
persons and position — they had to know a great deal and 
not expect too much, to be qualified to sit at the table of 
their chief and, in most cases, be satisfied with the lowest 
places at it. The question in how far their allegiance was 
due to the person and how far to the office of the Minister 
was not solved as yet, and gave rise to conflicting loyalties 
and to bitter resentments. When in July 1765 the 
Grenville Administration was replaced by that of Rocking- 
ham, Edward Sedgwick, Under-Secretary in the Southern 
Department, wrote to Edward Weston, one of the oldest 
and most experienced civil servants, now in retirement : 

No Undersecretaries are j'et declared, nor I believe, fix’d on in 
either Office. But I understand they will all be new ones. . . . ; 
it is thought improper and disagreeable to give the entire con- 
fidence which Undersecretaries must enjoy, to men who are 
known to be strongly attach’d or greatly obliged to other great 
personages. 2 


1 See J. Charnock, Biographici Navalis, vol. vi. p. 2 66. 

2 July 13, 1765 ; Hist. MSS. Comm., 10th Report, vol. i. ; Weston 
Papers, p. 391. These and the Knox Papers, in Various Collections, 
vol. vi., contain most valuable material for a study of the eighteenth- 
century Civil Service. 



48 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

Tte Secretaries to the Treasury, of whom the senior was 
concerned in the management of the House of Commons, 
almost always retired with their chiefs. When on the fail 
of the Coalition in December 1783, Lord North went into 
opposition, 

of the two former Secretaries of the Treasury, Sir Grey Cooper 
continued to support him invariably; hut Robinson, conceiving 
himself absolved from any obligation to accompany his ancient 
principal through all the consequences of his new political alliances, 
quitted altogether that party. 1 

He managed for George III the general election of 1784 and 
thereby contributed to the political extinction of his former 
chief, which North resented so bitterly that when in 1792, 
on his deathbed, he wanted to do a last Christian deed he 
sent for Robinson and shook hands with him. And yet, 
thinking in present-day terms, we can hardly condemn 
Robinson, who considered that lie served the Crown and not 
the individual Minister ; which, in a meaner way, had been 
also the line taken in 1762 by Philip Carteret Webb, 
Solicitor to the Treasury. Although Hardwicke had raised 
Webb to his position, had supported him in his election 
business at Haslemere (the borough he represented in 
Parliament), and had always been a friend and patron to 
him, Webb openly declared his allegiance to Lord Bute 
at the dinner given in August 1762 by the High Sheriff at 
the Surrey Assizes. Newcastle thus described the scene 
in a letter to Hardwicke on August 1 1 : 

They then sat down, and every body was to name his toast. The 
first toast named was Sir John Evelyn ; 2 that went round quietly. 
Then our friend, Mr. Carteret Webbe named my Lord Bute, upon 
which the whole company at once got up and would not drink it. 
. . . This broke up the company. One Mr. Coates, a very con- 


1 Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, Historical and Posthumous Memoirs, vol. 
iii. p. 236. 

2 Sir John Evelyn* first Baronet, oi Wotton, Surrey. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 


49 


siderable wine - merchant, called out, Who gave that toast 1 or 
proposed that health ? Mr. Webbe replied, He is my master . . . . 1 

But Hardwicke replied on August 21 : 

I don’t wonder at my old friend Webb’s proposing the toast, 
nor blame him fox it. ’Twas natural for the Sollicitor to the 
Treasury to toast the head of it ; and the reason he gave for it— 
he is my master , was a modest one, and took off from any political 
merit in it. 2 

Seats in Parliament made these civil servants to 
some extent politicians ; but to some extent only, for 
again, in judging their actions in the House of Commons, 
one must remember that they were civil servants. The 
Secretaries to the Treasury almost invariably sat in Parlia- 
ment. Of those between 1761 and the fall of Lord North’s 
Government in 1782, .Tames West, Samuel Martin, Jeremiah 
Hyson, Charles Jenkinson, Thomas Whately, Grey Cooper, 
Thomas Bradshaw, and John Robinson, sat in Parliament 
whilst employed at the Treasury ; two only did not — 
William Mellish, who held the office for a fortnight in 
July 1765, and Charles Lowndes, who retained it as long as 
the Rockinghams were in power, but did not stand for 
Parliament till 1768. The Secretaries to the Admiralty, 
John Clevland, senior (1751-63) and Philip Stephens 
(1763-95), all the time combined their tenure of the 
office with a seat in the House. Of the twenty-one men 
who were Under-Secretaries in the Southern and Northern 
Departments between 1761 and 1782, when the office 
was reorganised, eight sat in Parliament whilst employed 
in the Civil Service. 3 

The seat in the House naturally added to the import- 
ance and standing of civil servants, whilst their presence 
in Parliament was useful to their chiefs. In 1 7 58 James 

1 Add. MSS. 32941, f. 207. 2 Ibidm p 32 6. 

3 Robert Wood, Charles Jenkinson, William Burke, Rickard 
Sutton, William Eden, Thomas Whately, Anthony Chamier, and Ben- 
jamin Langlois. 1 

VOL. r 


E 



50 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

West,' when refusing to give up a share of the emoluments 
of his office, produced the following version of the precept 
about the labourer and his hire : “ I hope it is not arrogant 
to say, that in my poor opinion, whoever brings himself into 
Parliament and honestly discharges the duty of the office, 
amply deserves the lawful fees of it. . . 1 Here is a 

short sketch of the lives of two such civil servants : of 
Robert Wood, an able man of a mean type, one of the 
numerous very intelligent but poor Irishmen who swarmed 
in the English political under-world about 1760 ; and of 
John Clevland, a hard-working, hungry Scotsman, who 
acquired unrivalled knowledge of Admiralty matters, and 
thereby rose to a position of considerable importance. 

Robert Wood is remembered chiefly as the Under- 
secretary to whom Lord Granville, when signing on 
his death -bed the Treaty of Paris, quoted an appro- 
priate passage from the Iliad, and against whom John 
Wilkes, in December 1763, obtained a verdict for £1000 
over General Warrants. He first came into prominence 
as one of the most distinguished Homeric scholars of 
his time, and as the explorer of Palmyra and Baalbek. 
When in 1753 the young Duke of Bridgwater set out on his 
grand tour, Wood was chosen as the most appropriate 
companion and guide for him. On their return in 1756, 
Wood was appointed Under-Secretary of State, and in 
1761 was returned by the Duke of Bridgwater for his pocket 
borough of Brackley, which he continued to represent till 
his death in 1771. Walpole in his Memoirs of George 111 
says that “ his general behaviour was decent as became his 
dependent situation ”, but in 1769 accusations were raised 
against him that while Under-Secretary of State he dabbled 
in stocks, a thing deprecated even in an age which was 
not squeamish about “finance” in politics; and when it 
was rumoured that he was to go out as secretary to 
the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Irish gentlemen 

1 See p. 491. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 


51 


objected to his “ mean birth, to his public and private 
character ”. 1 

John Cle viand, whose father had been a naval officer • 
and subsequently an Admiralty official, 2 became in 1751 
its first secretary; he sat in Parliament 1741-43, and 
from 1747 till his death in 1763. His record is summed 
up in a Memorial which, some time in 1762, he addressed 
to the King ; 3 it should be noted that he nowhere mentions 
his service in Parliament and the votes which he naturally 
gave in favour of the Government — these were taken for 
granted : 

Memorial of Mr. Cle viand, Secretary of the Admiralty. 

That he has been near forty years in the naval service, in the 
several stations of a Chief Clerk in the Navy Office, Clerk of the 
Cheque and Muster Master at Plymouth, Commissioner of the Navy, 
and Secretary of the Admiralty. 

That he was the active Commissioner of the Navy in the former 
Spanish war, and some time after the commencement of that with 
France, Mr. Corbett, then Secretary of the Admiralty being very 
infirm, and frequently incapable of his duty, Mr. Clevland was made 
Joint Secretary with him, and carried on the business ’till the peace 
in 1748. 

That the extensive and arduous operations of the present war 
have brought such an increase of business on the office of Secretary 
of the Admiralty, that Mr. Cle viand’ s health and eyesight is greatly 
impared by incesant application to the faithful discharge of his 
trust, which he flatters himself to have done to the satisfaction of 
bis superiors, and will not fail in his endeavours to continue the 
same whilst his health will permit. 

But having a wife and great number of children, is very 


1 W. S. Hamilton to J. H. Hutchinson, December 2, 1769 ; Hist. 
MSS. Comm., Eighth Report, Emly Papers, p. 191. I have used in 
this sketch the very good article on Robert Wood contributed by 
Mr. W. P. Courtney to the D.N.B. 

2 For the Clevland family see Burke, Landed Gentry (1894), under 
“ Christie of Glyndebourne 

3 Add. MSS. 32945 f. 449 : no date. 



52 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

anxious to make some better provision for them than his own 
fortune will allow of after his death. 

Therefore most ardently implores His Majesty, in consideration 
of his long and faithful services, to grant to Mrs. Clevland such 
pension as shall be thought proper, upon the Irish or any other 
establishment, which provision for his family will add greatly to 
his happiness, and be the means of prolonging a life entirely devoted 
to the publick . 1 

Clevland's Memorial is certainly that of a humble and 
hard-working civil servant ; but there should be no mistake 
about it, he was a man of considerable importance. On the 
death of Lord Anson, in June 1762, Newcastle, anxious to 
retain some channel for soliciting jobs at the Admiralty, 
courted Clevland's friendship. “ I beg we may continue 
the same friendship ”, he wrote from Claremont on June 7 ; 
“ and that you would now and then come and take a dinner 
with us here ; nobody can be more welcome ”. 2 Lord 

1 Meantime his eldest son, John Clevland, junior (M.P. for Barn- 
staple, 1766-1802), had already some provision ; in the Court and City 
Kalendar for 1761 he appears as a clerk at the Admiralty (£100), Deputy 
Judge Advocate of the Admiralty (£146 p.a.), Agent for the Marines, 
and one of the Commissioners for the Sale- of Prizes, but it is not certain 
that even this exhausts the list of his employments or sinecures. John 
Clevland, sen., as Secretary to the Admiralty, had £800 p.a. I do not 
know of any sinecures or pensions held by him, but can hardly doubt 
his having had some. Anyhow, he enjoyed the advantage usually 
derived from being connected with the Government — his name fre- 
quently occurs among underwriters to Government loans. Thus in a 
loan anticipating the land tax for 1746, Sampson Gideon, the famous 
financier, signed for him for £2000 (R.Q., T. 1/319); in 1760 he was 
billeted for £10,000 on Amyand’s list of subscribers to the war loan 
(Add. MSS. 32901, f. 242). In 1762 his eldest son subscribed £10,000 
(Add. MSS. 33040, f. 290). In all probability, these were “ stagging ” 
operations rather than bona fide subscriptions. 

2 Add. MSS. 32939, f. 205. This was not a new attention, born of 
need ; see, e.g., Clevland’s letter to Newcastle, March 22, 1759 : “ I 
am very sorry, I cannot have the honour of waiting upon your Grace 
at dinner, Mr. Boscawen dining with me . . .” (Add. MSS. 32899, f. 
37). 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 53 

Halifax succeeded Anson at the Admiralty, and Clevland 
wrote to Newcastle on June 16 : 

Lord Halifax . . . has doDe me the honor to call upon me, and 
given me the strongest assurances of his friendship, and desired I 
would be upon the same footing with him as I was with Lord Anson. 1 

Newcastle replied the same day : 

I am heartily glad of it, upon your account, and indeed upon 
my own ; for, I dare say, he will receive most favorably any appli- 
cations you shall make to him in behalf of my friends. 2 

And on June 17, Hardwicke wrote to Newcastle about 
Halifax : 

His Lordship has certainly parts and activity, and I wish him 
success. The most prudent part is that I am told before he ac- 
cepted, he took care to be assur'd from Clevland that he would 
continue Secretary during the war. 3 

The Lawyers . — The legal profession was the most 
democratic of all those concerned with matters of State ; 
for there naturally was no way of rising at the Bar except 
by ability and hard work, and seldom, if ever, were men 
raised to the Woolsack or the Bench who had not distin- 
guished themselves at the Bar. And as the path of law was 
hard walking it was left mostly to the feet of the poor and 
the steps of the needy, to younger sons or men of small 
origin. “ There are very few”, wrote Addison about the 
Inns of Court, “ that make themselves considerable pro- 
ficients in the studies of the place, who know they shall 
arrive at great estates without them”. Many a Lord 
Chancellor or Lord Chief Justice was a man of no family, 
but not even the stupidest lordling would ever have dared 
to taunt a Lord Chancellor with plebeian extraction. 

The connexion between the courts of law and the High 
Court of Parliament is so obvious that it is hardly necessary 

1 Add. MSS. 32939, f. 367.* 


2 Ibid. f. 374. 


3 ibid. f. 384. 



54 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

to enlarge upon it. They are akin in origin, in methods, to 
some extent even in the business they transact ; and some 
of the qualities most required are the same in both. More- 
over, in the eighteenth century, Parliamentary politics 
were transacted, to a disastrous extent, in terms of juris- 
prudence. When the repeal of the Stamp Act came before 
Parliament much attention was paid to abstract rights, and 
the discussion consequently turned at least as much on legal 
rules and precedents as on policy — what did the Charters 
lay down on the point ? had Parliament taxed Durham 
or Calais before they were represented ? did the Post 
Office Act of New York form a precedent for taxing the 
Colonies ? etc. And on March 15, 1782, in the eighteenth 
year of the American disputes, when the vote of non- 
confidence was moved against Lord North’s Government, 
Sir James Marriott, a Judge of the Admiralty, “ defended 
the American war on the just ground that taxation and 
representation should go hand in hand ; and added, to the 
diversion of the whole House, that America was represented 
by the Members of the county of Kent ”. 1 Eighteenth- 
century Anglo-Saxons thought that one could go into the 
law courts against nations, and in one county of Massa- 
chusetts the revolution was started with the grand jury 
indicting the British Parliament as a public nuisance. 

Debates and business in Parliament being of an 
eminently legal character, “ the gentlemen of the long 
robe ” were welcome in the House, whilst to them it offered 
distinct advantages. Most of the highest honours of the 

1 Gentleman's Magazine, 1782, p. 164. This of course because all 
land in America was held in the Manor of East Greenwich. James 
Marriott, a Fellow and ultimately Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 
was a prolific writer who composed innumerable and inordinately 
long letters, political tracts, legal discourses, and love poems to Hetty 
Thrale and the Duke of Newcastle. By obsequiousness to the great, 
he managed to obtain, the Fellowship, rather against the inclination 
of the College, and by twenty years of further endeavours, managed to 
get himself into Parliament. He was knighted in 1778. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 


55 


profession were, as they are even now, usually reached 
through the House of Commons. But even certain material 
advantages of an inferior character could best be attained 
through it : the legal places of profit under the Crown 
which were open to Members of Parliament were much 
more numerous than they are now ; e.g. the Attorney ari( q 
Solicitor-General to the Queen, the Solicitor to the Treasur 
the Counsels to the Board of Trade, Admiralty, and other 
Government departments, more frequently than not Were 
Members of Parliament. Moreover, the places of the eiahf 
Justices for Chester and Wales and of the Admiral + 
Judges were tenable with seats in Parliament, and Par]j a 
mentary considerations to some extent entered into their 
choice. Thus, in September 1756, on a vacancy i n ^ 
office of Second Justice of Chester, James West (himself 
a barrister) wrote to Newcastle : 

I hope your Grace will insist on regarding the House of Comm 
in the Justiceship of Chester. Probably Mr. Bankes would gf Ve 8 
nomination for Corfe Castle for it, or Mr. Bond would be effectu 11 6 
secured by it. Moreton would be glad of it from the Oxford Cfi 
Or some other Welch Judge’s place if removed would serve y 0 n 
and less aspiring men. I am not clear that Martyn would not • 
his old friend and Parliament for it. 1 

1 Add, MBS, 32867, f, 4J-2,— Henry Bashes, sst / 0r ^ 

Castle from 1741 till November 1762, whea he was made a Com ' & 
Bioner of Customs, and the hereditary seat of his family \y as 
the disposal of the Government. The Bond family nominated to 
other seat at Corfe Castle, and John Bond sat for it himself j 1747 fi° 
and 1764-80. John Morton (this i3 the correct spelling of the nam> * 
he should not be confused with Sir William Moreton, Recorder fo r 
City of London) was Member for Abingdon and was made Chief T, 6 
for Chester in November 1762. The “Martyn” mentioned abo^ ^ 
undoubtedly Samuel Martin, subsequently Joint Secretary 
Treasury ; at that time he was attached to Leicester House and p ^ 
West seems to have been under the impression that the Justice^ ’ 
Chester was not tenable with a seat in the House ; if so, he \y a3 w ^ 
e.g. John Morton, M.P. 1747-70 and 1775-80, was Chief ’ 

Chester, 1762-80. ' Ce of 



56 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


And Hardwicke wrote to Newcastle on October 10 that 
Lord Feversham was pressing for the Justiceship to be given 
to James Hayes, M.P. for Downton ; Feversham claimed 
to have returned c ‘ more Members at his own expence than 
almost any private man, without advantage to himself ’V 
It was finally given to Taylor White, a brother of John 
White, M.P. 

Lastly, what tended to increase the number of lawyers 
in the House was that the Recorders of Parliamentary 
boroughs, who were usually chosen from among the 
leading barristers of the circuit, had a considerable 
influence, especially in corporation boroughs, and often 
finished by having themselves returned to Parliament. 

It is exceedingly difficult to say, at this distance of time, 
how many of the barristers who were returned to Parliament 
in 1761 were at that date “ practising lawyers In 1754, 
Hardwicke — and no one could know it better — put their 
number at 36 ; 1 2 it is not clear, however, whether he 
included, e.g Welsh or Admiralty judges among them. 
My own calculations for 1761, in which I include such 
judges, yield a slightly higher figure ; about 40 will prob- 
ably be as accurate an estimate as I can attempt. 


Contracts, Remittances, and Loans : The 
Merchants and Bankers 

John Douglas, D.D., the political scribe of Lord Bath, 
wrote on the eve of the general election of 1761 : 

If our House of Commons is to be filled with men who are in 
trade, and who get themselves elected, only to be in the way of their 
trade ; the contracts, the jobs, the subscriptions, the loans, the 
remittances &c., &c., with which a Minister can benefit them, are 

1 Add. MSS. 32868, ff. 122-23. 

8 “ Abstract of the I^st divided into Classes ” ; Add. MSS. 35876, 
f. 1. 




AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III . 57 


such a temptation to them, to assist in involving the nation in danger- 
ous projects, and ruinous expence, that I know not whether we have 
most reason to dread a majority of greedy stock-holders, or of in- 
digent placemen, for our representatives. 1 

Professor Werner Sombart, in bis brilliant studies on the 
origins of modern capitalism, 2 points to luxury trades and 
Government contracts as the two factors responsible for its 
growth prior to the “ industrial revolution The subject 
is too vast to be discussed here — I propose to deal with it 
in a different connexion. So much, however, is certain, 
that although Professor Sombart’s generalisations seem too 
sweeping (the brewers were among the earliest capitalists 
in England, and capitalists would have arisen in the metal 
trades even without armaments), 3 his thesis is fundament- 
ally correct. By means of taxation and Government loans, 
agglomerations of capital were effected such as could not 

1 Seasonable Hints from an Honest Man on the -present important 
Crisis of a new Reign, and a new Parliament, p. 46. The pamphlet 
was published anonymously ; a MS. note in the British Museum gives 
the (late of publication as March 16, 1761, and this seems borne out by 
extracts from the pamphlet having appeared in the London Chronicle 
between March 17 and 26. 

2 Luxus und Kapitalismus and Krieg und Kapilalismus. 

3 See, e.g., H. S. Grazebrook, “ The Origin of the Foley Family,” in 
Marshall’s Genealogist, vol. vi. (1882) pp. 117-22 ; the rise of their 
fortune is ascribed to Foley (or Brindley) having obtained from the 
Continent a method “ for slitting iron into rods for the purpose of 
making nails ”. Also, from the account in Hutchinson’s History 
of Durham (1787), vol. ii. pp. 441-3, it appears that in Ambrose 
Crowley’s works at Swalwell the objects manufactured were not con- 
nected with armaments : “ the principal part of the inhabitants are 
employed in iron works, but in the most massive articles, as ship 
anchors ; they make hoes and shovels, and cast pots, kettles, and other 
domestic utensils”. To some branches of the metal trade war seemed, 
in fact, prejudicial ; see, e.g., the letter from Henry Bowdler to John 
Douglas, D.D., dated April 2, 1760, inquiring what chance there 
was of peace as he had several lead mines and a share in two srnelt- 
houses, and trade was bad owing to the war but was; expected to improve 
on conclusion of peace (MS. Top. Salop, c. 3, in the Bodleian at Oxford). 



58 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

easily have arisen in private trade. The Paymasters of 
the Forces, of the Navy, and the Ordnance, held balances 
which were of the first importance in the money market ; 
remittances of subsidies to allied countries or of money for 
the use of troops on foreign or colonial service were among 
the most coveted plums of finance ; even receiverships of 
the land-tax were much sought after by provincial 
merchants and bankers as providing them with deposits 
of public money, when private deposits and savings were 
as yet insignificant. 1 On the other hand, the underwriting 
of Government loans was the chief financial transaction 
in an age when joint -stock companies were few and 
“ Government stock ” was the main object of speculation 
in the Alley. 

Again, in trade, the only vast contracts for ordinary 
supplies and necessaries of life were those connected with 
the arming, victualling, and clothing of the army and navy. 
Cloth factors and grain merchants, ironmasters and timber 
dealers, pulled every possible wire to obtain Government 
orders. Merchants trading to America and the West 
Indies would undertake the victualling and payment of 
British regiments in the Colonies. The Portugal and 
Spanish merchants, 2 whatever their own particular trade 
— the export of cloth or fish, the import of wine, etc. — 
scrambled to get the contracts for the garrisons of Gibraltar 
and Minorca, for regiments serving in the Peninsula, 

1 See, e.g., Martin Dunsford, Historical Memoirs of Tiverton, p. 
246, about the way in which the receivership of the land-tax in the 
hands of a merchant gave him a financial superiority over his com- 
petitors. See also letter from Sir George Smith, Bart., to the Duke of 
Newcastle, Nottingham, November 20, 1757 (Add. MSS. 32876, f. 41), 
written on bis separating in business from hiB brother Abel Smith, and 
asking the Duke to direct that “ the land tax and excise money be 
returned by me and not by my brother Abel, that so the Government 
may not have their money made use of against themselves ”. 

2 A Spanish merchant in eighteenth-century parlance means, of 
course, a British tfierchant trading to Spain. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 59 


etc. 1 Subsidies to various German States, the commissariat 
of the British armies fighting in Germany and remittances 
of money for their use, opened a rich field for British mer- 
chants in the Dutch and Hamburg trade. 2 In short, most 
merchants trading to foreign parts knew of some convenient 
sector in the far-flung battle line ” and eagerly solicited 
contracts for/under “ palm and pine ”. Fortunes were 
made and the greatness of families founded in army 
magazines and bread waggons. Defoe remarks in his 
treatise on The Complete English Tradesman, published in 
1726, that not so many of the families of the English gentry 

have rais'd themselves by the sword as in other nations, though we 
have not been without men of fame in the field too . . . yet how 
many more families among the tradesmen have been rais’d to im- 
mense estates even during the same time, by the attending cir- 
cumstances of the war ? Such as cloathing, the paying, victualling, 
and furnishing, etc., both army and navy. . . . 3 

The Government contracts were usually held with a seat ill 
the House of Commons, whilst baronetcies, the crest ovel 

1 Their trade seems to have yielded as a rule considerable balances ; 
e.g. some time in 1767 or 1768, Captain Cornwallis was ordered by 
Commodore Spry to proceed to Cadiz, on account of “ merchants of 
the British factory at Cadiz requiring a ship to convoy the balance of 
their trade to their correspondents in England ”, and to take on board 
of his own ship “ all such remittances of cash and jewels as the merchants 
of the factory shall desire ” (see G. Cornwallis- West, The Life and Letters 
of Admiral Cornwallis, p. 39). But if these merchants could place their 
surplus cash at the service of the Government they made an extra 
profit on it ; see, e.g., fees charged to the Treasury in 1767 by Messrs. 
Mayne, Burne, & Mayne for money “ furnished by them for the use of 
the forces serving in Portugal ” ; Add. MSS. 38340, ff. 36-9. 

2 The size of those remittances and the profits on them can be 

gauged from the following example : The remittances made for the 
Treasury by John Gore, M.P., to Holland, Germany, Austria, and 
Piedmont, during the years 1741-51 amounted to a total of £5,046,169 
(see Add. MSS. 33038, ff. 243-4) ; and the fees on such remittances in 
war-time varied from 5 to 15 per cent, much ef this going, of course, 
for insurance. 3 Pp.,377-8. 



60 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

the profits, had invariably to be gained by service in the 
House ; and a generation or two later, provided the money 
was preserved, the trade discontinued, and a seat in the 
House retained, a coronet was within the reach of the 
children or grandchildren of the successful Government 
contractors. 

It is important, however, to guard against over-stating 
the connexion between Government contracts and member- 
ship of the House of Commons, very close as it was. When 
in war-time sums had to be raised, enormous for eighteenth- 
century resources and ideas, those best able to take up or 
place the loans had to be approached or considered, regard- 
less of the House of Commons. In remittances, where even 
a small reduction in terms made a very considerable 
difference, the public interest could not be altogether 
subordinated to Parliamentary considerations, especially 
as Pitt and his country gentlemen were not slow in de- 
nouncing flagrant jobberies. In the correspondence which 
passed between H. B. Legge, the Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer, and the Duke of Newcastle in July 1758 con- 
cerning remittances to Germany, 1 the question of the most 
favourable terms to be obtained for the public and of not 
disobliging “ the principal money’d men in the City ” 
whose assistance would be required in the raising of loans, 
were alone considered, and Parliamentary considerations 
were not mentioned. Similarly in very special lines 
political calculations had to be sacrificed to efficiency ; 
thus, e.g., Thornton, the biggest English bunker connected 
with Russia, was able to keep the remittances to that 
country entirely in his own hands and refuse all share in 
them to Joseph Mellish, a son-in-law of John Gore, M.P., 
and Thomas Walpole, M.P., who both applied to be admitted 
into these contracts. 2 Even some of the victualling and 
clothing contracts were held by men who did not sit in 

1 Add. MSS. 32881, ff. 215-16, 327-8, and 331-2. 

2 Add. MSS. 32861, ff. 157, 175-7, and 208. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 61 

the House. But as the biggest merchants and financiers, 
aiming at social advancement, desired seats in the House 
and were best able to acquire them, and as only the biggest 
capitalists Could undertake, or be trusted with, contracts 
of the first magnitude, this alone, apart from Parliamentary 
considerations, would have resulted in the same business 
men being Members of Parliament and Government con- 
tractors. And where the difference in the terms offered 
was not excessive, naturally Members of Parliament had by 
far the better chance, which was one reason why merchants 
who were out for contracts tried to enter it. 1 In 1761, 
fifty or fifty-one merchants 2 were returned to Parliament, 
and of these at least thirty-seven can be proved to have had 
extensive business dealings with the Government. When 

1 Even for minor contracts, political “ recommendations ” were 
required ; the following letter addressed to Newcastle by Bridger, his 
election agent at New Shoreham, on August 24, 1756, supplies a good 
example : 

I am deeply concern’d in a ship that trades to Jamaica, and 
have for two year past carry’d Government stores, last year by 
the interest of Mr. Legg [H. B. Leggc, Chancellor of the Exchequer], 
the year before Lord Delawar wrote to his cousin Mostyn [M.P. for 
Weobly, Comptroller of the Navy since 1749] for us. 

It is a matter of indifference to the Navy Board, but they always 
expect a recommendation, otherwise they will give no attention 
to an application from the captain or owners (Add. MSS. 32867, ff. 
40-41). 

2 I am not absolutely certain whether T. P. Byde, M.P. for Herts, 
whose notorious speculations rendered him bankrupt in 1778, was 
in trade in 1761. — “Merchants” in the eighteenth century meant 
business men, and the term was as wide as “ trade ” is even now ; 
bankers and manufacturers were included in it. I do not, however, 
include colonial or regimental agents, such as James Abercromby. M.P. 
for Clackmannanshire ; nor country gentlemen who owned mines or 
even iron works but clearly did not belong to the business community 
of the City, such as Capel Hanbury, M.P. for Monmouthshire, the 
owner of the Pontypridd works, Herbert Mackworth, M.P. for 
Cardiff, and a mine-owner in South Wales, or Edward Montagu, M.P. 
for Huntingdon, who developed a coal mine on his Denton estate in 
Yorkshire. 



62 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

in 1758, on the death of Peter Burrell, sen., the question 
arose of the succession to his contracts for some regiments 
at Gibraltar, Sir Joshua Vanneck asked for them on behalf 
of his son-in-law Thomas Walpole and his partners, the 
two Fonnereaus and John Bristowe, all four Members of 
Parliament ; he concluded his letter to Newcastle with 
this warning : 

. . . your Grace will no doubt consider the inconvenience that 
may arise from disobliging, in this critical juncture, four gentlemen 
Members [of Parliament] of independent fortunes, and with them 
their relations and friends. 1 

Whilst Newcastle thus explained his view of the matter to 
Hardwicke : “ As to the equity, my brother [Henry Pelham] 
thought four regiments were sufficient for four Members of 
Parliament ”. 2 

The Government itself encouraged merchants to 
undertake constituencies which were too costly for the 
ordinary run of candidates, and used contracts to indemnify 
them for their election expenditure ; in fact, these men 
were kept in reserve for such occasions. Thus before the 
general election of 1754, Henry Pelham, when trying to 
induce Robert Neale to contest both seats at Wootton 
Bassett, a difficult and expensive constituency, told him 
that if he could not get a country gentleman, a merchant 
would be found to join him. 3 Chauncy Townsend, M.P., 
who had started as a linen - draper 4 but subsequently 
developed into a general merchant, victualling contractor, 
mine-owner, etc., having in a letter to James West, on 
June 26, 1754, enumerated the services he had rendered to 
Administration in elections at a cost to himself of £6000, 

1 See my article on “ Brice Fisher, M.P.,” in the English Historical 
Review , October 1927, pp. 525-6. 

2 Ibid. p. 526. 

3 Robert Neale to the Duke of Newcastle, February 15, 1755 ; 
Add. MSS. 32852, f. 481. 

4 See Kent’s London Directory for 1738, 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 63 

explained with regard to the reward he expected : “ Mony 
support I ailways declined when hinted — half Gibraltar 
was my object ”} Vanneck, in his letter to Newcastle on 
August 9, 1756, stated that his son-in-law Thomas Walpole, 
having been admitted by Henry Pelham to “ the present 
contract for Gibraltar . . . thought himself obliged to 
undertake a very costly election ” (at Sudbury in Suffolk) 
and complained of the Duke now introducing a new partner 
into it, when Thomas Walpole was “ scarce repaid of his 
expense by the contract ”. 2 And when in December 1762 
the Fonnereaus, who held three seats in the House, were on 
the point of deserting Newcastle for Bute, and Newcastle 
reminded Zachary Fonnereau of the assurances he had 
given, 

r he owned very plainly that it was interest ; that he had a family ; 
his brother and he had spent thirty thousand pounds in elections ; 
that he had got but little from my brother and me, and that he must 
look out to his interest. I suppose, his price is some valuable 
remittances to Minorca etc. ; when a man knows himself that he is 
bought, one has nothing to say to him. 3 

Newcastle was mistaken in his supposition concerning 
Fonnereaus “ price ” — the contract for Minorca was given 
to George Amyand, M.P. for Barnstaple, and Nicholas 
Linwood, M.P. for Stockbridge, whilst the reward of the 
Fonnereaus, besides being left in their own contracts, was a 
share of that which Thomas Walpole had held at Gibraltar 
and from which he was removed in the proscription of 
Newcastle’s friends, carried through by Bute and Fox at 
the end of 1762. For contracts were the “ places ” of 

1 Add. MSS. 32735, f. 573. “ Half Gibraltar ” moans, of course, 

half of the contracts for its garrison ; he added that with Pelham “ I 
had more merrett than all the Gibraltar people together ” ; i.e. the 
merchants holding the Gibraltar contracts. 

2 See my essay on “ Brice Fisher, M.P.,’" in the English Historical 
Review, October 1927, p. 525. 

3 The Duke of Newcastle to Thomas Walpole, December 17, 1762 ; 
Add. MSS, 32945, 2. 301-2. 



64 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


merchants ; with one lonely exception I have not found 
any of them, between 1761 and 1784, in a political or Court 
office 1 — most of them entered Parliament too late in life to 
aspire to a distinguished political career, and were moreover 
too profitably employed in their own trade to undertake a 
long apprenticeship in administrative places, whilst even 
the fattest sinecure could not equal the profits to be 
derived from contracts. 

The following contractors appear in Newcastle’s “ Lists 
of Officers removed in the years 1762 and 1763, whose 
appointments arise in the Treasury ” (the names in the 
right-hand column denote the men who were given their 
places) : 2 


Sept. 10, 1762. Joseph Mellish 
Tho. Walpole 


(Remitters to\ _ . 

l Germany / Pe «g«ne Oust. 


Germany 

Nov. 15, 1763. Sir Geo. Colebrooke f Contractorsand ) g ir Sami. Fludy, 

7 remitters for ' 

North America 


Arnold Neabitt 


Jbir baml. JUudyer. 
J Adam Drummond. 


Sept. 2, 1763. Thomas Walpole 


Contractor lor 
Gibraltar with 
Messrs. Burrell 
and Fonnereau 


Messrs. Burrell 
and Fonnereau 
remain in this 
contract. 


1 A few held, however, offices of a business character ; e.g. Abraham 
Hume was, for a few years during the Seven Years’ War, Commissary- 
General of Stores (£3 a day) ; Peter Burrell, jun., was at one time 
Deputy-Paymaster of the Forces, etc. The one who held Court office 
was George Rene Aufrere, M.P. for Stamford, 1765-1774, married to a 
cousin of the Earl of Exeter ; his grandfather, a Huguenot, in 1683 
fled from France to Holland and in 1700 came over to England with 
his son, the Rev. Israel Aufrere, George Rene’s father. In France they 
had been Marquises de Colville, but they dropped the title on settling 
in England. G. R. Aufrere was for some time a Groom of the 
Bedchamber to George III (see on the family Agnew, Protestant Exiles 
from France, third edition (1886), vol. ii. pp. 334-7 and 3911. 

2 Add. MSS. 33001, ff. 23-4. Every single man in this table was a 
Member of Parliament. For the removal of Thomas "Walpole, see 
also correspondence between him and Newcastle, Add. MSS. 32946, 
ff. 17, 19, and 49-50. 




AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 65 

A paper in the Liverpool MSS. at the British Museum 
on the “ State of the several subsisting contracts for 
supplying His Majesty’s forces serving abroad with pro- 
visions and for the remittance of their pay ”, drawn up in 
1764, compares the terms of the contracts made by the 
former Treasury with those “ made by the present Treasury 
Boards ”. 1 We can derive from it the names of the 
Government contractors for America, the West Indies, and 
the western coast of Africa ; under Newcastle they were : 
James and George Colebrooke, Nesbitt & Franks, Chauncy 
Townsend, M. Woodford, the two elder Fonnereaus, 
Walpole and Burrell, Bristowe, Thomlinson and Hanbury, 
to which may be added Baker and Kilby, not mentioned 
in that paper. Eleven of these fifteen merchants were 
Members of Parliament, whilst of the remaining four, 
Moses Franks and Kilby were Americans working for 
their partners the American end of the business; Hanbury 
was a rich Quaker who had been prominent on the Govern- 
ment side in the Bristol election of 1754; whilst Woodford 
held one of the smallest among these contracts. In 1764 
the contractors were Fludyer, Drummond & Franks, 
Fometeau & Burrell, Cumming &Mason, Major & Heuuiker, 
Amyand & Linwood, Jones & Cust, Bacon & Lewis, whilst 
contracts with Chauncy Townsend, M. Woodford, and 
Thomlinson, Colebrooke, Nesbitt & Hanbury, concluded 
by the previous Administration, were still running. Of the 
twenty - one merchants here mentioned, sixteen were 
Members of Parliament (only Franks, Cumming, Mason, 
Woodford, and Hanbury were not). 

1 Add. MSS. 38338, ff. 109-11. This paper naturally does not 
mention any of the contracts which were in existence in 1761 for 
the troops and subsidies in Germany, as none of these continued in 
1764, and the aim of the paper is a comparison between the terms of 
existing and previous contracts. A complete list of contractors could 
be compiled from tbe minute-books of the Treasury, Admiralty, 
War Office, Ordnance, etc., preserved in the Record Office, but the 
paper quoted above will suffice as illustration. 

VOL. T 



66 THE STRUCTURE OE POLITICS 

On the formation of the Rockingham Government, Sir 
George Colebrooke, who had remained faithful to Newcastle 
and had suffered for it, wrote to him on July 15, 1765 : 

As you did me the honour, to put the question to me yesterday 
at Claremont, if there was anything, upon this change of Ministry, 
which occurred to me to have, permit me, my Lord, in a few words 
to state to your Grace, how the matter of the contracts stands, in 
which I was engaged with the Treasury, before Mr. Grenville gave 
me notice to quit. 

There were then two contracts ; one for the remittance of money 
for the use of the troops in North America with Messrs. Thomlinson, 
Nesbit & Hanbury ; the other for victualling those troops with 
Messrs. Nesbit & Franks. 

The former expired a few months ago. . . . 

The contract for victualling was given by Mr. Grenville to Sir 
Sami. Fludycr, Mr. Drummond, and Mr. Franks— The two former 
had signed a contract for Pensicola, but they gave up that to Mr. 
Henniker, in order to come into the places of Mr. Nesbit and myself. 1 

Now, my Lord, you will be pleased to observe, that Drummond 
is brother in law to the D. of Bolton and tho’ Sir Sami. Fludyer has 
no pretensions to be well considered by the present Administration, 
yet Mr. Drummond, I doubt not, will have the protection of the 
noble Duke abovementioned, who will expect to see him con- 
tinued in this thing, or that he shoud be considered in something 
else. 

Tbiw, J3?7 ioxd, Jt ss to the ca&frscis, jj? whirl! J 

engaged before the coming in of the late Ministry ; and it was for 
these difficulties, as well as for the consideration of the long warning, 
which is requisite to make void the present agreements, that in- 
duced to give your Grace the answer I did to your very obliging 
offer, “ That I did not know what to say as to the business of con- 
tracts 

He concluded by asking for something consistent with his 
“ walk in life ” as a banker, and with the engagements 
which the Government had to other people, 2 

1 Colebrooke, Thomlinson jun., Nesbitt, Fludyer, Drummond, and 
Henniker were all Members of Parliament. 

2 Add. MSS. 32967, ff . 434-6. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 67 

I take next the Government financiers — who were 
they ? A list of them for 1759-60 can be compiled by 
taking the names of those whose advice Newcastle, as 
First Lord of the Treasury, sought in the severe financial 
crisis of .1759, and from the list of the underwriters to 
the £8,000,000 loan which was floated at the end of the 
year. 

A series of papers drawn up by Newcastle and letters 
written by him between January and April 1759, testify to 
the intense anxiety he felt at the drain of specie from the 
Bank and the country, and “the impossibility of going on 
in this way On April 18, 1759, he wrote from Clare- 
mont : 

I have order’d Mr. West, and shall do it myself , when I come to 
town next week, to talk to the most knowing people in the City, vizt. 
Mr. Gideon, Alderman Baker, Sir Jos. Vanneck, Mr. Bristowe of 
the S.S. [South Sea] Company, Mr. J. Gore, Mr. Martin, and Mr. 
Amy and, upon the present state of credit, and the surprising fall of 
the stocks. 1 2 

And on August 4, 1759, he complained to his late secretary, 
Andrew Stone : 

I saw yesterday the Governor [Merrick Burrell] and Dep. 
Governor of the Bank [Bartholomew Burton], Sir Joshua 
vanneck, i?ir. Joseph. J/eilYsh, jJfr. uore 's partner, Amyancf, 
Magens, and Gashry ; and I find we shall have the greatest 
difficulty to borrow any considerable sum upon the Vote of 
Credit. . . . 3 

He directed, therefore, West 

. . . to consider of proper persons, vizt. : Sir J. Vanneck, 
Mr. Gore, Mr. Bristowe, Ald n Baker, Mr. Thornton, Mr. Gideon, 


1 See Newcastle’s Memorandum of February 28, 1759 ; Add. MSS. 
32888, f. 275. 

2 Add. MSS. 32890, f. 125. 

3 Add. MSS. 32893, f. 481. 



68 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

etc., to be turning their thoughts for raising the money the 
next year. 1 

The negotiations for the loan were successfully con- 
cluded in December ; and, on the 12th, Newcastle wrote 
in reply to a request from Lord Bath to be allotted 
£30,000 : 

The sum to be raised this year . . . {viz. eight millions) was so 
great, that I found it absolutely necessary to agree for it with the 
principal and most responsible men in the City. ... It is not now 
in my power to oblige them to lessen the sums they have agreed 
for. If your Lordship had sent me your commands last week, 
I should have taken care that they should have been complied 
with. . . . 2 

The following list 3 gives the names of these “ principal 
and most responsible men in the City ” and the sums 
underwritten by them : 


1 “ Memorandums for Mr. West ”, September 9, 1759 ; Add. MSS. 
32895, f. 295. 

2 Lord Bath to the Duke of Newcastle, December 11, 3759 ; Add. 

MSS. 32S00, i. 5 the Duke of Newcastle to Lord Bath, Deooraher 
12, f. 16. Allotments for private people Newcastle secured by billeting 
them, on the lists of the principal underwriters. Two such lists are 
preserved among the Newcastle Papers. “ I send your Grace Sir Joshua 
Vanneck’s and Mr. Amyand’s list . . wrote James "West to New- 
castle on December 21, 1759. “ I shewed each of those gentlemen the 

persons your Grace had allotted to them and they were extreamly 
pleased ” (Add. MSS. 32900, f. 383). On Amyand’s list (Add. MSS. 
32903, f. 242) there are thirty-seven names for a total of £264,000, 
leaving £660,000 to his own firm and its customers. Nineteen of the 
people billeted on him were M.P.’s — among others, John Wilkes for 
the sum of £5000. Vanneck’s list (f. 240) contains eighteen persons 
for a total of £200,000, leaving his firm a clear million. His boarders 
include the Duke of Devonshire, the Earls of Lincoln, Ashbumham, 
Hertford, and Vcrney, Lords Falmouth, Luxborough, and Anson, 
Lady Katherine Pelham (widow of Henry Pelham), John Roberts 
(Pelham’s late secretary). Sir Edward Hawke (the Admiral), and a 
few Members of Parliament. 

3 Add. MSS. 32901, f. 238. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 


69 


£ 

The proprietors of Tallies and Orders made out at the 
Exchequer by virtue of an. Act of the last Session of 
Parliament for enabling His Majesty to raise the sum 
of one million for the uses and purposes therein men- 


tioned ...... 


. 1,000,000 

Mr. Burrell for the Bank of England 


466,000 

Mr. Bristow for the South Sea Company . 


330,000 

Mr. Godfrey for the East India Company 


200,000 

Sir Joshua Vanneck & Co. 


. 1,200,000 

Mr. Amyand ..... 


924,000 

Sir James Coiebrooke .... 


480,000 

Mr. Magens ...... 


460,000 

Mr. Touchet ...... 

• » 

420,000 

Mr. Nesbitt ...... 

• • 

350,000 

Mr. Muilman ..... 

• • 

330,000 

Mr. Fonnerean ..... 

> * 

. 250,000 

Mr. Salvadore ..... 

• • 

250,000 

Mr. Martin 

■ « 

250,000 

Mr. Honywood ..... 

• • 

250,000 

Mr. Belchier 

• • 

. 250,000 

Mr. Beckford 

• ■ 

100,000 

Mr. Hart ...... 

• • 

100,000 

Mr. Fox ...... 

• • 

80,000 

Mr. John Ga3peT Ringmachet . 

• » 

. 100,000 

Mr. Edwards 

• » 

50,000 

Mr. Gideon 

• , 

60,000 

Mr. Thornton ..... 

* 

100,000 

8,000,000 


From these sources, checked by other correspondence, 
I select the names of twenty-two leading City men in close 
touch with the Treasury and deeply engaged in Govern- 
ment finance ; 1 the constituencies marked against their 

1 Henry Fox, M.P., Paymaster-General of the Forces, and Francis 
Gashry, M.P., Treasurer and Paymaster of the Ordnance, are omitted, 
as they were not City men and operated with Government money, 
though, of course, at their own risk and to their own advantage ; 
further, I omit W. Belchier, M.P., who became bankrupt in 1760 ; 
William Beck ford, M.P,, because he was not, strictly speaking, a 
financier, but merely, as one of the richest men in the British Empire, 



70 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


names without any dates are those for which they were 
returned at the general election of 1761 : 

George Amyand, M.P. for Barnstaple, Devou. 

William Baker, M.P. for Plympton, Devon. 

John Bristow, M.P. for Arundel, Sussex. 

Merrick Burrell, M.P. for Grampound, Cornwall. 

Bartholomew Burton, M.P. for Camelford, Cornwall, 

Sir Janies Colebrooke, Bart., M.P. for Gatton, Surrey. 

George Colebrooke, M.P. for Arundel, Sussex. 

John Edwards. 

Thomas Fonnereau, M.P. for Sudbury, Suffolk. 

Z. P. Fonnereau, M.P. for Aldborough, Suffolk. 

Sampson Gideon. 

John Gore (M.P. for Grimsby, Lines, 1747-1761). 

Frazer Honywood, M.P. for Steyning, Sussex. 

Nicholas Magens. 

John Martin (M.P. for Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, 1747-54). 

Joseph Mellish, M.P. for Grimsby, Lines. 

Henry Muilman. 

Arnold Nesbitt, M.P. for Cricklade, Wilts. 

Joseph Salvadore. 

John Thornton. 

Samuel Touchet, M.P. for Shaftesbury, Dorset. 

Sir Joshua Vanneck. 

Thus 15 of these 22 men at one time or another sat in 
Parliament, and 13 were returned to it in 1761. Of the 
remaining seven, Gideon and Salvadore as Jews, and 
Vanneck (and probably also Magens) as foreign-born, were 
debarred from it ; but Vanneck’s son-in-law, Thomas 
Walpole, sat in Parliament, and both sons of Vanneck 
(Joshua and Gerald) and the son of Gideon entered it 
subsequently. So did Thornton’s three sons (one of 
whom was Henry Thornton, the friend and collaborator of 
Wilberforce). And Muilman stood in 1761 for Haslemere, 
but was defeated. 

subscribed a sum which placed him among the chief underwriters ; 
and Godfrey, Hart, and Ringmacker, whose names otherwise do not 
appear among the City friends of the Treasury. 


AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 71 

On some occasions the Government would go in search 
of a financial expert for the House of Commons, who 
could support it in debate with his technical knowledge. 
Thus in April 1759, when on a vacancy at Camelford 
Newcastle instructed James West to consider who would 
answer the purpose best, West produced six names, seeking 
among them “ a speaker . . . some bold, spirited man with 
confidence and volubility ”, but sadly concluded that it was 
difficult to find these qualities “ joined to fidelity But, 
except when forced by circumstances, Government did not 
willingly encourage “ the moneyed men ” to enter Parlia- 
ment — in Newcastle’s words, the “ East Indians, West 
Indians, citizens and brokers ... are not very reputable 
and yet very troublesome Members ”. 1 2 

I conclude with a letter written by James West when, 
on the death of Frazer Honywood, a banker and Member 
for Steyning, Newcastle wished a relative of the Duke of 
Portland to succeed him in the borough. On January 31, 
1764, West informs Newcastle that Honywood’ s partner, 
Richard Fuller, will have to be the successor, and the 
reason given — the free postage which this secured for the 
firm — was in all probability one which to many merchants 
with an extensive inland correspondence added considerably 
to the attractions of the House of Commons : 

Mr. West presents his respects to the Duke of Newcastle. He is 
just now informed from Sir W. Baker , 3 that he advised Mr. Fuller 4 

1 See for the text of the letter, pp. 420-21. 2 Sec p. 260. 

3 Alderman Sir William Baker, M.P. for Plympton, 1747-68, a 

friend and adherent of Newcastle’s. 

4 Richard Fuller, M.P. for Steyning, February 9, 1764-68, and for 
Stockbridge, 1768-74, was a son of Joseph Fuller, a Baptist minister. 
His grandfather, a well-known miser, was “ poor Mr. Fuller, who had 
an estate for each of his [six] sons, but nothing for himself ”. Richard's 
brother William, with whom he was at one time in partnership, died “ a 
miser worth £400,000 ”. About them see J. F. Fuller, “ Pedigree of 
FulleT of Blcwbury ”, Miscall. Gen. et Herald., fifth series, vol. i. pp. 81- 
88. They were no relations of the Fullers of Sussex and Jamaica. 



72 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

last night to apply to Sir John Honey wood 1 for his interest at 
Steyning, as Sir John declared that neither he or his son would 
stand, and Mr. Atkins also declining, Sir John has given his interest 
to Mr. Fuller and an express is gone to Steyning to that purpose. 
As the correspondence of the shop is very great, having the draughts 
of the Bristol Bank, the very postage of their letters would amount 
to near £800 pr. ann., and it is otherwise thought to be of great 
service to the house to have one of the partners in Parliament. 
Sir Wm, Baker was one of the first promoters and encouragers of 
the shop, and has a great influence over Mr. Fuller. Mr. West would 
have rejoiced exceedingly to have been able to have served the Duke 
of Newcastle or the Duke of Portlands recommendation. 2 

IMMUNITY. 

Robbers. — “ They likewise say that Bacon was obligd 
to get member, coast what it would, other ways he could 
not pass his accompts as contractor, he pay’d five guineas 
a man att Ailsbury. ...” 3 This was Anthony Bacon, 
Wilkes’s successor as Member for Aylesbury, a Manxman 
who started his business career in the Maryland trade, 
subsequently became a Government contractor for the 
victualling of troops in the West Indies and Africa, a 
mine-owner and the founder of important iron works in 
Glamorganshire, a mining adventurer in Cape Breton, and 
one of the greatest manufacturers of munitions during the 
American Revolution. Whether the reason for his first 

1 Sir Joh n Hony wood, third Bart. F razor Hony wood left him h is for- 
tune, to the disappointment of poorer relatives, who were two degrees 
nearer to him, and had “ expected to inherit considerable property” from 
him. But as the one had much money and no children, and the other 
was a baronet, they both thought themselves more closely related to 
each other than they really were. See an article by W. D’Oyly 
Bay ley, “ The Relationship of the Hony woods, Baronets, of Kent, 
to Mr. Frazer Honywood, the Banker ”, in J. S. Nichols Topographer 
and Genealogist (1846), vol. ii. pt. viii. pp. 189-92. 

2 Add MSS. 32955, f. 320. 

3 Alexander Fall to Charles Jenkinson, January 29, 1764 ; Add. 
MSS. 38202, f. 67. 



AT THE ACCESSION OE GEORGE III 73 


entry into Parliament is correctly stated in the letter quoted 
above, I cannot say ; but in principle it was plausible. 
Twenty years later it was to be the regular practice of 
nabobs returning “from India's plundered land”, to insure 
against inquiries into the origin of their fortunes by pro- 
viding themselves with seats in Parliament. 

Muddlers. — On the failure of the expedition against 
Rochefort, in the summer of 1757, Hardwicke favoured an 
inquiry into the conduct of the land officers, though most 
of them were Members of Parliament : 1 

It is true that the officers concerned are men of great quality, rank 
and distinction ; but, if that objection should finally prevail, men of 
quality ought not to be let into the Army, for it will ruin the ser- 
vice. Indeed I have for some time thought that the Army was too 
full of them. . . . 

And again on October 24 : 

Had Byng’s case been enquir’d into by a board of admirals, with- 
out the solemnity of a court martial, do you think the opinion would 
have turn’d out as it did ? I know some of the best of them think it 
a hardship put upon them ; and how can they deal with Members 
of Parliament and men of great quality ? I know this was said by 
some of them, upon occasion of the last reference, in the case of the 
officers, who concurr’d in the Council of War at Gibraltar. 2 

In extreme cases even Members oi Parliament bad to suffer 
— witness the fate of Admiral George Byng, M.P., and 
General Lord George Sackville, M.P. ; but for minor trans- 
gressions the membership of the House was apt to procure 
immunity. 

Bastards. — This essay starts with the reason which in 
1749 Lord Chesterfield gave to his son, Philip Stanhope, 
for wishing to see him in Parliament, the most universal, 
most obvious of reasons — “ you must first make a figure 

1 Hardwicke to Newcastle, October 16, 1757 ; Add. MSS. 32875, 
f. 144. 

2 Ibid. f. 255. 



74 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


there if you would make a figure in your country ” ; and 
here is another reason which Chesterfield confided to 
Newcastle in 1753, when he saw that his son’s illegitimate 
birth counted against him in his career as a diplomat : 

As I shall bring him into the next Parliament at my own (and 
probably no small) expence, I flatter myself that his seat there will 
be so far like the cloak of charity as to cover one sin at least, and 
upon my word I know of no other for which he wants a cover. 1 

Bankrupts . — “ I had rather see any child of mine want 
than have him get his bread by voting in the House of 
Commons ”, wrote Governor Pitt to his son on January 16, 
1706, 2 But Robert Andrews, the political and financial 
agent of his grandson Thomas Pitt, the heir to Old Sarum, 
wrote to Newcastle on February 28, 1761 : 

As to his own burroughs he now tells me, his affairs in regard to 
his creditors are such that they cannot be finally ended under eight 
or nine months : and till they are ended, he shall be liable to arrests 
and vexatious actions from his creditors and therefore he proposes 
to choose Mr. Coke at Okehampton and one other at Old Sarurn, 
that shall be named, and to fill the other seat at O.S. himself, imder 
an engagement to relinquish it at the time his affairs are setled, 
which he thinks will be before the House meets next winter, and 
therefore intends to make no use of his election, but to secure him- 
self from his creditors. . . . 3 

And again on March 2 : 

He bids me assure your Grace with the utmost truth and sincerity, 
that he has fairly and honestly no other motive to desire being 
chose at O.S. than what I have mentioned . . , and that he will 
religiously keep his engagement to vacate his seat again, when his 
perplexities are ended, to whoever he shall be directed to fill it with. 4 


1 June 30, 1753 ; Add. MSS. 32732, f. 133. Besides Ph. Stanhope, 
two more bastards were returned to Parliament in 1761 : John Manners, 
M.P. for Newark, son of Lord William Manners ; and Ch. Fitzroy 
Scudamore, M.P. for Hereford, son of the second Duke of Grafton. 

2 See p. 21. " 3 Add. MSS 32919. f. 340. * JhiA . ft. 378-9 




AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 75 

Thomas Pitt, the elder brother of Chatham, had entered 
Parliament in 1727, directly he came of age ; he managed 
in Cornwall the general elections of 1741 and 1747 for 
Frederick, Prince of Wales, and saw himself in future next 
to the throne ; but in 1751, with the death of his patron, 

. his chances disappeared, whilst the fortune amassed by his 
grandfather of diamond fame had been wasted, even his 
credit exhausted ; he had to give up Parliament, pawn his 
boroughs, seek obscurity, and flee the country. In 1761, as 
a man old beyond his years, bare of all hope, full of insane 
bitterness and wild griefs, he once more had himself returned 
for that ploughed field of Old Sarum which his grandfather 
had bought with money acquired in India (“ Take care ”, 
he had written about a burgage in 1706, “to plant the 
piece of new ground with as many trees as it will well 
take and the improvement of it may in time pay for 
the vote . . . ”). Thomas Pitt took refuge in that 
miraculous field. He touched it and was safe ; his name 
was in the writ returned from it on March 30, 1761 ; his 
creditors could not reach him. Four months later he 
did not need Parliamentary privilege any more, for the 
“ fall of the curtain upon his unnecessary life ” had signified 
that “ all was well with him again ”. 

His son, though a better man, promptly repudiated 
the se. team engagement with regard te the hihng ef the 
vacancy. 1 

1 Thomas Pitt, jun., wrote to Robert Andrews on August 21, 1761 : 
“ I have been often grieved at the scandalous traffick he made of his 
Parliamentary interest, but cou’d they [the Ministers] suppose me bound 
in other respects, they wou’d certainly alter their opinion when they 
come to know, that my father was under a previous engagement to 
myself to elect me at O.S. when I consented to the raiseiug so large a 
sum for the payment of his debts, and this agreement therefore ought 
certainly to have taken place of every other consideration ” (Add. MSS. 
32927, f. 156). 




II 


THE ELECTORAL STRUCTURE OF ENGLAND 




II 


THE ELECTORAL STRUCTURE OF ENGLAND 

The Distribution op Seats 

The British House of Commons in the eighteenth century 
consisted of 558 Members^489 elected in England, 24 in 
Wales, and 45 in Scotland. Of the 246 English con- 
stituencies, the City of London returned four Members, 
240 two Members, and 5 one Member each ; Scotland 
and Wales had single-member constituencies. Of the 
489 English Members at the accession of George III, 80 
represented the forty counties, 4 the two Universities, 
whilst 405 were returned by 204 cities and boroughs ; of 
the 24 Welsh Members, 12 sat for counties and 12 for 
boroughs ; of the 45 Scottish Members, 30 represented 
county constituencies, one was returned by Edinburgh, 
and 14 by groups of boroughs. 

England elected almost 88 per cent of the House of 
Commons, and English boroughs almost 73 per cent. With- 
in England the distribution of the Parliamentary boroughs 
was uneven, as during the formative ages of Parliament 
population and wealth had been concentrated in the 
south, even more than they still were in 1760. Including 
the knights of the shires, Cornwall had in the eighteenth 
century 44 Members in Parliament, Devonshire 26, Dorset 
20, Somerset 18, Wiltshire 34 — together, 142; about one- 
fourth of the House of Commons was thus chosen by the 
five counties of south-western Engfand. Hampshire 

79 



80 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

returned 26 and Berkshire 9 Members. The three eastern 
counties south of the Thames, Surrey, Sussex, and Kent, 
together with the Cinque Ports, returned 60 Members. 
Thus 237 Members {i.e. more than 40 per cent of the House 
of Commons) were elected in the ten counties south of 
Bristol and the lower Thames. But the 56 Members for 
London and Middlesex and the counties in its neighbour- 
hood — Bucks, Beds, Herts, Essex, and Suffolk — must be 
added to this “ southern division ”. This makes a total of 
293 Members, i.e. more than half of the House of Commons. 

Another remarkable feature of the geographical distribu- 
tion of English Parliamentary boroughs is that almost one- 
third of them were sea-ports. This again was a heritage from 
the early times when even inland trade, carried on mainly 
by river and coastwise, centred in. towns on the seaboard. 
But soon the tendency to concentration set in in the sea- 
borne trade, and London, together with a dozen “ out- 
ports ”, swallowed up the trade of the smaller harbours . 1 
However much decayed, these still retained their Parlia- 
mentary representation, henceforth their most lucrative 
branch of business. 

The obsolete distribution of seats naturally produced 
electoral absurdities and corruption. But in practice there 
was a redeeming side to it — as it usually happens with us, 
dead forms were made to serve live forces. In counties 
such as Cheshire, Durham, or Leicestershire, where only the 
coimty and the county town returned Members to Parlia- 
ment, there was no room for outsiders ; in fact, hardly 

1 “ An Account of the Receipt in the Out-Ports of England ”, 
drawn up in 17G4 (Add. MSS. 38337, ff. 53-4) covers 71 “ out-ports ”, 
of which 47 were Parliamentary boroughs. Of 15 only did the receipts 
in 1763 exceed £10,000, while those of the three largest among them — 
Bristol (£232,000), Liverpool (£135,000), and Hull (£61,000)— by far 
exceeded the sum total of the other twelve. Probably those three 
out-ports, together with London, already held at least half of the 
trade of England. Of the 15 out-ports with receipts exceeding £10,000, 
7 only were in the “ southern division 



AT THE ACCESSION OE GEORGE III 81 

enough to satisfy the Parliamentary ambitions of their own 
“countrymen”. Nor would a more numerous representa- 
tion, if based on genuine constituencies, have provided 
many seats for strangers. But the over-represented 
southern counties, with their rotten boroughs, offered a 
substantial surplus for national purposes, and it was there 
that seats were found for professional politicians, civil 
servants and big merchants, i.e. for the administrative and 
commercial classes concentrated in London. At present 
the national as against the local type of candidate is 
planted out in the constituencies by the party organisations ; 
in the eighteenth century this was done with the help of 
rotten or corrupt boroughs. Moreover, it should be noted 
that about 1760 London was probably the worst under- 
represented part of England ; the area now under the L.C.C. 
contained more than one-tenth of the population of Great 
Britain ; and even if heads were counted (as now), and not 
purses weighed (as in the eighteenth century), it ought to 
have had almost sixty Members. But its statutory represen- 
tation consisted of only ten : four Members for the City of 
London and six for Middlesex, Westminster, and Southwark. 
The decayed boroughs of the south primarily supplied the 
corrective for this under-representation of classes which 
governed in London, but could hardly have obtained many 
seats in independent provincial constituencies. The 
Government was the chief buyer or dealer in Cornish and 
Devonshire boroughs, whilst the London merchants, unless 
they obtained their seats through the Government or 
happened to be connected by origin, family ties, or their 
trade, with some more distant county, cultivated those 
nearer London, 

In 1770 Sir John Molesworth, a knight of the shire for 
Cornwall, supported a motion for disabling revenue officers 
from voting in Parliamentary elections. “ Those tools of 
any Administration”, he said, “have prevailed over the 
spoils of the East ; over all family connexions, and the 

VOL. i G 



82 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


landed interest. If this question is carried, I shall hope to 
see boroughs a less rotten part of the Constitution. I shall 
meet more of my country neighbours in this House. . . .” 1 
This might indeed have pleased patriotic or ambitious 
Cornishmen ; but, though something can be said in favour of 
civil servants and even of mere placemen in the eighteenth- 
century Parliament, it is hard to see what reason could be 
adduced for a greater number of Cornishmen than it 
actually contained ; there was quite a sufficient quota of 
Boscawens, B tillers and Bassets, Trevanions, Trelawnys 
and Treises. 


The Counties 

In all English counties the franchise was the same — ever 
since 1430 (8 Henry VI) the electorate consisted of forty- 
shilling freeholders. As the value of money had declined 
considerably in the intervening 330 years, by 1761 this 
franchise had become very wide ; especially as a very 
liberal interpretation was put on the term of freehold, 
extending it to leaseholds for life, annuities, rent-charges, 
mortgages, etc., and even to various petty offices. 2 3 In the 
smallest county in England, Rutlandshire, the number of 
voters was reckoned in 1760 to be 609 ; 3 in the largest, 
Yorkshire, 15,054 electors voted in 1741, and 23,007 in 
1807. The total electorate in the counties in 1761 cannot 
be accurately ascertained or calculated. County elections 
were inordinately expensive, and therefore very few English 
counties went to the poll — at the general election of 1747 
only two contests were fought out to the end (Middlesex 
and Staffordshire) ; in 1754, five (Herefordshire, Hertford- 

1 See Sir Henry Cavendish, Debates of the House of Commons, vol. 
i. p. 446. 

2 See E. Porritt, The Unreformed House of Commons, vol. i. pp. 
22-23. 

3 See letter from Lord Hardwicke to Sir Gilbert Heathcote, Decem- 
ber 4, 1760 ; Add. IViSS. 35596, ft. 197-201. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 


83 


shire, Kent, Oxfordshire, and Rutland) ; and in 1761, three 
(Durham, Hertfordshire, and Westmorland). The figures 
therefore have to be taken from different years and only 
very rough and approximate estimates are possible ; 
moreover, these are based on the number of votes actually 
cast at various polls, and must therefore be short of the 
potential electorate. Such a calculation yields a probable 
total of about 160,000 actual voters for all the English 
counties, i.e. an average of about 4000 for each. 

This might seem a numerous electorate. But in reality, 
as the voting was open and usually even recorded in print 
in the so-called poll-books, people in dependent positions 
could seldom exercise a free choice. As in the eighteenth 
century the agricultural interest was dominant in the 
counties, the result of county elections was determined as a 
rule by the big landowners — the territorial magnates and 
the country gentlemen. The counties, in fact, represented 
this one class only, and the candidates were often fixed 
upon at the Assizes or some local races. 

In a few counties only was there any serious influence 
of a different character. Middlesex was dominated by its 
London boroughs ; and also in Surrey the London boroughs 
were gaining in size and importance. “ In some parts of 
the county, the country gentlemen are said not to like the 
influence which the borough of Southwark and parts 
adjacent have in the election for knights of the shire ”, 
wrote “ Surriensis ” in the Gentleman' s Magazine in 1788. 1 
“ But if, in Queen Anne’s time, that commercial influence 
was strong enough to bring in a Member . . . wc must not 
wonder if it should operate effectually in the present times.” 


1 Historical Account of the Elections for Surrey , p. 1053. “ Sur- 

riensis ” was Sir Joseph Mawbey, a Vauxhall distiller, M.P. for South- 
wark, 1761-74, and for Surrey, 1775-90. The identity is disclosed in 
tile obituary note of Sir Joseph Mawbey in the Gentleman's Magazine, 
1798, vol. i. p. 543 : “ His correspondence with our Magazine may be 
seen in his history of the Surrey elections, vol. lviii. p. 1052 



84 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

Still, judging by the poll -book of 1774, even at that date the 
“ metropolitan ” vote in Surrey could hardly have exceeded 
twenty per cent. 1 Also in the other home counties a 
certain metropolitan influence was felt through freeholders 
of these counties settled in London, and through London 
merchants owning estates in its neighbourhood. In 
certain western counties the clothiers and their employees 
had to be reckoned with ; Nicolson Calvert, M.P. for 
Tewkesbury, when recommending “ the agent for the body 
of clothiers ” at Gloucester to Newcastle for a Government 
appointment, remarked : 

It would be needless for me to acquaint your Grace how opulent 
and significant a body of men they are in the County of Gloucester, 
and as well attach’d to the present Government as any set of men 
in this Kingdom. 2 

Even in the vast county of Yorkshire the “ trading places ” 
were of some importance, 3 and Sir George Savile was 
described in 1753 by one of his supporters as “ the properest 
candidate for this trading county as the situation of his 
property makes the prosperity of trade more immediately 
his concern ”. 4 

In Hampshire the Government had ail “ interest ” 
through the Portsmouth and Gosport docks, the Crown 

1 There is in the British Museum a MS. poll-book of the by-election 
for Surrey in 1742 (Add. MSS. 39291), with a summary of the places 
of residence of the 3428 freeholders who voted in that election. 
557, i.e. slightly more than 16 per cent, were resident outside the 
county — 152 of them in London, 31 in Westminster, and 170 in Middle- 
sex ; this yields a total of 353, and surely not the whole of Middlesex 
can be included in the “ metropolitan ” area north of the Thames. 
135 were resident in Southwark and 204 in the Hundred of Brixton, 
which extended well into the country. If we put the total “ metro- 
politan ” vote at 500, this is less than 15 per cent. 

2 May 31, 1760 ; Add. MSS. 32906, f. 399. 

3 See letter from Andrew Wilkinson to the Duke of Newcastle, 
Boroughbridge, July 13, 1753 ; Add. MSS. 32732, ff. 236-7. 

4 Same to same, July 19, 1753 ; Add. MSS. 32732, ff. 313-14. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 85 


tenants in the New Forest, and through its dependants in 
the Isle of Wight ; and because of H. B. Legge’s “ disgrace ” 
in 1761 and the defeat of the Court candidate in 1779, it 
forms part of the regular stock-in-trade of text -books. 
But a careful analysis of the poll-book of 1779 shows that 
even in Hampshire the direct Government influence can 
hardly have affected more than one-tenth of the electorate, 
if so much. Also in Kent the Government had a certain 
direct influence, especially through the Chatham docks and 
the Cinque Ports, 1 and in Cornwall through the numerous 
revenue officers. 2 

1 See letter from Lord Sondes to the Duke of Newcastle, August 30, 
1767: “ . . . the weight of Government, which is more considerable 
in this county, than any other, having so many churches, docks, 
hospitals, and custom houses almost in every town from Greenwich to 
Dover, and I believe no instance of any body loosing the election, 
that stood upon the Government interest except in 1734:, which was 
owing to the Excise ” (Add. MSS. 32984, f. 368). See also letter from 
Lord Winchilsea to Newcastle on the same subject, August 25, 1767 
{ibid. ff. 325-6). But see on the other hand the letter which Sir George 
Oxenden, an old Kentish Whig with a rare knowledge of the County, 
wrote to Lord Hardwicke on December 9, 1760, at a time when the 
Tories professed hopes of carrying both seats : “ . . . the Tories are 
very uppish . . . possibly they depend upon the Court interest, in 
the docks, ports &c. Now, my Lord ... I will venture to prophesy 
. . . , that even supposing that to be the case, we shall be their masters, 
provided the Whigs are not broke among themselves ” (Add. MSS. 
35692, ff. 434-5). 

2 See, e.g., letter from Admiral Boscawen, who intended to stand 
for Cornwall, to the Duke of Newcastle, October 11, 1760 : “ I . . . 
intreat your Grace would favour me with the vote and interest of 
the officers of the Revenue, which are many, in this county and of 
great weight ” (Add. MSS. 32913, ff. 63-4). Whilst revenue officers 
were as yet free to vote in elections, those of the Post Office were 
strictly forbidden from interfering in Parliamentary elections. None 
the less, the Post Office formed a convenient election agency in the 
hands of the Government ; its offices in the Bmall towns were places of 
concourse, conversation, and intelligence, and the postmasters could 
sometimes be of considerable help by delaying, directing, or misdirecting 
correspondence at election time, or even by culling useful information 



86 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

Other possible instruments of Government influence in 
the counties were the bishops and clergy, who formed a 
netAvork oA^er the whole of England, and as landholders had 
a certain electoral “ interest of their own. The help of 
the episcopate was often invoked. Thus Sir William 
Maynard, when standing for Essex in 1759, thought it “ of 
great consequence to him ” if Newcastle applied “ to the 
Bishop of London for his interest with the clergy. . . 1 

Similarly, Lord Clanricarde, in the Hampshire election of 
1759, asked Newcastle for a letter from the Bishop of 
Winchester in support of Legge, which would enable him 
to carry many of the clergy. . . 2 But the hold which 

the bishops had on them was, of course, limited, and a 
Whig Government could never rely on the great mass of 
the lower clergy. Thus Thomas Talbot, the Bishop of 
Oxford, wrote to Hardwieke on February 8, 1753 : 

The small property I have in Oxfordshire is either in the hands, 
or in the neighbourhood, of persons whom I cannot influence. . . . 
I have no preferments to give the clergy. I cannot promise or 
threaten to behave to them according as they vote. 3 

To sum up : the direct influence and power of the 
Government in county elections can be described as 
negligible ; if the Crown or Administration interfered at all 
in these elections, they bad to work mainly through the lug 
landowners, who, if united, were the deciding influence in 
thirty-nine out of forty English counties. 

The regular formula for candidates in the counties was 

from letters opened by them. In spite of all prohibitions the Post 
Office was used in elections ; thus at a by-election in May 1760, New- 
castle asked Lord Bessborough, Joint P.M.G., to “ give the usual 
directions, that the several post-masters in the county of Kent may 
know that they are to support Sir Wyndham Knatchbull’s interest ” 
(Add. MSS. 35692, f. 416). 

x Lord Rochford to the Duke of Newcastle, April 17, 1759 ; Add. 
MSS. 32890, f. 118. 

2 November 3, 1759 ; Add. MSS. 32898, fl. 73-4. 

3 Add. MSS. 35592*, f. 30. 



AT THE ACCESSION OE GEORGE III 


87 


to ask the “ Gentlemen, Clergy, and Freeholders ” for 
their votes and interest — “interest” denoting the pressure 
which they could bring to bear on dependants. Neither in 
counties nor in boroughs was the least attempt made to 
hide or disguise the methods of compulsion and intimida- 
tion by which votes were secured ; the resultant of social 
forces was thus obtained without recourse to election 
stunts. It was taken for granted that the tenants would 
vote as instructed by their landlord or his agent, and the 
methods employed were so common that they were seldom 
named. Here, however, are a few explicit statements : 
“ I have . . . wrote ... to my steward to engage my 
tenants to vote for Mr. Legge ”, wrote Sir John Miller of 
Lavanfc to Newcastle on November 7, 1759. 1 Or again, 
Lord Monson, on November 29, 1760: “Mr. Whichcote 
begs your Grace will use your best endeavours with Lord 
Irwin and Mr. Ingram, as no orders as yet are given to their 
stewards. ...” Daniel Parker Coke, one of the most 
upright and independent men of his time and a barrister of 
very high standing, declared in his nomination speech at 
Nottingham in 1803 that he considered it “ quite fair ” 
that landlords should exercise political influence over their 
tenants, and that he would be “ sorry to see the day when 
men of property would not use such influence ”. 2 Indeed, 
hVe kfrea \ Wt Wfch yOitcar^i 'suA *vo thren 'aaxftajrfa 

survived deep into the nineteenth century. In the Flint- 
shire election of 1841, one of the Grosvenor family 
complained of Mr. Gladstone for violating the sacred canons of 
electioneering etiquette by canvassing Lord Westminster's tenants. 
‘I did think/ says the wounded patrician, ‘that interference between 
a landlord with whose opinions you were acquainted and bis tenants 
was not justifiable according to those laws of delicacy and propriety 
which I considered binding in such cases .’ 3 

1 Add. MSST32898, f. 165. 

2 See article about him in the Dictionary of National Biography. 

3 John Morley, The Life of William Ewart Gladstone (1905), vol. i. 
p. 239. 



88 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

But it was at all times the first article of constitutional 
cant to describe the right of freely choosing representatives 
as “ the most valuable privilege of every English free- 
holder 

In reality, because of the influence which the landlord 
had over his tenants, the political position of a man in his 
county, and even to some extent the claim which he could 
urge for appearing as candidate for its representation in 
Parliament, was measured by his rental. At the general 
meeting at York in 1753, Lord Rockingham, when putting 
forward Sir George Savile as candidate for the county, 
emphasised “ the great property ” which Savile had in it, 1 
whilst Thornhagh, to give proper weight to his support of 
Savile, “ talked a great deal of his brother’s interest and 
estate ”. 2 When Lord Exeter applied to Sir Gilbert 
Heathcote for his support in Rutlandshire, Lord Hard- 
wicke was at a loss what advice to give, as “ an absolute 
submission may exclude him for ever from taking advantage 
of the great property which he has in that county ”. 3 In 
September 1760 the Lincolnshire gentlemen serving in the 
militia bethought themselves “ that as they were so con- 
siderable a body together, and had so large a share of 
property, they would do well to consult together about 
the proper persons to represent the county. . . 4 But 

there is no need further to multiply examples of this kind, 
which could be done indefinitely ; the conditions which 
they illustrate were the inevitable result of open voting 
by people in dependent positions. 

When high-sounding phrases were used in an election 

1 Andrew "Wilkinson to the Duke of Newcastle, York, July 16, 
1753 ; Add. MSS. 32732, fl. 282-3. 

2 Henry Pelham to the Duke of Newcastle, Scarborough, July 18, 
1753 ; ibid. ff. 301-4. 

3 Lord Hardwicke to the Duke of Newcastle, June 11, 1760 ; Add. 
MSS. 32907, f. 157. 

4 John Green, Dean of Lincoln, to Lord Hardwicke, September 27, 
1760; Add. MSS. 32912, fi. 301-2. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEOKGE III 89 

about the “ independence ” of the county and the rights of 
its freeholders, they did not refer to the right of tenants to 
make their own choice between candidates, but almost in- 
variably signified a conflict between the rank and file of the 
country gentlemen and some large aristocratic influence. 1 
Broadly speaking, in the south-west and west of England 
and in many of the Midland counties the country gentry 
were dominant— in Cornwall, Devonshire, Somerset, Dorset, 
and Wiltshire, practically to the exclusion of all aristocratic 
influence ; with one single exception, no son of a peer ever 
represented any of these five counties between 1707 and 
1801. 2 In Somerset the minor gentry are said to have 
gone so far “as to pledge themselves not to vote for the 
brother or son of a peer ... or for a candidate whom a 
peer supported ’’ 3 — “ the lords ... I heate the very name 
of themmun ”, declared Squire Western. 4 In the eastern 
counties and in the north the big aristocratic houses had 
a very considerable say in county elections. 

1 This conflict sometimes coincided with a division between Tories 
and Whigs, but by no means always, perhaps not even in the majority 
oS cases. J refrain in this essay from entering into a discussion of the 
two parties, their nature, and how far they still survived in 1760. I 
reserve this subject for a further volume, and only incidentally touch 
upon it in this book. 

2 Even this one exception, which has to be mentioned for the sake 
of formal accuracy, does not run counter to the rule : it occurred 
merely because the father of George Pitt, M.P. for Dorset, was in 
1776 created Lord Rivers. But the Pitts were one of the most typical 
west-country gentry families. In Wiltshire on two occasions the 
Herberts of Wilton, one of the oldest aristocratic families in the 
county, contested its representation against the Goddards of Swindon, 
typical country gentlemen. Each time the hue and cry was raised by 
the country gentry against the Pembroke family, and the Goddard 
was returned, in 1722 apparently without a poll (about that election 
see “ The Diary of Thomas Smith”, in the Wilts Archaeol. Mag. vol. xi.), 
in 1772 after a battle royal fought out to the bitter end. 

3 See F. Harrison, “ The Great Election Contest in Wiltshire in 
1772 ”, Wiltshire Notes and Queries, March 1906,^p. 229. 

4 Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, book vi. ch. ii. 



90 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

But even where a territorial magnate or a combination 
“ of the great men of the county ” were able to exert a 
dominant influence in elections, they had to be extremely 
careful not to excite the jealousy of the country gentlemen. 
Hardly ever was an attempt made in a comity to fill both 
seats with members of the same family , 1 which, it might 
have been said, would in appearance have degraded it to 
the level of a pocket borough. It seldom happened even 
that both seats were filled by sons of peers ; as a rule, 
a country gentleman of smaller rank was joined to the 
aristocratic candidate. Sometimes the aristocratic “ con- 
nexion ” was able to select the country gentleman, but 
more often they had to leave the choice to the general 
meeting of the county. Any appearance of “dictating” 
was apt to provoke resentment and opposition. 

In 1753, Philip Yorke, having been requested by the 
Duke of Bedford to propose Lord Upper Ossory for Bedford- 
shire, asked his father, Lord Hardwicke, whether in his 
speech he should pay any compliment to the Duke, on 
whose interest Lord Upper Ossory was standing ; Lord 
Hardwicke replied that he should not even mention the 
Duke in his speech : 

. . . things of that kind are apt not to be well taken by the gentlemen 
of the countrey. It seems to suppose an influence from such great 
families, which is not popular to hint to them. The old Lord 
Onslow ( Stiff Dick) us’d allways to talk to the Surrey gentlemen as 
if he was nothing, and it was their interest and support only that 
he relied upon, which took with them extremely. . . . 2 

During the great Oxfordshire election of 1754 the 
number of peers on the Whig side (the Duke of Marlborough 
and Lords Harcourt, Guilford, and Macclesfield) was a 

1 Between 1761 and 1784 there were only two such cases : two 
Foleys, father and son, represented Herefordshire, 1768-74, and two 
Hills, rather distant cousins, represented Shropshire, 1780-84. 

2 Lord Hardwicls^ to Philip Yorke, July 24, 1753 ; Add. MSS. 
35351, ff. 239-40. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 91 

favourite taunt of the Tory country gentlemen against 
their opponents, and Oxfordshire became a byword in the 
West Country. “ ’Tis said, Ld. Weymouth has declared 
an opposition for this county [Wilts ”], wrote Miss Frances 
Ernie to her cousin Mrs. Legh on October 16, 1756. “ Mr. 
Thyn is to be the person so that everybody begins to look 
about them, these are early days and they do not intend to 
Oxfordshire us, do they ? ” 1 

Lord Rockingham, writing to Newcastle on January 24, 
1761, about his success in arranging matters in Yorkshire, 
was proud of the cry of aristocratic influence having proved 
ineffective against him : 

... I have experienced by it that the friendships, which many do 
me the honour to bear towards me in this county, is -proof against the 
clamour that was attempted to be raised personally against me, as 
desiring to dictate to the county, and which cry tho’ your Grace 
knows the principles and independency of Yorkshire gentlemen, did 
not affect the decision of any one person, whom I ever reckoned my 
friend. . . . 2 

111 Coimty Durham the Bishop Palatine and the Earl 
of Darlington, when united, had an exceptionally powerful 
territorial interest. None the less, to secure one seat to 
Lord Darlington they had “ as to the other to follow, not to 
force, the bent of the county ” ; 3 and at the by-election in 
1760 the Bishop, to avoid “ the envy and jealousies” that 
would have attended an early pronouncement on his part, 
waited to “ feel the pulse ” of the coimty, and therefore 
refused to declare for any candidate before the general 
meeting. 4 

1 MSS. in the possession of Mr. Roger Ernie Money-Kyrle, of 
Whetham, Wiltshire, to whom my best thanks are due for his permission 
to use them. 

2 Add. MSS. 32918, f. 47. 

3 Lord Mansfield to the Duke of Newcastle, September 29, 1760 ; 
Add. MSS. 32912, ft. 227-8. 

4 Richard Trevor, Bishop of Durham, to the,,Duke of Newcastle, 
October 2, 1760 ; Add. MSS. 32912, ft. 303-4. 



92 THE STRUCTURE OE POLITICS 

The Duke of Northumberland declared in 1774 that if 
the gentlemen of the county “ would do him the honour to 
support his son, he would coincide with the sense of the 
county in the choice of the other member No agree- 
ment was, however, reached at the general meeting at 
Morpeth on July 26, and Lord Algernon Percy and Sir John • 
Hussey Delaval were put up by the Duke of Northumber- 
land, supported by the Duke of Portland and Lords Carlisle, 
Ravensworth,and Tankerville, whilst Sir William Middleton 
and Mr. William Fenwick became the candidates of the 
country gentlemen led by Sir Henry Grey of Howiclc (but 
supported also by the Earls of Strathmore and Scarborough). 
In the numerous pamphlets and handbills published during 
that contest, 1 on the very eve of the American Revolution, 
America is hardly mentioned, and even home politics take a 
second place ; the main question before the electorate was 
whether or not the Duke of Northumberland had kept his 
promise to accept the “ sense of the comity ” as to the 
second member. The result of the election was character- 
istic : Lord Algernon Percy and Sir William Middleton 
were returned — the contest was obviously decided by the 
vote of those who wished to be fair to both sides and were 
not committed to either, and the compliment of one seat 
was made to the House of Alnwick, whilst the right of the 
country gentry to the other was successfully vindicated. 

To sum up : the landed gentry was the deciding element 
in most county elections, though a certain number of seats 
were conceded by them to the great noble houses — in 1761, 
16 out of 80 knights of the shires were sons of peers and 
nine of them courtesy lords ; of the remaining 64, 62 were 
country gentlemen. The electorate in the counties formed 
an independent and fairly large class ; still, it would be 
ludicrous to talk of any kind of “ democracy ” in 39 out 

1 They were republished in the Complete Collection of all the Papers 
which have appeared from the different Parties in the present Contest for 
Members for the County of Northumberland (1774). 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 


93 


of 40 counties. Taking England as a whole, probably not 
more than one in every twenty voters at county elections 
could freely exercise his statutory rights, and the county 
Members, though a valuable element in the House in that 
most of them were independent of the Government, con- 
, stituted the purest type of class representation in Great 
Britain, to a high degree, of an hereditary character. Of no 
less than 30 among the 80 knights of the shires returned 
in 1761, the fathers had previously represented the same 
counties, while another 19 had been preceded by more dis- 
tant ancestors in the direct male line ; together 49 out of 80 
can be said to have inherited their seats. Of another 20, 
ancestors in the direct male line had sat in Parliament, 
though for different constituencies, and only 1 1 were with- 
out Parliamentary ancestry in the male line from which 
a title could have descended to them without special 
remainder. These eleven included the two Members for 
Middlesex and three Members for Berkshire, Bedfordshire, 
and Suffolk, whose families had risen through the City or 
the law. 


The Parliamentary Boroughs 

The books on English Parliamentary boroughs pub- 
lished by T. H. B. Oldfield between 1792 and 1820 are 
a mine worked by generations of historians, with little 
or no attempt on their part to refine the ore. Oldfield 
was one of the many West Country attorneys deeply 
engaged in election business ; 1 his knowledge of the 

1 Comparatively little is known about him ; the article in the 
Dictionary of National Biography adds the date of his death to the 
information contained in the British Museum catalogue. In the 
debate on the disfranchisement of East Retford on June 11, 1827, Mr. 
Tennyson mentioned Oldfield as having been “ employed at Retford 
by one of the parties in the election of 1812 ” ( Hansard , new series, 
vol. xvii. columns 1209-10). But the assertion made by Mr. Porritt 
in his Unreformed House of Commons (vol. i. p. 3o8) that Oldfield him- 



94 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

subject was both detailed and extensive, and the record he 
has left of it is unique. But he was a zealous Parliamentary 
reformer, and his works had a propagandist bias and a 
purpose. He was out to expose the absurdities of the 
system and its corruption : it was not for him to show how 
practice softened and modified them. The picture he „ 
gives is at the best an X-ray photograph, and not a portrait. 

Mr. Edward Porritt's book on the Unreformed House of 
Commons is the one outstanding piece of modem com- 
prehensive research into the subject ; it is unbiassed and 
scholarly, and there is no need to do once more the work 
in so far as Mr. Porritt has done it. Whoever wishes for 
detailed information concerning the legal and technical 

self was a dealer in boroughs, seems to rest on very slendeT evidence. 

In the- debate on the borough of Penryn, May 8, 1827, Mr. Alderman 
Waithman is thus reported in Hansard : “ He himself knew a borough 
agent who often had fifteen or twenty candidates for boroughs, or their 
agents at his table. There was one person in the city who must be 
well known to the leading Members of that House — he meant Mr. 
Oldfield — who frequently entertained more than twenty attorneys, 
each of whom introduced some stranger for the representation of a 
borough in Cornwall ” (ibid, column 693). Mr. Porritt identifies the 
“ borough agent ” mentioned in the first sentence with the Oldfield 
mentioned in the second, and that Oldfield with T. H. B. Oldfield. 
The first identification seems uncertain, the latter would seem plaus- 
ible ; still, if Waithman is correctly reported and used the proper 
tenses, it would appear from his remarks that the Oldfield he meant 
was alive in 1827, whereas T. H. B. Oldfield is stated to have died in 
1822. But it is not at all certain what it was that Waithman said — a 
very different report of his speech appeared in The Tunes of May 9, 
1827 : “ There was what he might call a regular market for borough- 
seats, at the commencement of every Parliament. This was clearly 
shown, by Mr. Oldfield, the individual who has given the public The 
History of Boroughs. It was well known that at a dinner-party of 
borough electors, the agent would introduce to them an individual 
. . . of whom the electors knew nothing.” No connexion whatsoever 
is indicated here between Oldfield and the agent who introduced the 
candidate — in short, the above evidence is not sufficiently clear to 
conclude that Oldfield the reformer was a professional dealer in 
boroughs. 




AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 95 

aspects of tie system, winch remained practically un- 
changed from 1660 to 1832, will find it in his book. But 
covering centuries, it deals with the constant rather than 
with the changing elements, and cannot reproduce the 
colour of any single period. 

Although there was an infinite variety of franchises 
in the English boroughs, broadly speaking, they can be 
divided into five types. There were boroughs ( 1 ) with what 
practically amounted to universal franchise ; (2) where the 
franchise was in those paying “ scot and lot ” ; (3) where 
the vote was in the “ freemen ” ; (4) where the franchise 
was limited to the Corporation ; (5) where the franchise 
was attached to certain houses or plots of ground called 
burgages. The “ freemen ” boroughs were the most 
numerous — about eighty ; those with an almost universal 
franchise were few — about a dozen ; the remaining boroughs 
(about one hundred and ten) were almost equally divided 
among the remaining three groups. 1 

The numbers for each category are here but roughly 
indicated, as no two of the best authorities fully agree 
in their calculations. There were various mixed forms 
which lend themselves to different classifications. More- 
over, the nature of the particular franchises in quite a 
number of boroughs continued to be contested until they 
were afi swept away by the Reform Act of 1832. To 
give but one example : Pontefract in 1761 was a burgage 
borough, and the House of Commons confirmed this 
franchise by its determination of 1770 ; but in 1791 it 
reversed its decision and vested the right of election in the 
inhabitants resident. 2 

But the franchise alone, though it broadly suggests the 

1 I follow here in a general way the account of the franchise given 
in E. Halevy, A History of the English People in 1815 (pp. 113-30), 
though I do not adhere to it in every detail. 

2 See on Pontefract, Simon Fraser, Reports of the Proceedings before 
Select Committees of the House of Commons in . . . controverted Elections 
(1791), pp. 180-262. 



9G THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

character of a borough, did not necessarily determine it. ; 
it is obvious, e.g., that where votes were attached to certain 
lands or houses, whoever held a majority of such burgages 
(which were seldom more than 200, and at Old S&rum as few 
as seven) had the borough and its representation in his 
pocket. The burgage franchise therefore suggests private 
ownership, and this, in fact, was by 1760 the state of most 
burgage boroughs, but by no means of all (see, e.g., the 
Chippenham election of 1818). On the other hand, private 
property in representation could be established even in a 
borough with a very wide franchise, but without inhabitants, 
where “ a single person . . . keeps a few wretched 
inhabitants to return whoever he dictates to them ”. 1 
Oldfield quotes Gatton as an example, where the franchise 
was wide but the borough consisted “ of only six houses ” ; 
and, according to Brayley, in the reign of Hemy VIII 
Sir Roger Copley described himself as its " burgess and 
only inhabitant ”. 2 

A classification by the size of the electorate gives, 
perhaps, a better idea of Parliamentary boroughs than 
any analysis by franchises, though even this must not 
be made the basis for sweeping generalisations. Whilst 
burgage boroughs were predestined to become pocket 
boroughs, narrow corporations offered a favourable field 
/or ZA>? opera/Aras- u/ Zh? Z^mTMnarZ amf o/ nioh ix&sr 
willing to negotiate and to pay. Still, occasionally a narrow 
corporation in a flourishing, self-respecting town acted a 
very different part. At Bath the Corporation counted 32 
members ; but in 1761 it elected William Pitt and Field- 
Marshal Lord Ligonier, than whom no one was less likely to 
engage in the usual election practices. The Corporation at 
Devizes consisted of 38 members, but in 1761, on a canvass, 
26 electors promised their votes to the old Recorder of the 
borough, John Garth, a man of small means but high 

1 Oldfield, Key to the House of Commons (1820), p. 63. 

2 History of Surrey, vol. iv. p. 92. 



AT THE ACCESSION OP GEORGE III 


standing in the town, and only eight to Thomas Fludyer, a 
brother and partner of Sir Samuel Fludyer, Bart., M.PJ 
one of the richest men in England. 1 At Bedford, on the 
other hand, where the right of election was in the freemen, 
and burgesses and in householders not receiving alms, there 
. were in 1774 about 1000 voters, which would make it seem 
a free and popular borough. But there the Corporation 
had an unlimited power to create even non-resident free- 
men, and in 1769 Sit Robert Bernard, a rich Huntingdon- 
shire squire and a pillar of the ultra-radical Bill of Rights 
Society, having wrested the control of the Corporation from 
the Duke of Bedford, made some 500 new freemen, mostly 
among his Huntingdonshire tenants or neighbours ; and 
he added another few hundred in the course of the next 
twenty years. In 1789 the Duke of Bedford succeeded him 
as Recorder of the town, and in turn got 350 freemen 
created mainly from among “ his own tenants or tradesmen, 
or the tenants and tradesmen of other persons attached to 
him in politics ”. 2 

Nor did even the largest electorates preclude bribery — 
drink and a few guineas for each voter taking the place of 
substantial payments and petty offices for a local olig- 
archy. Gloucester, where, in 1701, 1500 voters went to the 
poll, can serve as example. George Selwyn, who repre- 
sented it from 1754 till 1780, wrote to Lord Holland on 
March 19, 1761 : 

Two of my voters were murdered yesterday by an experiment 
which Ve call shopping, that is, locking them up and keeping them 

1 See letter from Charles Garth (the eldest son of John Garth) to 
the Duke of Newcastle, February 9, 1762 ; Add. MSS. 32934, 5. 243-4. 

2 See Thomas A. Blyth, History of Bedford , p. 113 ; also Dodsley’s 
Annual Register , 1769, under date of September 4, p. 128 ; and T. W. 
Peaise, Observations on the Schedule of the Records and other Documents 
of the Corporation of Bedford (1876). “ In 1780, Sir Robert Bernard 
lent the Corporation £950, and it may be assumed that the loan was 
not entirely unconnected with this last admission of, freemen . . . M 
(Pearae, p. 11). 

VOL. r 


H 



98 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

dead drunk to the day of election. Mr. Snell’s agents forced two 
single Selwyns into a post chaise, where, being suffocated with the 
brandy that was given them and a very fat man that had the 
custody of them, they were taken out stone dead. Here follows a 
hanging ; in short, it is one roundeau of delights . 1 

And that Selwyn, who was inclined to embroider his 
stories, did not add very much on this occasion, is proved 
by an account of the incident transmitted to the Duke 
oi Newcastle by I)t. Henry daily, a famous scholar and 
Prebendary of Gloucester. 2 

1 See the Earl of Ilchester, Letters to Henry Fox, Lord Holland, p. 145. 
Selwyn’s passion for witnessing executions was a standing joke among 
his friends. 

2 “ The friends of Mr. Barrow and Mr. Selwyn, being informed that 

Mr. Snell’s agents had been decoying several of the freemen of this 
city into public houses where they were made drunk and then sent 
out of town in order to prevent their voting at the next election, were 
obliged to desire yesterday several of the lower class of people to 
keep together at the New Inn, a public house in this city, but one 
Matthews, an inn-keeper, having a most enterprizing genius, raised a 
ladder against one of the windows, got into the house, and took one 
Pace, a freeman (in the interest of Mr. Barrow and Mr. Selwyn), out of 
his bed and got him out of the window, and having also by the assist- 
ance of one Peyton, a watchmaker in this city, got another freeman, 
one Clifford, into their custody, they drenched them well with spirit- 
ous and strong liquors and put them into a post chaise and last night 
very late attended them to a house belonging to Mr. Snell’s son at 
Coldthrop about four miles off, but when they opened the chaise door 
the two persons therein were found to be quite dead. . . . There are 
now several other persons seized arid confined in places unknown which 
they call shopping ... so that the agents of Mr. Barrow and Mr. 
Selwyn are obliged to keep constant guard to prevent these kidnapping 
attempts which are carried on in defiance of all authority and with the 
utmost insolence and audacity ” (Add. MSS. 32921, f. 22). For Dr. 
H. Gaily, see Dictionary oj National Biography, and Nichols's Literary 
Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 274 ; also in the Newcastle MSS. numerous letters 
to the Duke begging for Church preferments as reward for his election 
services. About the above incident, see also The London Chronicle, 
March 21-4, 1761 : . . last night, in picking up and sending away 

drunken men, Mr. effectually lost two voices, for they were 

actually suffocated in a chase as they were carried off.” 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 99 


A treatise on the management of freemen in a populous 
borough is supplied in the beautifully detailed and system- 
atic instructions which John Calcraft issued to his agents 
at Rochester previous to the general election of 1768 ; 1 

These instructions must be thoroughly attended to, the proper 
' persons and places pitch’d and a plan laid accordingly — 

To fix the names of half a dozen or more stout freemen, to 
attend the barr, to make room for our friends to poll easily, and 
constantly,' if possible, to keep the possession of the barr. 

To fix on persons who are to attend each house where freemen 
are, from Sunday evening till the time of polling, and they to keep 
constantly at those houses, and never stirr out of them till the 
election is finished ; except it be to poll themselves. 

To fix on about half a dozen active persons (whether freemen 
or not) to conduct about 12 or 14 freemen at a time from the houses 
where they are kept, to the polling place, with directions to see 
them all polled before they leave them. And let the house managers 
alwaies deliver out those freemen first, whom they think most 
doubtful!, and endeavour as much as may be to keep them sober 
till they have polled. 


1 The MS. is in the possession of Mr. C. C. D. Ryder, the present 
owner of Rempstone Hall (Calcraft’s estate in Dorset), and my best 
thanks are due to him for having given me permission to publish it. 
The document is not dated, and the borough which it concerns is not 
named. My reasons for referring it to the Rochester election of 1768 
are these : John Calcraft was concerned in the boroughs of Rochester, 
Poole, Wareham, and Corfe Castle. He gave up his attempts at 
capturing Corfe Castle without ever fighting an election, and amicably 
carried his claims at Wareham ; while at Poole, where his candidate 
had to meet an opposition, the total electorate consisted only of about 
a hundred burgesses— they were too few to require methods such as 
described in the instructions, and moreover were not “ freemen 
But Rochester was a tb freemen ” borough with an electorate of over 
500, and Calcraft fought in it two hotly contested elections, in 1765 
and 1768. Calcraft's paper specially mentions the instructions to be 
given “ to every person employed in any office ”, which seems to 
indicate that on that occasion he had the support of the Government ; 
this was the case in 1768, but not in 1765, when he stood in opposition 
to Grey Cooper, the Secretary to the Treasury. * 



100 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

To endeavour as much as may be alwaies to keep a head of the 
poll. 

By no means to make a parade with the freemen the morning 
of the election, but to get them as soon as may be, into your private 
houses, and keep them there till they are poled : to prevent the 
other side geting away any straglers. 

To have some sensible persons, to go about the town, and the 
poll house, and to the houses of entertainment of the other side, 
to get away any drunken, or stragling freemen, and to talk with 
them properly, and poll them immediately, or carry them to our 
private houses to be conducted from thence to poll. 

To every person employed in any office, to have his instructions 
in writing what part he is to take and desired strictly to adhere to 
it as a great deal will depend upon conduct and good management. 

Towards the close of the poll to spare no expense that may 
seem necessary. 

Between this time and the election get what doubtful persons 
you can into your private houses and entertain them there till the 
election comes on. 

Thus neither the franchise nor the size of the electorate 
gives absolutely reliable indication of its character. Still, 
one may say with Aristotle, “ the many are more incorrupt- 
ible than the few ” ; and with an election agent of the Duke 
of Newcastle's, “ it’s not in the power of any single person, 
let his weight be what it will ”, to determine the mood of 
“ sixteen or seventeen hundred English electors ’h 1 The 
large constituencies opened a field for mass movements, 
clean and unclean ; the small electorates, for quiet corrup- 
tion and for loyalties, sometimes fine, and sometimes of a 
very peculiar character. 

In 1761 only 22 of the 204 English boroughs had an 
electorate of over 1000. In the “ southern division ” there 
were : Westminster with about 9000, the City of London 
with about 6000, and Southwark with about 1500 voters ; 
Bristol with 5000, and Exeter, Canterbury, and Colchester 

1 J. S. Charlton^ M.P., to the Duke of Newcastle, August 1, 1753, 
in reference to Nottingham ; Add. MSS. 32732, f. 393. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 101 

with something over 1000 each. Thus of the 261 Member^ 
returned by the 130 urban constituencies in the south, 16 
only, i.e. about 6 per cent, had an electorate exceeding 1000. 
In the rest of England, north of the Thames and of the 
wider London area, the total number of boroughs was much 
k smaller — 74 returning 144 Members— and the corruption 
both of franchises and electorates was, on the whole, less 
advanced. 1 Fifteen of its boroughs had an electorate of over 
1000, 2 and tlieir Members formed more than 20 per cent of 
its borough representation. Together, the 46 representatives 
of English boroughs with an electorate of over 1000 formed 
almost 11| per cent of its urban representation. 

Next came, in 1761, 22 boroughs with an electorate of 
500 to 1000; 13 in the “northern” division 3 (18 per cent of 
its borough representation), and only 9 in the “southern” 
division (7 per cent). 4 Moreover, of the boroughs in the 
northern group four nearly reached the 1000 line (Oxford, 
Yarmouth, Lincoln, and Beverley), whilst three of the 
southern boroughs with an electorate of between 500-1000 
— Honiton, Reading, and Sudbury — ranked among the most 
notoriously corrupt in England. Lastly, there were 11 
boroughs with about 500 voters, seven in the “ southern ” 6 
and four in the “ northern ” division. 6 

Thus in the whole of England only 112 out of 405 

1 Tn Yorkshire there were, however, eight absolute pocket boroughs, 
and two in Lancashire. 

2 Norwich had nearly 3000 voters, Leicester, Nottingham, York, 
Newcastle-on-Tyne, Liverpool, Lancaster, and Worcester about 2000 
each; Chester, Gloucester, and Coventry about 1500 ; Durham, Hull, 
Bridgnorth, and Northampton over 1000 each. 

3 Carlisle, Derby, Cirencester, Hereford, Preston, Grantham, 
Lincoln, Yarmouth (Norfolk), Newark, Oxford, Lichfield, Evesham, 
and Beverley. 

4 Bedford, Heading, Honiton, Maldon, St. Albans, Maidstone, 
Ipswich, Sudbury, and Dover. 

5 Aylesbury, Wareham, Hertford, Rochester, Taunton, Chichester, 
and Sandwich. 

6 Stamford, Peterborough, Berwick, and Newcastlc-under-Lyne. 



102 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

borough representatives, i.e. almost 28 per cent, were 
returned by electorates of 500 or above ; in the northern 
division nearly 44 J per cent, in the southern nearly 18J. 
Of the remaining 149 urban constituencies the majority 
consisted of “ close ”, “ rotten ”, or pocket boroughs, and 
as mentioned above, these were most conspicuous in the 
south. None of the 21 Cornish boroughs had an electorate 
of more than 200 ; five of the eight Cinque Ports had less 
than 40 voters each ; of the 16 Wiltshire boroughs none 
had more than 300 voters, and among the 12 Hampshire 
boroughs Southampton was the largest with about 400 
voters ; in Surrey and Sussex 28 out of 30 boroughs had 
less than 200 voters. 

Though in most cases I put the number of voters higher 
than was done by “ the Committee appointed to report 
upon the State of Representation in England and Wales ” 
(1792), the total figure which I get for the electorate of the 
204 Parliamentary cities and boroughs in England in 1761 
is about 85,000; 110 of the borough representatives of 
England were elected by 70,000, and 295 by 15,000 voters. 
The authors of the “ Report ”, believing that a sensible 
electoral system would mean sensible elections, wrote what 
on their premise is obvious common sense : 

If three persons be chosen by 30, and two by 4970, though undoubted 
the five are chosen by 5000, still it will hardly be contended that 
such a distribution of the electors does not effectually take away 
every advantage of popular representation. 1 

It is certain that big popular constituencies had to be 
dealt with differently from rotten boroughs ; it is equally 
certain that, given the existence of rotten boroughs, 
different types of men were attracted by the different 
types of constituencies. A nabob such as Governor 
Watts of Bengal fame, when offered a middle-sized 
borough, Ipswich, with an electorate of about 700, replied 


1 P. 7. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 103 

that he was “ quite unfit for a bustle , but always 
ready with his money “ where no kind of opposition can 
be ” ; 1 and James West, a hard-worked civil servant, after 
the hurry of a contested election at St. Albans (with over 
500 voters), remarked to the Duke of Newcastle in 1761 
that “ a Secretary of the Treasury should not stand here- 
after for a populous borough, within 20 miles of London ”. 1 2 
On the other hand, Edward Bacon in 1756, William Eitz- 
herbert in 1762, and Sir Thomas Clavering in 1760, resigned 
their seats in rotten boroughs to stand for the populous 
towns of Norwich and Derby and the county of Durham, 
with which they were connected. 

Still, had none of the boroughs been of the decayed or 
close type, would the ultimate result have been funda- 
mentally different ? Was not the root of the evil in the 
mentality of the age and the customs of the time, even 
more than in inherited or distorted franchises ? Naturally 
there must have been interaction ; but perhaps what made 
people endure the system at all, was the fact that at that 
time there was no vast difference in outlook and morals 
between the populous cities and the rotten boroughs, and 
between the Members returned by the two. There is 
wisdom in Anatole France's favourite thesis that a country 
at any one time is capable of developing only one type of 
government ; and Soame Jenyns, who had sat in Parlia- 
ment from 1 741 till 1 780, in his Thoughts on a Parliamentary 
Reform , published in 1784, forestalled to some extent 
Anatole France : 

Different modes of election may make some difference in the 
trouble and expence of the candidates, and may differently affect the 
morals of the people, and the peace of the country, but will make no 

1 Gov. William Watts to James West, October 19, 1759 ; Add. MSS. 
32897, f. 263. About him see my article on “ Brice Fisher ” in the 
English Historical Review, October 1927. 

2 James West to the Duke of Newcastle, March 23, 1761 ; Add. 
MSS. 32921, f. 16. 



104 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

difference in the representative body when brought together, and it is 
of little signification by what means they come there : the majority 
of any legislative assembly, consisting of 550 members, in the same 
circumstances and situation, will infallibly act in the same manner. 1 

This statement, though perhaps too sweeping, contains 
substantial truth. 

Boroughs with over 1000 Voters 

The first distinctive feature of the larger cities and 
boroughs was the frequency of election contests in them, 
carried through to the bitter end. Of the 22 towns with 
over 1000 voters no less than eleven went to the poll in 
1761 ; of the 22 towns with 500-1000 voters, twelve; whilst 
of the remaining 202 English constituencies only 18 ; i.e. 
more than half of the larger boroughs were contested, and 
less than one in eleven of all the other constituencies. 
Like the counties, the large urban electorates could not be 
dominated easily and completely by a single interest, but 
differed from them in having a less homogeneous electorate, 
which made election calculations and agreements more 
difficult ; moreover, contests in them, though very ex- 
pensive, were not quite so ruinous as in the counties. 

The second outstanding feature was that none of the 
22 largest towns could be converted into a Government 
borough. lVot that the Government interest cflii 1 not count ; 
every vote counted — e.g. a by-election at Southwark in 
1743 was carried by a majority of 41 on a poll of 1655, and 
at Bristol in 1756 by 71 on a poll of 4765 ; and as the 
“ natural history ” of every voter was known, each received 
consideration. But the <J interest ” of the Government 
was only one among many in these boroughs, and, as in the 
comities, it had to add its mite to the fund of this or that 
powerful candidate. It could not run official candidates of 
its own, i.e. servants of the Crown in the strictest sense of 
the term. 


1 Pp. 15-16. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 105 

In the absence of any one absolutely dominant interest, 
private or official, one never meets the “ yellow dog ” 
among the representatives of these 22 towns. Even where 
there was a strong territorial interest, it had to be exercised 
by its holders in their own favour and could hardly ever 
have been assigned or transferred to outsiders. Among 
the 46 Members of these towns in 1761 only two could be 
described as outsiders, Henry Crabb Boulton and John 
Walsh, Members for Worcester, “ East Indians ” who 
captured a very corrupt borough entirely by their own 
strength and efforts. Another peculiarity of the big 
boroughs was that, as in the counties, both seats could 
seldom be filled by members of the same family, though 
this happened occasionally in the feudal north, e.g. at 
Chester and Bridgnorth. 

But should anyone expect to find in the 46 repre- 
sentatives of the big trading and manufacturing towns 
typical members of the middle classes, he will be dis- 
appointed. In 1761 eight were sons of peers, and, on the 
severest scrutiny, excluding amphibious types, a further 
24 were country gentlemen. In fact, only seven out of the 
46 were actually engaged in trade : the four Members 
for the City of London, the two Members for Southwark, 
and one Member for Liverpool. In the City of London it 
was a time-honoured tradition to elect leading merchants, 
men who had held City office and distinguished themselves 
in its municipal life. Besides the City of London, South- 
wark alone seems by preference to have chosen local 
manufacturers, merchants, and bankers ; all its Members 
between 1761 and 1784 come under this description : 
Alexander Hume (1743-54 and 1761-65), a merchant and 
a Director of the East India Company ; Joseph Mawbey 
(1761-74), a Vauxhall distiller; Henry Thrale (1765-80) — 
the friend of Samuel Johnson — a Southwark brewer ; 
Nathaniel Polhill (1774-82), an “ eminent tobacco mer- 
chant ” at Southwark and subsequently a banker ; Sir 



106 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

Richard Hotham (1780-84), a Southwark hatter, subse- 
quently an East India shipper and merchant ; and Henry 
Thornton (1782-1815), a banker — one of the leaders of the 
“ Clapham sect 

The two great out-ports, Bristol and Liverpool, usually 
returned some of their own merchants to Parliament, 
but the tradition with them was less strict than in the 
City of London or in Southwark, and in 1761 Sir Ellis 
Cunliffe, M,P. for Liverpool, was their only merchant 
representative. 

Outside these four cities one would search in vain 
in 1761 for big business men returned by populous urban 
constituencies (it is only about 1780 that a stronger 
tendency becomes noticeable in that direction). 1 Whatever 
traditions there were, worked in favour of the neighbour- 
ing nobility and gentry, who also as patrons, customers, 
and landlords were more important than the local 
merchants or manufacturers ; whilst the local bankers, 
though rising in importance, hardly as yet aspired to seats 
in the House of Commons. Nor did London merchants, 
when in search of seats, go to populous, expensive con- 
stituencies where they were strangers ; they preferred to 
buy them outright in pocket boroughs, or to cultivate an 
“interest” in some small, manageable corporation. In so 
far as local candidates were returned by the big provincial 
towns in 1761 they were mostly lawyers, often closely 
connected with the trade of their constituencies. There 
was Jarrit Smith, M.P. for Bristol, a local attorney deeply 

1 Both Members returned for Bristol in 1780 are local merchants, 
Brickdale and Lippincofc ; one at Exeter, J. Baring ; one at Canter- 
bury, 6. Gipps ; adding the four Members for London and the two 
for Southwark, ten out of the sixteen in the southern, division were 
local merchants or manufacturers. In the northern division : J. 
Darker at Leicester ; Robert Smith, at Nottingham ; H. Rawlinson 
at Liverpool ; John Webb at Gloucester ; T. Rogers at Coventry. 
This makes five out of thirty in the northern division, where all move- 
ment, whether towards corruption or reform, was slower. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 107 

engaged in the commercial concerns of the city ; Matthew 
Ridley, M.P. for Newcastle-on-Tyne, a barrister, senior 
alderman in the borough, several times its mayor, and 
Governor of its Company of Merchant- Ad venturers ; James 
Hewit, M.P. for Coventry (where his father had been a 
. merchant and mayor of the city), a distinguished barrister ; 
Charles Gray, M.P. for Colchester and Recorder for Ipswich. 
If we add two representatives of old town families, John 
Plumptre, M.P. for Nottingham, and Martin Rebow, M.P. 
for Colchester (a descendant of Flemish “ Confessors ” who 
had been eminent, cloth merchants in the town), we have 
exhausted the number of those who did not primarily 
belong to the landed interest . 1 British democracy, unless 
directed by party or professional organisations, has a 
preference for the “ well-born ”, and in the largest, most 
democratic, most hotly contested urban constituency, the 
City of Westminster, after radicalism had arisen, society 
radicals were pitched against society men. In 1761 
Westminster returned without contest Lord Pulteney, son 
of Lord Bath, and General Edward Cornwallis, son of the 
fourth Lord Cornwallis ; and in 1 702, when Cornwallis’s seat 
was vacated by his being appointed Governor of Gibraltar, 
the Duke of Newcastle was not certain at first whether the 
son of Lord Sandys was “ of dignity enough ” 2 to represent 
Westminster. In fact, outside the City of London and 
Southwark, where self-made men were covered by a 
corporate or local tradition, and Worcester, which was 
thoroughly corrupt, there was not one among the 46 
representatives returned in 1761 by the 22 English towns 

1 This list, which includes 7 merchants, 4 lawyers, and 2 town 
notables, makes a total of 13 ; adding the 2 “ East Indians ” at 
Worcester — 15. But 8 sons of peers and 24 country gentlemen were 
mentioned above. The apparent discrepancy (there should be only 
46) is due to one merchant Member for the City of London, Thomas 
Harley, the son of the third Earl of Oxford, appearing twice. 

2 The Dnke of Newcastle to the Duke of Bedford. ADril 8. 1762 : 
Add. MSS. 32936, f. 432. 



108 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

with electorates of over 1000, who comes under this descrip- 
tion (in saying this I omit lawyers, who had a peculiar status 
of their own). Rotten boroughs were far kinder and more 
hospitable to self-made men than the votes and choice of 
British democracy. 

Still, in spite of the predilection which even these large 
urban constituencies showed for men of high rank and 
birth, heredity in their representation was less marked than 
either in the counties or in the smaller boroughs, the 
influence of single families being as a rule much weaker, 
especially in the south. Twenty-one among the 46 Members 
in 1761 were the first in their families to enter the British 
Parliament : three Members for the City of London, the 
Members for Southwark, Bristol, and Liverpool, the two 
“ East Indians ” at Worcester, the four lawyers, 1 and 
lastly a few country gentlemen. Of the 25 with Parlia- 
mentary ancestry, 11 sat for boroughs which their fathers 
had represented before them, and three succeeded near 
relatives. There was a marked difference in the degree of 
continuity and heredity in representation between the 
north, the midlands, and the south. 2 In the conservative 
north the franchise was usually wider and the electorates 
were less corrupt, but a quasi-feudal tradition prevailed, 
and the hold of the landed classes even on the big, populous 
boroughs was remarkable — indeed, in some of them it 
survived the Reform Act of 1832. The Grosvenors sat for 
Chester city without a single break from 1715 till 1874, 
and during 42 of these 159 years held even both seats. 
Similarly, the city of Durham was represented by the 
Tempest family from 1742 till 1794, when it became extinct 
in the male line, and by the Lambtons from 1734 till 1813, 
when they transferred themselves to the county. At 
Newcastle-on-Tyne, Matthew Ridley, who was the first of 
his family to represent the borough and sat for it from 

1 This includes J. Smith, M.P. lor Bristol, once more. 

2 I depart here from my usual classification. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 109 

1747 till 1774, was succeeded in the representation of the 
town by his son and grandson, the three together holding 
one seat in it for almost a century (1747-1836). The re- 
markable case of the Whitmores at Bridgnorth, where 
they held at least one seat without break from 1661 till 
1870, is discussed at greater length in the essay on 
Shropshire. 

In the midlands and the south not a single case of long 
uninterrupted tenure can be found in any of the large urban 
constituencies. The father of John Rolle Walter, who 
represented Exeter 1754-66, had sat for the city 1713-15 
and 1722-27. The father and grandfather of George 
Selwyn had from 1728 to 1751 represented Gloucester, 
for which he sat 1754-80. Samuel Milles, the grandfather 
of Richard Milles, M.P. for Canterbury 1761-80, had 
represented the borough 1722-27. Edward Bacon, M.P. 
for Norwich 1756-84, occupied the seat held by his 
father 1705-10 and 1715-35. Colchester was represented 
by the Rebow family 1688-1713, 1715-23, 1734-35, 
1754-81, and again 1857-59 and 1865-70. At Nor- 
thampton five Montagus (of the Halifax branch) repre- 
sented the town for 34 years between 1707 and 1768, 
whilst the Comptons sat for it for about fifty years 
between 1720 and 1820. These are typical examples. 
There was heredity, but no unbroken descent ; for there 
was usually more than one noble or prominent family to 
choose from, and there was no absolute attachment. And 
in London, Southwark, and Bristol there was no heredity 
of any kind. 

It seems advisable to analyse the political state of a 
few of these 22 large city constituencies with a view to 
obtaining a picture of English “ urban democracy ” about 
1760. 1 

1 I omit the City of London and Westminster, partly because it 
would be a task exceeding the limits of short sketches, and partly 
becausp conditions in them were unique, and no franchise in the 



110 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

Bristol . — The politics of Bristol, the second largest city 
in Great Britain, were managed by the “ Union Club ” for 
the Whigs and the “ Steadfast Society ” for the Tories. 
On the eve of the general election of 1754 the Whigs 
approached the Tories with the suggestion to establish 
“ that harmoney which becomes fellow citizens, and recipro- 
cally to elect Members who may be willing and capeable of 
serving us ”, and thus to concur “ for the peace of the 
city The Tories refused, and put up two candidates ; 
the Whigs, however, to show that they “ did not seek for 
victory but independence ”, 2 nominated only one (Robert 
Nugent) and carried his election ; and according to Dean 
Tucker, “ there was no one thing which contributed to 
the success of our cause so much as our continual insisting 
upon the ill behaviour of the Tories in rejecting the com- 
promise ”. 3 He thus described the circumstances of 
Nugent’s nomination : 

Before Mr. Nugent, now Lord Viscount Clare, was chosen to 
represent the City of Bristol, it was a general complaint among the 
citizens, that they had not a friend to whom they could apply for 
obtaining any favour from the great officers of State : — That a 
commercial city, such as theirs, stood in continual need of the in- 
terposition and assistance sometimes of the Treasury, sometimes 
of the Board of Trade, and sometimes of the Commissioners of the 
Customs, and the Excise, &c., &c., to moderate and mitigate the 
letter of the law in contingent cases : — That, more especially during 
the time of war, they were subject to great distress for want of regu- 
lar convoys, and of other beneficial protections : — And lastly, that 
in the disposal of Government-places, belonging to their port and 
city, it was hard and grating to them to see such numbers of 

eighteenth century could have reproduced them elsewhere ; whilst 
the idea of subdividing boroughs into multiple constituencies had not 
yet arisen. 

1 Mr. Towgood to the Earl of Berkeley, Bristol, July 3, 1753 ; 
Add. MSS. 32732, f. 235. 

2 Josiah Tucker, Review of Lard Clare’s Conduct (1775), p. 5. 

3 Dean Tucker to Lord Hardwicke, March 13, 1756 ; Add. MSS. 
35692, ft. 130-31. 



AT THE ACCESSION OE GEORGE III 111 


strangers preferred, whilst several of their own tradesmen, reduced 
by misfortunes, wanted bread. 1 * 

Here then was the third largest urban constituency 3 in 
Great Britain no less solicitous of Government favours 
than some poor, decayed borough. Edmund Burke was 
•yet to learn by experience how much freer an Opposition 
Member was when sitting for some Lordship's pocket 
borough than as a representative of Bristol. On June 26, 
1777, he wrote to his friend Richard Champion : 

Until I knew it, both by my own particular experience, and by 
my observation of what happened to others, I could not have be- 
lieved how very little the local constituents attend to the general 
public line of conduct observed by their member. They judge of 
him solely by his merits as their special agent. . . . It is . . . un- 
lucky for the public, that this indifference to the main lines of the 
duty of a member of parliament should be so prevalent among the 
electors. For almost all small services to individuals, and even to 
corporations, depend so much on the pleasure of the crown, that the 
members are as it were driven headlong into dependence by those 
whom the constitution, and (one would at first imagine) the very 
nature of things, had contrived to keep independent of a court 
influence. This alone is sufficient to show how much a constitution 
in fact differs from a constitution on paper* 

Even the wider commercial politics of Bristol bore a 

tfjRBjgbj taraJL uzmjzujA. Qkr, qL wbhih. haA 

specially recommended Nugent to Bristol in 1754 was that 
he had proved “ a continual and a successful advocate for 
the out-ports, when their own members remained silent, 

1 Josiah Tucker, Review of Lord Clare's Conduct (1775), p. 1. After 
Nugent had been elected for Bristol, during the twenty years he con- 
tinued to represent them, he “ was intrusted with the nomination to 

every place and employment in the disposal of Government within 
the City of Bristol ” (ibid. p. 16). 

3 To reassure captious critics : I am quite aware that I have called 
Bristol “ the second largest city ” ; as a city it was larger than West- 
minster, but it had a smaller electorate. 

3 Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 166. 



112 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


never failing to oppose the monopolizing schemes of the 
City of London ” ; and, some twenty years later, Tucker, 
when defending Nugent’s Parliamentary conduct, empha- 
sised that he had been 

the sole instrument of rejecting in the last session a bill framed by 
the bankers of London, and supported by all their interest, for the. 
laudable purpose of bringing to their shops all the deposited money 
of Great Britain, to the total destruction of the banking business 
in Bristol, and all other towns except the Metropolis. . . . 

During the war he more eminently distinguished himself as our 
guardian and protector. Not one port in the three Kingdoms was 
so well, or so constantly provided with convoys and protections, as 
the port of Bristol. 1 

When the Whigs first invited Nugent to stand for 
Bristol “ they proposed to stipulate with him for a very 
large sum of money towards defraying the expenses of a 
contest But when he refused to be at any expense, the 
Bristol merchants, in the first place the Quakers and 
Dissenters, raised the necessary funds, which ran into four 
figures . 2 Here, as in most places, whatever genuine 
popular party feeling there was, had a religious colouring. 
Having succeeded in returning one Member in 1754, the 
Bristol Whigs tried for the second seat at a by-election in 
1756, but failed, and after £60,000 had been spent on these 
two occasions , 3 animosities subsided and “ a reconciliation 
ensued amongst the citizens ”. 4 The Tories, to have “the 
opinion on their side that they are not the disturbers of the 
peace of the city ”, had announced beforehand “ that in 
case of a victory . . . they themselves will be the first to 
propose a compromise for the future ”. 6 This was now 
concluded — “ a solemn agreement between the agents of 
both parties, that the candidate to be named by one, should 
be supported by tbe other, during three successive Parlia- 

1 Tucker, op. cit. pp. 11-12. 2 See p. 252. 

3 Ibid. 4 Dean Tucker, op. cit. p. 6. 

6 Tucker to Lord Hardwieke, March 13, 1756 ; Add. MSS. 35692, 
ff. 130-31. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 113 

ments ”. 1 In other words, the two competing political 
organisations took out a joint lease for the two seats, 
defining beforehand its duration, and Nugent was re-elected 
as a Whig even after 1762 — on accepting office in 1766 and 
twice in 1768 — although he adhered to every single Govern- 
ment except that of the Rockinghams, and even voted 
‘against the Repeal of the Stamp Act. On June 28, 1768, 
he wrote to William Knox that he had been re-elected 
unanimously, 

but not without some untoward circumstances arising from a 
jealousy conceived by the multitude of too much power assumed 
by the two societies in nominating their candidates ; some grumbled, 
but all voted for me. 2 

Thus caucus politics, even when successful, were not 
popular, whilst party politics on a national scale did not as 
yet prevail even in places such as Bristol, which in appear- 
ance were politically organised. When the Coalition 
Government was formed in 1783, “ the Tory Members for 1 
Bristol (Brickdale and Daubeny) . . . threw in their lot 
with the Coalition, while Cruger 3 who . . . was brought 
forward again at the dissolution of 1784, favoured Pitt 
But “ a careful comparison of the poll books of 1781 and 
1784 shows that those who supported Cruger as a Whig 55 
continued to support him in 1784 as a Tory, and similarly 
the supporters of Daubeny and Brickdale followed them 
when they adhered to the North-Fox Coalition. 

A few out-voters, especially from London, transferred their votes, 
but in Bristol itself, the only change of any person of standing in 

1 Dean Tucker, op. cit. p. 6. 

2 Hist. MSS. Comm., “ Various Collections ”, vol. vi. p. 96. 

3 Henry Cruger, a New-Yorker by birth, hut settled in trade at 
Bristol, represented it as an opposition Whig, 1774-80, but was defeated 
both at the general election of 1780 and at the by-election in 1781. Ho 
was again returned for Bristol in 1784, though at that time absent in 
America, and in 1790, before the end of the Parliament, moved to 
New York, where he was elected to the Senate in 1792 (about him see 
Henry C. Van Schaack, Henry Cruger , New York, 1659). 

VOL. I 


I 



114 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

the city was of Edward Brice, alderman (mayor, 1782—83) a member 
of an old Whig family, who voted for Cruger in 1781 and for Brick- 
dale in 1784. 1 

Nottingham . — If Bristol serves as illustration for the 
great out-ports, Nottingham stands for large county towns 
dependent mainly on local trade, and therefore apt to be 
influenced by the neighbouring big landowners, who 
moreover in many cases owned also a considerable amount 
of house property in these towns. Its franchise was in 
freemen and forty-shilling freeholders, and of its 2000 
voters three-fourths were resident in the borough, the rest 
mostly in its neighbourhood. 2 The Duke of Newcastle, one 
of the chief landowners in the county and Recorder of the 
borough, headed the Whigs, Lord Middleton the Tories, 
and usually the two parties divided the representation of 
the town. 

“ Lord Howe ”, wrote Newcastle to his chief agent in 
Notts., J. S. Charlton, M.P. for Newark, on July 21, 1753, 

was with me yesterday to ask my interest for Nottingham. I could 
give him no positive answer, till I knew the state of the town ; 
and the real intentions of those, who have the greatest weight there. 
Lord Howe said, the town would neither cku.se two Whigs, nor two 
Tories, but one and one ; and thought, he had much the best 
interest of any Whig. 

Newcastle, therefore, wishing to preserve “ the peace of the 
town ”, instructed Charlton to ascertain Lord Middleton's 
attitude. 3 From him Charlton found out that “ the 
gentlemen in the country ” did not think 

1 A. B. Beavcn, “ Bristol Men in the Eighteenth Century ”, in the 
Bristol Times and Mirror , February 15, 1913. 

2 There are no poll books for the Nottingham elections of 1754 
and 1774 in the British Museum, but that for 1774 is in the Bodleian, 
and I base on it the above statement. The only poll books for 1754 
I know of are those mentioned in the List of Books in the Reference 
Library at Nottingham, No. 14 (1890), p. 66 : Alphabetical List of 
Burgesses and Freeholders and Copy of the Poll of the Burgesses and 
Freeholders. I have had no opportunity to examine them. 

3 Add. MSS. 32732, ff. 336-7. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 115 


of proposing two for the town of Nottingham, even should my Lord 
Howe stand, but as his Lordship was the only gentleman, who sub- 
scribed against the burgesses their friends, in favour of the corpora- 
tion , 1 all attempts to induce them to joine his Lordship would be 
impracticable. There ratherseems adisposition to joine Mr. Plumptre, 
his family having principally undertook their cause . 2 

‘ Plumptre, a second cousin of Howe, was of a family 
which had sat for Nottingham under Richard II and 
Elizabeth, and his father, a faithful adherent of Newcastle, 
had represented it for thirty-tw'o years between 1706 and 
1747. But now Newcastle desired Plumptre “ to lay aside any 
thoughts of standing for Nottingham the next election ”, 3 
and considered that Plump tre's election was anyhow doubt- 
ful, as Abel Smith, the local banker, 4 had declared for 
Howe. 5 6 Plumptre, however, was not willing to desist, 8 and 
subsequently, though hoping to retain Newcastle’s “friend- 
ship and goodness ”, joined interests with the Tory 
candidate, 7 whilst on August 29, Chariton thus reported a 
further visit to Middleton : 

I found my Lord in the greatest distress and confusion at the 
ferment raised in Nottingham on Lord Howe’s coming down. The 
language of the place, that his Lordship has sold the burgesses, and 
that they would stone both him and his servants, on which his 
Lordship sent over that he should be determined by the burgesses. 
He must otherwise have lost all weight, beside his own ease and quiet, 
which he will not give up on any consideration whatever. . . A 


1 Lord Howe had contributed £500 to a lawsuit in which the cor- 
poration was engaged against the burgesses of Nottingham. 

2 Add. MSS. 32732, f. 393. 

3 See his letter to Plumptre, August 9, 1753 ; ibid, f . 437. 

4 Before the century was out Smith’s bank was one of the first in 
England and a grandson of his a peer ; and between 1770 and 1910, at 
least twenty-four of his descendants (not counting those of his brother, 
Samuel) sat in the House of Commons for a joint term of 364 years. 

5 Newcastle to Charlton, Add. MSS. 32732, 2. 439-440. 

6 Letter to Newcastle, August 18 ; ibid. 2. 493-4. 

7 See Add. MSS. 32733, 2. 122-3 and 166-7. 

8 Add. MSS. 32732, f. 572. 



116 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

Still, Newcastle stood by his promise to Howe, who, 
assisted by the most prominent members of the Corporation, 
“ walk’d the town ” (their presence serving at the canvass 
to exert pressure on their dependants to engage themselves 
accordingly). Among those who accompanied Howe were 
Abel Smith and his two sons. But 

My Lord Middleton bearing of the extraordinary zeal of the Smith’s 
family (and having constantly a very great sum of money lying dead 
(as to himself) in their hands which they employ to their own 
profit) sent his steward ... to them threatening that unless they 
immediately chang’d their behaviour ... he would take all his 
money out of their hands and perswade all his friends to do the 
like. This message had such an effect upon the mean spirits of the 
Smith’s family (whose idol is money) that one of the sons went next 
day to Lord Middleton and in the name of his father, his brother 
and himself, gave up Lord Howe and his interest (as much as in 
them lay) and promised to do as Lord Middleton should direct 
them. 1 

This is a typical example of the system of organised 
bullying which worked from the top downwards, and it is 
hardly necessary to enter here into the detail of Newcastle’s 
own activities ; his stewards at Nottingham had to secure 
his dependants, and examine the ways of influencing other 
voters ; to his estate agents in other parts of the country 
lists were sent of Nottingham voters in their “ collections ” ; 
the Excisemen were worked with due discretion (as the 
Commissioners were debarred by law from giving “ direc- 
tions to their officers about elections ”) ; the poor burgesses, 
with whom cc money and the best bidder is become the 
by -word ”, received petty bribes ; etc., etc. But it is 
worth noticing that two friends of Newcastle, who them- 

1 Add. MSS. 32733, ff. 174-5. It is obvious from the whole tenor 
of the letter that its writer, Clay, Newcastle’s Nottingham agent, 
was personally hostile to the Smith family ; at the end he had, how- 
ever, to insert the correction that “ George Smith, who married a 
relation of Lord Howe’s ”, declared that his brother had no right to 
speak in his name, and that he continued to support Howe. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 117 

selves were largely indebted to him for their seats — John 
White, M.P. for Retford, and John Thornhagh, knight of 
the shire — supported Plumptre and secured for him their 
tenants. 1 

Newcastle and the Corporation proved victorious ; 
Howe received 980 votes (901 of them “ single ”), the Tory 
candidate, Sir Willoughby Aston, 924; Plumptre only 915. 

Thus in boroughs great and small, big territorial 
influences were apt to determine elections. To what 
extent 1 That is a question to which no general answer 
can ever be given, for even within the same borough, 
conditions differed from one election to the next ; but so 
much is certain, that outside burgage or merely nominal 
boroughs, those absolutely at one man’s command were 
infinitely fewer than stated in the beautifully clear calcula- 
tions made by reformers. In a borough of the size of 
Nottingham, neither Newcastle nor Middleton could 
absolutely dictate to the voters, though both could, in 
various ways, exercise very considerable influence. 

When in 1758 Lord Howe was killed at Ticonderoga, 
Lord Middleton declared “ that he was determined to take 
no part in the Nottingham election and that his people might 
vote as they pleased ”, 2 whilst Newcastle thus explained 
his situation to Charlton, on August 28, 1758 : 

... I thought the merit of the Howe family, at this time, was 
such, that no friend to the Government could be against shewing them 
a proper mark of respect. For that reason, 1 have wrote to the present 
Lord Howe, 3 to propose to him the vacating his seat for Dartmouth, 
and the chusing him for Nottingham ; and, in that case, I would have 
endeavour’d to get Plumtree chose for Dartmouth to make every- 

1 Ibid. fi. 242 and 284. White said that Plumptre “ is his old 
acquaintance 

2 J. S. Charlton to Newcastle, September 22, 1758 ; Add. MSS. 
32883, f. 250. 

3 The Admiral, afterwards in command of the Fleet in America 
during the Revolution. 



118 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

thing easy. The Mayor and Aldermen of Nottingham have wrote a 
letter to my Lady Howe, desiring to chuse one of her family. This 
letter has been shew’d to me, and my Lady Howe desires that her 
son the lieutenant-colonel, 1 may be chose for the remainder of this 
Parliament, and the present Lord Howe to come in afterwards. . . . 
I cannot but think myself extremely ill-used by the Whig Corpora- 
tion of Nottingham, where I am Recorder, to make all these offers 
and applications, without taking any notice of me, or giving me the 
least knowledge of them ; and it is the more extraordinary and 
ungrateful, as I serv’d their friend pretty materially the last election 
against a very good Whig, and the son of the oldest, and one of the 
best, friends, I ever had in Nottinghamshire. 2 

Finally Newcastle had to accept the arrangement as 
made between Lady Howe and the Corporation, and so 
had Plumptre. Before the end of the year Plumptre 
was returned through Newcastle’s mediation for Penryn, 
and in 1761 and 1768 he and General Howe were elected 
for Nottingham. 

Newcastle-upon-Tyne . — As a third example I take this 
big, independent trading town in the north. Its electorate 
exceeded 2000 — 2388 voted in 1741, 2165 in 1775, and 2245 
in 1780 3 — and in 1734 and 1741 two Tories were successful; 
but in 174:7, in view of the heavy expense of the previous 
contests, the representation was “ compromised From 
that year till 1774, Matthew Ridley, a Whig, shared it with 
Sir Walter Calverley Blackett, who sat for Newcastle as a 
Tory from 1734 till his death in 1777. In 1741 Blackett 

was at the height of his popularity . . . styled . . . the Patriot, 
the Opposer of the Court, and the Father of the Poor ; the latter 


1 William Howe, who commanded the British troops in North 
America, 1775-77. 

2 Add. MSS. 32883, ff. 141-3. 

3 Of these 2245 voters, only about half — 1148 — were resident in 
the town, 889 were from the country, and 208 from London ; “ every 
voter at Newcastle upon Tyne, coming from London, is said to cost 
301.” (see Report of the Committee . . . upon the State of Representation 
in England and Waites (1792), p. 14). 




AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 119 


was, indeed, an appellation he justly merited, for never, perhaps, 
did the poor of Newcastle and its neighbourhood receive more 
support or relief from any individual than from Sir Wi alter 
Blackett. 1 

Here is a short selection from the “ acts of humanity 
his generous heart teemed with”: In 1736 he built a 
public library for Newcastle. When in 1739 the harbour 
froze, he gave 200 guineas for the relief of the unemployed, 
and by his personal exertions collected another £1000. In 
1751 he gave £200 to the Newcastle Infirmary and £50 to 
be continued annually for its support ; in 1754, £1200 for a 
Hospital for “ decayed burgesses ” ; in 1757, £100 for the 
relief of the poor because of the prevailing scarcity of grain ; 
in 1759, £1000 to the Infirmary ; between 1764 and 1774, 
£2260 to augment seventeen small livings of the clergy, etc., 
etc., etc. 

By 1774 a new political movement was rising in a 
constituency which in the reign of George II had been 
nurtured by Blackett, now a supporter of the Court, 2 
on a combination of private benefactions and opposition 
cant. The fact that Ridley and Blackett refused in 1769 
to present a petition from the burgesses for the dissolu- 
tion of Parliament, was brought up against them, 3 and 
radical resolutions for Parliamentary reform were drawn 
up by the opposition, whose candidates were Constantine 
Phipps, subsequently second Lord Mulgrave, a dis- 
tinguished sailor (in politics connected with Lord Sandwich 

1 See Memoirs of the Public Life of Sir Walter Blackett of WaUington, 
Bart., Newcastle (1819), p. xv. ; by " J. S.”-— obviously John Sykes, a 
Newcastle bookseller and antiquary. 

2 The author of the Memoirs of the Public Life remarks that 
in a poll book belonging to a burgess “ who took great interest in the 
public concerns, we find the following notes : ‘ Sir Walter is now no 
longer the opposer, but the favourite of the court ; he attends the 
levee, is noticed by the king and bowed to by the Minister.’ ” This 
phrase, as a matter of fact, is taken from The Contest. 

3 See The Contest (1774), p. 23. 



120 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

and the Court), and Thomas Delaval, 1 a rich merchant, 
and brother of Sir John and Sir Francis Delaval. Still, 
non-political considerations had even greater weight. 
Phipps 

on all occasions during his canvass, and upon the hustings, 
declared his warmest attachment to the best interests of New- 
castle, and especially to the improvement of the river Tyne, 
which he considered as being capable of becoming one of the 
finest rivers in the world, but which ignorance, inattention and 
avarice had converted into what he called “ a cursed horse-pond 
That ... he would exert all his influence with the admiralty, 
to whom he was personally known, to protect, cherish and aggran- 
dize the important and numerous branches of trade on the river 
Tyne. 2 

Further, in 1774 Blackett “ was far from being so 
popular as he was at the preceding contest, having un- 
fortunately engaged in the violent party question relative 
to the Town Moor, which about this time agitated every 
breast, and destroyed the peace of many families ”. 3 4 
“ Party question ” — what was it ? In 1772 the Corpora- 
tion, whose side Blackett espoused, had let out 89 acres of 
the Town Moor “for the purpose of being cultivated and 
improved The burgesses who had the right to “ the 
herbage of the Town Moor, Castle Leazes and Nun’s 
Moor ... lor two milch cows each ”* felt injured. thereby 
and, as their opponents retained “ all the senior council on 
the circuit ”, turned to a certain George Greive, the son of 

1 About Thomas Delaval, an interesting figure, see also The Delaval 
Payers, edited by John Robinson ; Hist. MSS. Comm., Report 13, 
App. vi. the Delaval Payers , edited by R. Ward; R. E. G. Cole, The 
History of Doddington. 

2 See Impartial History of the Town and County of Newcastle- upon- 
Tyne (1801), p. 181. 

3 See Memoirs of the Public Life , pp. xxvii.-xxviii. 

4 See on this dispute, The Newcastle Freeman's Pocket Companion, 
by a Burgess (1808), and Report of the Select Committee of Burgesses of 
N ewcastle-upon - Tyne (1811). 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 121 

an Alnwick solicitor and a prominent radical, 1 “ desiring 
him to ask the Bill of Rights influence with Serjeant Glynn 
to come and plead their cause : Mr. Greive chearfully 
undertook the task. . . 2 Thus the Newcastle burgesses 

pulled political wires to secure the best counsel, and the 
radicals in turn tacked their own political cries on to the 
milch cows on the Town Moor. None the less, Blackett and 
Ridley were re-elected. 3 

On the death of Sir Walter Blackett in 1777, his nephew, 
Sir John Trevelyan (an ancestor of Sir Charles Trevelyan, 
who now represents Newcastle-upon-Tyne as a Labour 
Member) came forward as candidate for the borough, and 
the following appeal was made on his behalf : 

Though unknown to many of you, yet be assured he inherits the 
same generous principles of his late worthy uncle ; and so much so, 
that the loss of the one can alone be made up by the possession of 
the other. 4 

Neither Mulgrave nor Thomas Delaval were now 
available, and George Greive and the radicals put forward 
as their candidate A. R. Bowes (originally Stoney), a 
disreputable Irish adventurer who, on marrying the 
Dowager Countess of Strathmore, the daughter and heiress 
of George Bowes, M.P. for County Durham. 1727-60, had 
assumed her name. 5 The cry was raised of “ Bowes and 
Freedom ”, and the opponents were described as “a com- 

1 In 1794 self-styled “ defendeur officieux des braves sans-culottes 
de Louvencienn.es, ami de Franklin et de Marat, factieux et anarchiste 
de premier ordre et desorganisateur du despotisme dans les deux hemi- 
spheres depuis vingt ans ”. About him see D.N .B. 

2 See The Contest, pp. 27-8. Serjeant Glynn was the famous 
radical, Recorder of the City of London and Member for Middlesex 
from December 1768 till his death in 1779. 

3 Blackett received 1432 votes, Ridley 1411, Phipps 795, and Delaval 
677. 

4 From ■' A Free Burgess " ; see W. Garret’s Collection of Newspaper 
Cuttings, etc., 1777-84, in the British Museum, pp. 3 x. and 24. 

5 An only child bom of that marriage died in iAfancy. 



122 TEE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

bination, of wealth and power, to suppress the free elections 
of the people ” 1 — “ 0 break the closet-combinations of the 
magistrates and gentry whose glory it seems to be to treat 
their inferiors as slaves ”. 2 But the supporters of Trevelyan 
wisely pointed out that Bowes, should his wife die, would 
go “ back to his original insignificancy ” ; “ would it , . 
be proper, would it be decent ... to entrust our rights and 
properties with a man who in ... a few hours may himself 
be divested of the very appearance of an estate ? ” Whereas 
Trevelyan was “ an Englishman of an antient and most 
respectable family, possessed of a large permanent estate '\ 3 
Sir John Trevelyan won the seat by 1163 against 1068 votes 
for Bowes. 4 

By 1780 Bowes was deep in debt, and whilst “fully 
engrossed by our patriotic meetings and their appendages ”, 
was trying to compensate a London creditor by tips for 
bets ; e.g. he wrote to him on February 29 : 

I am glad to find the opinions of people in London against my 
election ; it will give you an opportunity of making some good bets ; 
and so positive am I, that I have no objection to your standing a 
third part to nothing, and you may make me liable to pay the whole 
in case I should not succeed. But you must bet upon a proviso 
that L[ady] Sftrathmore] lives. 5 

This was obviously an indispensable condition for the 
triumph of '‘ freedom ”. She lived, and Bowes was 
returned together with Sir Matthew Ridley. His later 
adventures, imprisonment and death within the Rules of 
King’s Bench Prison do not enter into this story, which 

1 In Bowes’s election address of February 19, 1777 ; see W. Garret’s 
Collection , p. 15. 

2 From a “ Poor Burgess ibid. p. 20. 

3 Ibid. p. 502. 

4 See on that election also North Country Diaries , Publications of the 
Surtees Society, vol. 118 (1910), vol. i. pp. 231-3. 

5 See The Lives of Anthony Robinson Bowes, Erq., and the Countess 
.of Strathmore, by Jesse Foot, p. 70. 



AT THE ACCESSION OE GEORGE III 123 


can. best be concluded with a description of that radical 
hero, given by his surgeon, Jesse Foot, “ from 39 years 
professional attendance ” : 

He was a villain to the backbone ! . . . He cloathed all his vil- 
lainies in the dress of virtue. ... To sum up his character in a few 
.words, he was cowardly, insidious, hypocritical, tyrannic, mean, 
violent, selfish, deceitful, jealous, revengeful, inhuman and savage, 
without a single countervailing quality. 1 

Canterbury . — Here was an old cathedral town, opulent 
and singularly free of any dominant aristocratic influence, 
in rich agricultural country, an eighteenth-century “ Caster- 
bridge (“ The great wealth and encrease of the city of 
Canterbury,” wrote Defoe in 1724, “is from the surprizing 
encrease of the hop grounds all round the place/'' 2 ) What 
were its politics ? In what terms were they transacted % 

At the dissolution in 1761 its Members were Sir James 
Creed, a London merchant and Director of the East India 
Company, a regular follower of Newcastle’s, and Matthew 
Robinson Morris, of Mount Morris near Hythe, subsequently 
second Lord Rokeby. 3 Morris did not stand again, but 
Thomas Best, another country gentleman 1 who had been 
returned in 1747 but had “ declined the poll ” in 1754, came 
forward, and Newcastle tried, through W. Freind, the Dean 
of Canterbury, to arrange a junction between him and 
Creed. 5 But Best joined Richard Miles, a Tory and 
country gentleman, 6 and Dean Freind feared that Creed’s 

1 Ibid. pp. 185-7. 

2 A Tout through Great Britain , vol. i., Letter II, p. 42. 

3 His sister, the tiresome Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, states that he 
was re-elected in 1754 without expense ; see E. J. Climenson, Elizabeth 
Montagu, vol. ii. pp. 49-50. 

4 Described by Mrs. Montagu as “ a man of fortune ” (ibid., i. p. 121). 

5 Add. MSS. 32915, ff. 71-2. 

6 Add. MSS. 32916, if. 117 and 323. About Milles and his family 
see Hasted, Kent, vol. iii. p. 728 ; G. A. Carthew, The Hundred of 
Launditch, part 3, pp. 126-7 ; R. F. Scott, Admission Register of St. 
John’s College, Cambridge ; Berry, Kent (Genealogies). 



124 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

success would be “ a little doubtful ” should he stand alone 
against their united interests. There was, however, already 
another candidate in the field, William Mayne, a merchant, 
about whom Sir Harry Erskine wrote to Lord George 
Sackville on December 11, 1760, that he “is attached 
to Lord Bute, who espouses his interest He asked 
Sackville 

to request the Duke of Dorset to recommend him to Sir Thomas 
Hales, Dr. Curtis, and such gentlemen as have influence in Canter- 
bury, that he may not appear as one totally unknown, which they 
endeavour to represent him in that city. 1 

On January 1, 1761, Newcastle wrote to Lord Sondes, 
liis nephew by marriage and chief of the Kentish Whigs : 

My Lord Bute is a particular friend of this Mr. Mayne ; and is 
now very desirous, that he should join Sir James Creed ; and I think 
Sir James can do nothing so well, for his own sake or for the Whig 
interest, as to join a friend of my Lord Bute’s against the Tories. 

I have recommended the junction to Sir James Creed ; and I 
have wrote to the Dean of Canterbury my opinion upon it. I there- 
fore hope you will concur with me in it. 2 

An agreement between Creed and Wayne was concluded 
on January 23 ; “ the junction formed by Mr. B[est] and 
Mr. Mfilles] ”, wrote Freind to Newcastle on January 3, 
1761, “ has, in spite of their endeavors to avoid it, given 
a party complexion to the cause, which will do them no 

1 Hist. MSS. Comm Stopford-Sackville MSS. (1904), vol. i. p. 45. 
William Mayne was one of the twenty-one children of William Mayne of 
Powis, County Clackmannan, had been for many years in the mercantile 
house of his family established at Lisbon for about a century, but 
had retired from it in 1757, and married in 1758 Frances, daughter of 
Joshua, second Viscount Allen. He sat for Canterbury, 1774-80, and 
for Gatton, 1780-90, was created a baronet in 1763 and Baron Newhaven 
[Ir.] in 1776. There are a few letters from Mayne among the Bute 
MSS. 

2 Add. MSS. 32917, f. 16 ; for Newcastle’s letter to Dean Freind, 
see ibid. f. 14. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 125 


service ’h 1 But Milles, the Tory, came out in support of 
Sir Wyndham Knatchbull, the Whig Member for the 
county, and Knatchbull waited with him on Newcastle, 
who was, however, now bound to the other side. “ If Mr. 
Milles intends to act as he expresses himself now ”, wrote 
Sondes to Newcastle on January 21, “ tis a pity he had not 
made his intentions known sooner ”. 2 

The campaign which was carried on for Mayne at 
Canterbury is described in An Address to the Electors of 
the City of Canterbury , by Thomas Roch, citizen. 3 Stories 
were circulated 

that Mr. Mayne was a man of great merit and fortune ; that he had 
been preceptor to his Majesty, and that his Majesty was greatly 
improved in mercantile affairs, and thoroughly a judge of the 
ballancc of trade, and from his instruction ; that Mr. Mayne was a 
man of great parts, had great interest at court, and was an intimate 
friend and companion of Mr. Pitt.. 

... If any good woman went to tell her neighbour the good and 
joyful tidings, she was prevented by, lord ! neighbour ! I am glad 
you are come, I have great news to tell you: they say our King’s 
schoolmaster is coming to be our member of parliament, and that 
the King will do any thing that he asks of him. 

In fact, Maync’s position was described as such “ that hopes 
might be entertained of having a great part of the Court 
Calendar filled up with the freemen of Canterbury 

The character and methods of the Tory opposition can, 
on the other hand, be gathered from letters written to 
Newcastle by Sir George Oxenden, a Kentish baronet and 
M.P. for Sandwich, 1720-54. He wrote on February 1, 
1761 : 

Mayne won’t carry it I hear, tho’ Creed, it is thought, will ; 
I dined with them ; a numerous meeting of shoemakers, broken 

1 January 3, 1761 ; ibid. 32917, f. 112. 

2 Ibid. i. 475. 

3 Thomas Roch was a cabinet-maker, “ a native of Ireland Rnr 
an obituary notice of him see Gent. Mag., 1781, p ,46. 



126 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


tradesmen, &o., &c., but few or none of the principal inhabitants 
of the place. — No Scotch — no foreigner is the cry. 1 

Thus in Kent it was the Tories who worked the cry of 
“No Scotch Oxenden wrote again on February 19 : 

... at Canterbury it is certain the principle people in the city are 
against them [Creed and Mayne], and what is worse the farmers of 
note round about, and ten miles off, are busy in making votes for 
Milles and Best, I know their influence very well, by experience at 
Sandwich in 1741 — where they certainly carried the election for 
my partner Mr. Pratt— I believe we might stop several of them, but 
as we stop them in the county where they are inclined, notwith- 
standing the orders they receive from their landlords, it will be too 
much to ask them in the city where they have received directions to 
act as they do. . . . 2 

And again on March 2 : 

There will be a hard match at Canterbury, I dare say it will cost 
them four thousand a man. The other side out manage them vastly, 
they certainly have the majority in the town, several Whig trades- 
men, dead for us in the county, and dead against Creed and Mayne 
in the town, on. account of the near neighborhood of Milles par- 
ticularly. Most of the Prebends in the same way, as the Milles’s 
visit and play at cards always with one or other of them, so that they 
have got several capital people away from us in the city, and we 
not one from them. . . . The farmers are all for the neighbors, 
some of our tenants and of the other Whig gentlemen round about, 
but we do not think it prudent, at least it is ray opinion not, to stop 
them, for they are a stubborn race of men, and as we manage them 
in other things and they readily follow us, so they like to have their 
heads sometimes, and it must be done — and Mayne’s being called a 
Scotchman has set them all afire and is, as you may imagine, an 
indication how much a Scotch interest is cry’d out against in this 
part of the world. 3 

On March 16, 1761, the Archbishop of Canterbury 
wrote to Newcastle about Best : 

1 Add. MSS. 32918, f. 179. “Foreigner” means here, of course, 
not a native of Kent. 

_&dd. MSS. 32919, 2. 116-17. 


3 Ibid. 2. 374-5. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 127 


Mr. Best . . . made me a visit this morning : and without 
asking for my interest, which he appeared sensible ought to be given 
to the other side, earnestly desired me to assure your Grace in his 
name, that if he was chosen, he would not enter into opposition, or 
put himself on a party footing, but concur with the Administration 
in everything, as far as he honestly could. 1 

On March 28, 1761, Milles and Best, the anti-Scottish 
£C Tories ”, were elected by 806 and 788 votes, against 691 
for Creed and 686 for Mayne, 2 Bute's 6 ‘ Whig ” candidate. 
The case is recommended to the careful consideration of 
those who discuss the politics of 1761 in terms of “ parties 

Coventry. — I take this as last illustration of cities with 
more than 1000 voters— an example of a corrupt borough, 
whose “ politics ” were shunned by most of its neighbours. 
This is the account of it which Taylor White, a Welsh judge 
and younger brother of John White, M.P. for Retford, sent 
on March 22, 1768, to his daughter Anne : 

I dined at Coventry where I found the town had been set into 
a flame by the accidental coming of a stranger, one Mr. Warren, 3 a 
Shropsliire gentleman, a day or two before the election, the old 
Members were Mr. Conway, Mr. Archer. The town wore displeased 
at Mr. Archer’s not having paid all the demands made on him for 
his last election, tho’ most probably he paid more than was due. 
They went round the country to the Tory gentlemen, among the 
rest to Mr. Ludford and Lord Craven’s brother,, but none of their 
own country chose to meddle with the Coventry electors. So this 
Mr. Warren who by the bye has sold all his estate in Shropshire to 
Lord Clive 4 was invited by the landlord of the Bull Inn at Coventry 
to stand, which he very wisely accepted of, and stood a poll which 
he lost by about fifty votes, however he was persuaded to demand 
a scrutiny and sent for Mr. Newnham to be his council and also to 
Sergt. Jephson from Shrewsbury. I saw Newnham at Coventry 
and advised him to take his fees before he went about business for 

1 Add. MSS. 32920, f. 253. 

2 Of 1339 Canterbury voters in 1790, 832 were resident in the town, 
153 from London, and 354 from the country ; see Report of the Coni' 
mitlee, p. 14. 

3 Walter Waring, not Warren. 4 S,ee p. 362. 



128 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


from all accounts of Mr. Warren’s finances he would scarce get any 
if he did not secure them beforehand. 1 

On the poll H. S. Conway received 972 votes ’ Andrew 
Archer, with whom “ the town were displeased ”, 633 ; 
Walter Waring, 479. 2 The politics of the landlord of the 
Bull Inn and his associates require no comment. 

The conclusion which this analysis of a few of the freest 
and most important urban constituencies impresses on 
one's mind is that it was not the state of the franchise alone 
which about 1760 was responsible for the absence of real 
“ politics ” in elections, and that “ corruption ” was not 
a shower-bath from above, constructed by Walpole, the 
Pelhams, or George III, but a water-spout springing from 
the rock of freedom, to meet the demands of the People. 
Political bullying starts usually from above, the demand 
for benefits, from below ; the two between them made 
eighteenth-century elections. 


Boroughs with 500-1000 Voters 

None of the 22 boroughs with 500-1000 voters was 
controlled by the Government, and none was absolutely in 
the power of one family, but most were under a territorial 
influence. At Bedford in 1761, on a compromise continued 
from 1754, the Duke of Bedford nominated one Member 
and the Corporation the other. 3 Carlisle was always under 

1 Memoirs of the House of White of Wallingwells (1886), pp. 40-41. 
About Waring and bis Coventry elections, see also H. T. Wevman, 
“Members of Parliament for Bishop's Castle ", Transactions of the 
Shropshire Archaeol. Soc., second series, vol. x. (1898), p. 61. 

2 Of 2525 Coventry voters in 1790, 1891 were resident in the town, 
356 were from London, and 278 from tbe country ; see Report of the 
Committee, p. 14. 

3 On August 8, 1753, Philip Yorke wrote to Lord Hardwicke : 

The Duke of Bedford and the Corporation have settled their 
affairs for the next election. The Duke brings in Mr. Ongley, and 



AT THE ACCESSION OP GEORGE III 129 


aristocratic patronage, of the Earls of Carlisle, the Dukes 
of Portland, or the Lowthers ; 1 Derby was under that of 
the Dukes of Devonshire ; Cirencester, of the Bathursts ; 
Evesham, of the Rushouts ; Grantham, of the Duke of 
Rutland and the Cust family; at Yarmouth in Norfolk, 
between 1722 and 1784, one Member was always a Town- 
sheud and the other a Walpole ; during the same time at 
Newark one Member was always the nominee of the Duke of 
Rutland and the other of the Duke of Newcastle, 2 but even 
tbeir united interest had to stand a severe contest in 1754 
against that of a local clergyman. Dr. Wilson. 3 At Lichfield 
the representation was divided between the Ansons and the 
Leveson- Gowers ; and in spite of the apparent size of the 


the Corporation Mr. Herne, his Grace also to chuse Alderman Dicken- 
son (who is reckoned a moderate Tory) for one of his boroughs 
(Add. MSS. 35351, f. 249). 

In a letter of August 2,2 Lord Hardwicke remarked that 

it is generally thought that his Grace has made an odd bargain with 
the Tories for the town, and that he has really no Member of his own 
for that place. It is strongly affirm’d here that your neighbour 
Mr. Ongley is a determin’d Tory, but I thought you had told me 
otherwise . . . {ibid. ff. 265-6). 

In 1761 Ongley was transferred to the county and Richard Vernon, 
a regular Bedford Whig, was the Duke’s nominee for the borough. 

1 Sec R. S. Ferguson, Cumberland and Westmorland 31. P.’s (1871). 

2 For the sake of formal accuracy I have to state that in 1768 the 
“ Pelham ” candidate was chosen by Lord Lincoln, to whom Newcastle 
had inter vivos made over his Newark property. 

3 The opposition candidate was Edward Delaval, subsequently a 
famous scientist. “ To secure his return ”, writes R. E. G. Cole in his 
History of Doddinglon, “ his brothers [J. H. and F. B. Delaval] entered 
into an agreement with Dr. Bernard Wilson, D.D., Vicar of Newark, 
1719-72, who used all the influence given him by his position there, 
and the possession of a large fortune obtained by questionable means 
from Sir George Markham, of Sedgebrooke, to establish a parliamentary 
influence in the borough. . . .” The text of the agreement is given 
there in full. For Newcastle’s management of that election, see his 
correspondence, especially with his agent and nominee, J. S. Charlton, 
in Add. MSS. 32733'5. 

VOL. I K 



130 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

electorate, Lichfield, which had a complicated franchise and 
was swamped by “ sham- voters ”, was less of a real con- 
stituency than many a smaller borough ; at Stafford, with 
about 320 voters, almost all of them local tradesmen, <f the 
electorate must have been far more democratic than at 
Lichfield. ...” 1 At Honiton the Yonge family had a tra- 
ditional and very expensive interest, 2 and at Hereford the 
Scudamores held one seat, 1754-1 818, and 1819-26. At 
Preston, Lord Derby established his influence in 1768 by 
defeating the Corporation and on petition gaining for the 
borough the widest male franchise ever known in the 
British Isles ; at that election “ there wasn't a how [whole] 
winda in t’ tawn ”. 3 At Beverley there was no one pre- 
dominant interest. Oxford, Reading, St. Albans, Ipswich, 
Sudbury, Maldon, Maidstone, and Dover, i.e. the medium- 
sized towns round London, were comparatively free and 
some of them very expensive ; at St. Albans the Spencers 4 
and the Grimstons came near being patrons, at Maidstone 
the Finches and Marshams, but in neither borough was a 
firm and exclusive interest established. 

But even where there was a well-established territorial 

1 See J. C. Wedgwood, Staffordshire Parliamentary History, vol. ii. 
p. 278. 

2 See p. 202. 

3 See W. Dobson, History of the Parliamentary Representation of 
Preston (1856), p. 10. “ Lawless bands of colliers from the neighbour- 
hood of Chorley were here in the interest of the Corporation candidates, 
while Longridge, Ribchester, and the neighbourhood furnished their 
quota of armed blackguards (about 2500) for the other side” {ibid. p. 11). 

4 The great Duke of Marlborough had an electoral interest at St. 
Albans which was subsequently managed by Sarah, Duchess of Marl- 
borough ; from her it passed to the Spencer family. But in 1741, 
when James West was first returned, it was against her wish : “ The 
old Dutches told one that since the mayor and aldermen still opposd 
her intrest, she would find out a way to be even with them before they 
was aware . . . her Graceless . . . thumpt her cain to the ground in 
a rage saying they knew not what they did . . . ” (G. Neale to J. 
West, n.d. ; Add. MSS. 34734, f. 8). 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 131 

influence, the patrons had to be careful and not press their 
claims too far. If one seat was readily and cheerfully 
conceded to them in recognition of their pre-eminence and 
their regular benefactions, they were in most cases well 
advised to leave the town free to take full advantage of 
the second seat — a type of compromise frequent even in 
the smallest “ corporation ” boroughs. 1 One of the most 
prominent territorial influences in the medium - sized 
boroughs was that of the Cavendishes at Derby, where they 
held one seat without a break from 1715 till 1835. 2 But 
they never put up two Cavendishes for the borough, 
and when in 1748 the Duke’s own manager, Thomas 
Rivett, was returned for the second seat against the 
Duke’s candidate, Thomas Stanhope, the revolt was not 
visited on the Member and his electors, but smoothed 
over before the next general election by Rivett receiv- 
ing a secret service pension, obtained for him by the 
Cavendishes. 3 

Evesham was represented by the Rushouts (descendants 
of Flemish “ Confessors ”) at the end of the seventeenth 
century and without a break from 1722 till 1796, and again 
from 1837 till 1841. In 1761 Sir John Rushout, fourth 
Baronet, had himself and his son returned for the borough, 
but he “ had a hard push to get in his son and many that 

1 Bee, e.g., the case of Andover, where the Members were elected by 
the Corporation, consisting of twelve capital burgesses and twelve 
associates. Lord Portsmouth had considerable influence in the 
borough, but when, before the general election of 1761, Newcastle 
applied to him on behalf of Francis Delaval, he replied : “ When I 
recommended Mfajor] Gfeneral] Griffin to my friends at Andover I 
promised them that I would not interfere farther in the election ...” 
(September 28, 1760 ; Add. MSS. 32912, f. 193). Thus also did the 
Ryder family act at Tiverton in 1768 (Add. MSS. 32986, f. 142 and 32987, 
f. 167) ; etc., etc. 

2 1742-54, the seat was held by Lord Duncannon, a son-in-law of the 
third Duke of Devonshire; 1797-1807, by George Walpole, a grandson 
of that Duke ; otherwise by Cavendishes. 

3 See p. 528. 



132 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

assisted him are sorry that it is so ’V and at the next 
general election he hesitated to interfere with the choice of 
the second Member. James West wrote to Newcastle on 
October 11, 1767 : 

. . . As to Evesham, there will probably be a very warm contest : 
Sir John Rushout has declined on account of age, and the town 
where are 900 voters w r ere so angry at his bringing in two last time, 
that Mr. Rushout has been obliged to declare, he will not join any 
one and in that light only is his security. 1 2 

The Monsons represented Lincoln in Parliament in the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and held one seat 
for forty-six years between 1722 and 1812, while the 
Sib thorps held the other for twenty-five years in the 
eighteenth century, and, with the exception of only twelve 
years, from 1800-61. None the less, much more than 
tradition and influence was required to carry elections in 
that city. Lord Monson, when applying for a Court 
appointment, wrote to Newcastle on May 22, 1758 : 

. . . It is not in my power any longer to support or even maintain 
the interest I so dearly bought at the last general election at Lincoln 
(by the desire of Mr. Pelham, more than my own inclination) if your 
Grace will not think of me ; and that the spending £7000 and upwards 
exclusive of my house being like a fair for two years should not 
have intitled me to some small favour before this, I own I think 
hard. . . . 3 

Naturally in constituencies with many poor voters, 
who could not aspire even to the smallest offices and could 
profit from largesse only, contests were much desired, and, 
like the landlord of the Bull Inn at Coventry, their managers 
would go in search of candidates. Lady Cust wrote to 

1 Thomas Ashfield to James West ; Evesham, March 31, 1761 ; 
Add. MSS. 34735, f. 267. 

2 Add. MSS. 32985, f. 443. The Mr. Rushout mentioned above 
was the son of Sir John, and succeeded him as fifth Baronet. 

3 Add. MSS. 32880, f. 200. 



AT THE ACCESSION OE GEORGE III 133 

her son, Sir Jolm Oust (subsequently Speaker of the House 
of Commons) on May 9, 1741, about Grantham : “ Monday 
was our election, which was very peaceable and quiet t, the 
freemen are sadly vex’d, there was no opposition ”J At 
St. Albans, in 1761, “ the third man ” was talked about for 
many months, and became a familiar figure in the town 
under this truly expressive description — there was no trace 
of a political element in these discussions. “ The town is 
very clamorous for a third man ”, wrote Dr. Handley, a 
local physician, to James West, one of the two official 
candidates, on October 5, 1760. 2 “ Our third man as yet 

is in the clouds ”, he wrote again on November 30. 3 “ At 
present no third man appears tho the greatest pains is 
taken to promote it ” (December 21 ). 4 Another of West’s 
friends, Grindon, wrote on February 17, 1761: “ . . . 
Gape . . . has declar’d that if the person sent does not 
bring a third man ”, they would start one locally. 6 Ire- 
monger, on February 18 : “ This morning the town was 
in an uproar. . . . Sherman had received a letter from 
the 3 d man. . . 8 “Mr. 3 ” got finally even into the 

newspapers, requiring the freemen of St. Albans, though 
as yet only a numerical symbol, not to engage themselves 
— the following appeared in a notice in the General Evening 
Post on March 7 : “A third person every way qualified 
for that high trust . . . will be unanimously declared by 
us, and will very soon make himself publicly known A 
week later he materialised in the person of Thomas Corbett, 
and on March 28, 1761, received 261 votes against 344 for 
Lord Newnham, the Spencer candidate, and 313 for James 
West. The joint election expenses of the two successful 
candidates were £3363 : 4 : 7 — so much immediate profit 
to St. Albans. 

1 Records of the Gust Family, compiled by Lady Elizabeth Oust 
(1909), vol. ii. p. 245. 

2 Add. MSS. 34735, f. 55. 3 Ibid. f. 94. 4 Ibid. f. 104 

6 Ibid. t. 152. 6 Ibid. f. 160. » 7 Ibid. f. 265 



134 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

In 1761, of the 44 representatives of boroughs with an 
electorate of 500-1000 voters, nine were sons of English 
peers (three of them courtesy lords and one illegitimate), 
one an Irish peer, the rest mostly country gentlemen. Not 
a single one was a local business man, and even of local 
lawyers there were only two — the old Tories, N. Fazakerley 
and E. Starkie, Members for Preston. But the “ radiation” 
of the official and commercial classes of London into the 
provinces becomes noticeable in this type of boroughs. 
Thomas Fonnereau, of Huguenot parentage, a very rich 
London merchant, and John Henniker, a merchant and 
shipbuilder, sat for Sudbury; James West, Secretary to 
the Treasury, for St. Albans ; and Sir Edward Simpson, at 
one time King’s Advocate-General, and in 1761 Dean of the 
Arches, Keeper of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury and 
Judge of the Cinque Ports, represented Dover, with Sir 
Joseph Yorke, Minister to the Hague, for his colleague. 1 
Bamber Gascoyne, whose father had been Lord Mayor of 
London and whose mother was the daughter of a well- 
known London physician, sat for Maldon ; he was one of 
the governmental “ men of business ”, on the border-line 
between Ministers and civil servants. Francis Herne, 
Member for Bedford, was similarly of a London mer- 
chant family. Rose Fuller, Member for Maidstone, was 
a planter in the West Indies and a squire and iron -master 
*in Sussex, at one time Chief Justice of Jamaica, now 
interested in business ventures in the City, where his 
brother Stephen, agent for Jamaica, was an eminent 
merchant. Lastly, there was Thomas Thoroton, Member 
for Newark, who acted as the “ man of business ” to the 
Manners group (as Rigby did to the Bedfords, Burke to the 

1 The Yorkes were a Dover family, and Joseph Yorke was not 
a mere Government candidate planted out on a strange place. Still, 
their choosing him is significant — it seems extremely doubtful whether 
any of the large towns would have chosen a Member who, from the 
very nature of his office, could hardly ever attend Parliament. 



AT THE ACCESSION OE GEORGE III 135 


Rockingliams, Whately to George Grenville, Calcraft to 
Henry Fox, Robert Jones to Lord Sandwich, etc.). 

Of the 44 Members representing medium-sized boroughs, 
14 were the first in the male line of their families to enter 
the British Parliament ; seven sat for boroughs which their 
fathers had represented, twelve succeeded near relatives — 
the corresponding figures for boroughs with over 1000 voters 
were eleven and three. To some extent this different pro- 
portion may be accidental — the figures are much too small 
to yield reliable averages — but it also stands to reason 
that, given lineal descendants, the more important and 
dignified a constituency, the more likely was the hereditary 
,principle to work out in a direct succession. The lesser 
seats would be assigned to collaterals or relatives by mar- 
riage ; and, taking the matter from the other end, although 
a considerable town might accept a son as successor to his 
father, it might not agree to extending this hereditary 
allegiance to more distant relatives. 

In this class of boroughs I propose to analyse mainly 
such as illustrate some new factors, not present in the large 
towns dealt with in the previous chapter — in the first place, 
the immediate intervention of the Government, whose 
influence, though not decisive in any of these boroughs, in 
a few played a considerable part. 

Maldon. — The electorate consisted of some 700 freemen, 
but as residence was not required and the Corporation could 
create honorary freemen, there was a good deal of gerry- 
mandering. 1 Between 1754 and 1763 there was at Maldon 

1 See, e.g.y letter from Sir George Oxenden, of Deane in Kent, to 
the Duke of Newcastle, March 2, 1761 (Add. MSS. 32919, ff. 374-5) : 
“ . . . a strange account we lately received from Mr. Colebrooke [M.P. 
for Maldon] that the town of Malden had, at his desire, made us [Sir 
George and his son] freemen of that place ... he says ‘ that I may 
easily guess of the cause I am to serve \ I suppose himself is the 
cause he means. . . See also letter from John Bullock to New- 
castle asking him to write to Dr. Kutherford at Cambridge “ to come 



136 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

a curious sequence of partial defeats of the Government, 
by persons who next tried to insinuate themselves into 
its favour. In 1754 R. S. Lloyd, son of the Solicitor- 
General and one of the Government candidates, was 
defeated by John Bullock of Falkbourn Hall, Essex, 
son of a late Member for the county, and kinsman of the 
Duke of Bedford. 1 But having captured the seat, Bullock 
took thought to connect himself with the Government. 
In a letter of July 14, 1755, George Townshend recom- 
mended him to Newcastle as a man “ in whom you can 
deposit that confidence and power which every one who 
proposes to establish an interest in a corporation town is 
desirous of having on his side”. 2 In 1761 Bullock was 
joined to Robert Colebrooke as official candidate, but now 
Colebrooke was defeated by a new interloper, Bamber 
Gascoyne, and, on March 31, complained to Newcastle 
that “ several Government votes did not support us, not- 
withstanding your express order they should ”. 3 By May 
1762 Gascoyne seems to have been on the best terms both 
with the Government and Colebrooke. Bullock wrote to 
Newcastle about Maldon on May 6, 1762 : 

to Maldon to take up kis freedom and to vote for Mr. Colebrooke and 
Mr. Bullock ” (Add. MSS. 32920, f. 351). 

1 He is described as such by the Duke of Bedford, who supported 
him, in a letter of March 30, 1761 (Add. MSS. 32921, f. 192). Sir 
Richard Lloyd himself was defeated at Ipswich. Hardwicke, as Lord 
Chancellor, was the chief of the lawyer politicians on the Government 
side, and expressed to the King his disappointment at these defeats ; 
“ His Majesty said, so was he, but that he heard he had starved the 
cause. I told him that the gentleman bad himself assured me that he 
had spent £3000 at both places. That, as to Maldon, I thought his 
soil had been as sure as my own son at Ryegate . . (Hardwicke to 
Newcastle, April 24, 1754 ; Add. MSS. 32735, ff. 178-9). 

2 Add. MSS. 32857, ff. 103-104. 

3 Add. MSS. 32921, f. 242. These were apparently Custom House 
officials, for in Newcastle’s “ Memorandums ” of April 2, 1761 {ibid. 
f. 270), appears the following entry : “ The account of the custom 
officers at Malden * 




AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 137 

On my coming there, I found everyone of the Corporation in great 
confusion, occasion’d by Mr. Colebrooke and Mr. Gascoyne’s having 
been there and Mr. Gascoyne’s offering himself for Recorder, every 
method was tried to induce them to come into it. Your Grace’s 
name in perticuler was used, commanding them to comply and 
threatening destruction and loss of places should they refuse. . . - 1 

On December 9, 1762, Gascoyne voted against the peace 
treaty, but four months later, he accepted a place at the 
Board of Trade. 2 At the by - election, at which he was 
opposed by John Huske, a London merchant of American 
extraction, he naturally had the support of the Treasury ; 
he wrote to Charles Jenkinson, its Secretary, on April 21, 
1763 : 

I have herewith sent you a list of the freemen of Maldon who are 
in office imder the Government, to desire an immediate conveyance 
to them that they are to assist me ; for I am sorry to tell you, that 
they are to a man almost against me. The opposition to me 
is carried on with a great violence and open bribery. Ribbons 
with “ Liberty, property and no excise ” are the ornament of my 
opponents’ booths and carriages, and some other devices of this sort 
which I do not choose to mention. Guineas and scraps of North 

1 Add. MSS. 32m, ff . mi. 

2 Lord Temple to Lady Chatham, November 1762 : 

Gascoyne has been here: much dealing with Fox; but I think 
he is firm ( Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 193). 

Bamber Gascoyne to Lord Bute, December 21, 1762 : 

At the request of Mr. Fox and with my own inclination I am to 
wait on your Lordship upon particular business ; ... if your Lord- 
ship will favour me with a line, that I may know your leisure you 
will oblige . . . (Add. MSS. 5726 D, f. 25). 

Bamber Gascoyne to William Pitt, December 22 : 

I have attached myself to you upon principle, gratitude, and 
respect ; and could I flatter myself that my going into office was 
likely to impede any operation of yours I should never forgive myself 
{Chatham Correspondence, pp. 204-5). 

Pitt to Gascoyne, December 22, 1762 : 

I never in my life expressed my wish to any friend either for 
their accepting or declining office {ibid. pp. 205-6). 

Gascoyne now refused the place, but accepted it in April 1763. , 




138 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

Britons are scattered all over the town and I can assure you that the 
opposition is founded by that ingenious gentleman Mr. Wilkes and 
his crew and is more immediately at Government than me. . . J 

The same day John Bindley, a Commissioner of the 
Excise, thus explained to Jenkinson the way of dealing with 
subordinate officials of his own office, in view of the Act 
forbidding interference with them in elections : 

. . . the affair being of the most delicate nature, I can forsee no 
way of serving Mr. G. but by his application in person or by letter 
to those who have votes in which case leave of absence may be given 
to the off. who will then understand what is meant. . . . 

N.B. The method proposed above is the only one used here in 
former cases. 

P.S. Huske wrote to me yesterday, which I thought very ex- 
traordinary, to assist him with the votes here. 1 2 

In spite of this support Gascoyne was defeated by “ the 
ungenerous behaviour and proceedings of the officers of 
the Customs and the freemen of that borough. ...” The 
respect due to the “ high station ” of the King’s Minister, 
wrote William Hunter, a Custom House official sent to 
Maldon to work for Gascoyne, 

and their dependance on his pleasure either to reward or punish 
ought to have produced the most chearful complience and concur- 
rence with every request from him to support his election. ... I have 
been upon a visit to the several and respective officers of the Cus- 
toms, freemen of the Corporation on behalf of Mr. Gascoyne, in the 
course of which . . . nothing has been wanting on my part to de- 
clare how necessary it was to compliment him with their votes and 
interest, and I am ready to afirra that not any the least intimations 
consequent thereon has been delivered to those officers or their 
friends from me, but what has been strictly upright and consistent 

1 Add. MSS. 38200, f. 312. 

2 Huake was connected with and supported by Charles Townshend, 
to whom ho had been deputy in the ofhee of Treasurer of the Chambers 
about 1760, and Bindley was a friend of Townshend, which may 
account for the applfcation. 


AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 139 

with the freedom of elections, however warm in His Majesty’s 
service or the honour of the honourable House of Commons I have 
expressed myself. . . A 

By June 1763 John Huske, the opposition candidate, 
elected — according to Gascoyne — with the support of 
Wilkes, seems to have turned a friend to the Government. 
Edward Richardson, a City agent of Jenkinson’s, reported 
that he had freed Huske’s mind from certain wrong “ sur- 
mises ” and shown him that it had been “ all Gasconade ” ; 
and yesterday they dined together and “ we toasted very 
frankly my Lord Bute’s and yours, and next week meet 
again for the same good purpose ”. 2 Huske was not among 
those who on February 18, 1764, in the division on General 
Warrants, came very near defeating the Government. 

Maidstone. — The Maidstone election of 1761 completes 
the picture of the confusion of parties in the higher political 
circles offered by the neighbouring city of Canterbury ; 
shows once more that in so far as parties existed among the 
rank and file of the electorate, they had usually a religious 
background— spontaneous Whig action at Maidstone was 
due to nearly half its population being Nonconformist ; a 
and exhibits Newcastle handling, or at least professing to 
handle, Government influence as if it was his personal 
property. 

On February 8, 1761, General Kingsley informed 
Newcastle that a considerable body of freemen at Maidstone 
asked Mini to stand against the two Tory candidates, Mr. 

1 Wmam Hunter to Charles Jenkinson, April 26, 1763 ; Add- MSS. 
38200, ■321. About a fortnight later, Hunter asked, in considera- 
tion of jfc services at Maldon, to be appointed “ to a small collection 
in. an oupuott ” (ibid. f. 331). 

2 Ada. MSS. 38201, f. 11. John Huske was subsequently accused 
in America of having been the author of the Stamp Act, which was 
wrong. I propose to deal with him at greater length in a future essay ; 
useful information about him was published in Notes and Queries, 
twelfth series, vol- viii. pp. 217 and 335. 

3 See General History of Maidstone, by Walter Hoyles (1809). 



140 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

Hanger, supported by Lord Romney, and Mr. Northey, 
Lord Aylesford’s nominee ; but he would not engage 
against such powerful opponents without Newcastle’s 
assistance. 1 Newcastle answered that, to oblige Lord 
Granby, he had promised Lord Aylesford “ to be for any 
person, that he would recommend upon this occasion ”, and 
called this “ quite a private family agreement ”. 2 Kingsley, 
in reply, described the Whig interest at Maidstone as 
" at its last gasp ”, 3 and gave up the idea of a contest ; 
whilst Sir George Oxenden wrote to Newcastle on 
February 19 : 

People are embarrassed (at least I confess I am), what to say, and 
how to act . . . when the Court is all Tory at Maidstone and all 
Whig at Canterbury. They laugh at us and tell us, we make a rout 
about the Whig interest, when no body above sticks by it. . . . 4 

Newcastle replied in a shuffling mamier : 

Before I had enter’d into any engagement to my Lord Ailesford, 
I asked General Kingsley, whether he would stand at Maidstone, 
which he then declined. I did not hear of any opposition, and my 
best friend, my Lord Granby, having earnestly desired me to assist 
his brother-in-law, my Lord Ailesford at Maidstone ... I promised 
... so to do. . . . My engagement was merely a private family 
affair. ... It had no relation to the Court, or to any one in it ; 
and they knew nothing of it, when it was done. And therefore I 
am willing to take the whole blame upon myself ; and from this 
instance, the Court can’t be called Tory ; for they had nothing to 
do in it. It is almost the first instance of the kind, in which I ever 
engaged myself ; and I hope, that, with the reasons I have given for 
it, will excuse me amongst my Whig friends. 5 

None the less a Whig candidate now took the field, 
Rose Fuller, a personal friend of Newcastle’s — he was in 
search of a constituency, as he had no chance of re-elec- 

1 Add. MSS. 32918, f. 370. 2 February 10, 1761 ; ibid. f. 417. 

a February 12, 1761 ; ibid. f. 483. 4 Add. MSS. 32919, ff. 116-17. 

• 5 Ibid. ff. 338-9. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 141 


tion at Romney, where “several of the governing men 
are graziers and the Deering and Furnese family have 
together a very great estate in the neighbouring marsh 
which is very profitable to and easy for tenants. . . 1 

He informed Newcastle on March 1 that he was going to 
Maidstone with the approval of Lord Sondes. 2 Newcastle 
replied that he could not approve of it and, in spite of his 
love and esteem for Fuller, would have to oppose him. 
He also feared that Granby and Aylesford might think he 
had acted a double part, when his “most particular friend” 
Rose Fuller, by the encouragement of his nephew, Lord 
Sondes, opposed Aylesford. 3 Fuller now mounted the high 
horse of political principle : 

I was . . . invited to offer myself att that town by the Whig 
interest, which before I was twenty years of age I was convinced 
was the onely one by which the religion, liberty, property, happi- 
ness, power and internal peace of this nation could be preserved. . . . 
Upon these principles I set out and have continued to act upon and 
shall persevere into the end of my life. 4 — -I attached myself to your 
Grace because I knew these principles were rivetted in your soul, 
and not upon account of your birth, riches or power. ... As the 
head of that interest . . . your Grace hath a weight in this King- 
dom more than you can well conceive, yet I very much doubt your 
Grace’s power in carrying a popular election in any Whig county 
in favor of one of the other interest. 


1 Lose Fuller to Newcastle, June 23, 1758 ; Add. MSS. 32881, f. 
33. Against pasture for the cattle even the amiability of Rose and 
Stephen Fuller availed nothing. “ Seldom a day ”, wrote E. Milward 
to J. Collier in 1756, “ but both the Fullers kiss all the women in the 
Corporation — ’tis quite in their taste” (W. V. Crake, “The Corre- 
sjjondence of John Collier,” Sussex Archaeol. Collections, vol. xlv. 
p. 94, n). The two Members returned in 1761 were Sir Edward Deering 
and Thomas Knight, both so-called Tories. 

2 Add. MSS. 32919, f. 348. 

3 Ibid. ff. 410-11. 

4 When he “ totally altered his hue ”, in 1775, Burke called him 
the “ old, withered Rose, who in his best was no better than a dog- 
rose ” (see Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 7). 



142 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


He found the warmest reception at Maidstone and expected 
to carry the election, but was alarmed by news from 
Chatham 

that the Commissioner had . . . sent for all the freemen of Maid- 
stone employed in the dock and acquainted them he had recieved 
orders from the Admiralty to direct them to vote for Mr. Northey. . . . 

The letter, which started with principles and proceeded with 
alarms, concludes with a re-insurance : 

I am infinitely obliged to your Grace for what my Lord Kinnoul 
told me to wit . . . that you had kept a seat in Parlaiment open 
for me in case I could not carry my election there [at Maidstone ]. 1 

The same day twelve freemen of Maidstone, for them- 
selves “ and hundreds more ”, reminded Newcastle, “ the 
warm and steady patron of liberty,” of their past exertions 
on behalf of “ the illustrious House of Hanover”, and 
expressed their “ real concern ” at losing the advantages 
they “ allways us’d ... to derive from the assistance of 
the dockmen at Chatham, and others in His Majesty’s 
service ”. Having dealt with the letter read out by the 
Commissioner at Chatham Yard, they proceeded : 

We beg leave farther to inform your Grace, that Mr. Bingle, 
assistant to the builder at Chatham, came hither yesterday from Mr. 
Hanwav the Commissioner., to desire the vote and interest of Mr. 
Edward Prentis, and his son, and Mr. Stephen Prentis, timber dealers 
of the Yard. Your Grace will therefore pardon us for making this our 
humble request, that those honest men, who had actually promis’d 
their votes to Mr. Fuller before the above orders arriv’d, may have 
some assurance, and that too a publick one, given them, that they 
shall not suffer by fullfilling their engagements . 2 

In a letter of March 14, Fuller harped once more on the 
Government support for Northey, adding the following 
comment : 


1 Rose Fuller to Newcastle, March 12, 1761 ; Add, MSS. 32920 

fi. 121-2. 2 Ibid. f. 139. 




AT THE ACCESSION Of GEORGE III 143 

When I consider Mr. Northey wait® before His Majesty, as a 
Gentleman of his Bedchamber, 1 I can concieve, how it happened 
this letter was sent, and doe not att ad "wonder att it. Although 
I had heard a determination had been taken to permitt the persons 
in His Majesty’s immediate service to vote f° r those they liked 
themselves. — I believe this is the first instance of that determination 
being departed from. 2 

Newcastle replied on March 15 ■ 

... no consideration can, or shall, induce me to break it [his en- 
gagement]. ... As I am engaged, I will n °t ac t one way myself 
and persuade others to act contrary f° h- I have directed Mr. 
West to let those, who depend upon the "treasury hatuw, ihtft 1 am 
for my Lord Aylesford’s friend. I haV e nothing to do with other 
offices ; and therefore the application of the gentlemen to me about 
the dock votes was extremely impr°P er - ... In every other 
borough in Kent, and I may almost s* a y 111 every other place in 
England, any . . . interest which I m^y have is . . . strenuously 
employ’d in support of the Whig interest. And this I think should 
satisfy my Whig friends in Kent. 3 

But however much Newcastle stuck to his engagements, 
his attempts to keep in with everybody invariably ended 
in his being suspected of duplicity- On March 23 Lord 
Barrington, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, reported 
a conversation with Lord Bute which makes it seem 
doubtful whether the Court was really so uninterested 
in Northey’s candidature as Newcastle tried to make it 
appear. 

He said smilingly that he must complain of the Treasury ; that 
all the revenue officers to a man who ha ve votes at Maidstone would 
give them against Mr. Northey ; he thought this would make 
people suspect you of duplicity, and the more so as Fuller was 
your friend and a Sussex man. That f or bis own part he did you 
justice and did not suspect you. ... 1 said I know you had given 


1 Northey was one of the five Tori es introduced into the Bed- 
chamber in December 1760 without the knowledge of Newcastle. 

2 Ibid. f. 196. 3 I&d- f- 231. 



144 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

the .usual directions, and had not done any thing to contradict 
them. . . , a 

And on March 27 Lord Hardwicke wrote to Newcastle 
that “ it begins to be talk’d that altho’ you give out that it 
is a sort of family affair . . . yet it was my Lord B. that 
induced you to support the Tory-Groom of the Bed- 
chamber ”. 2 

Rose Fuller carried his election at Maidstone, “ many 
officers of the Customs and Excise and many employed in 
the docks and yards ” having voted for him ; he now asked 
Newcastle to “ protect those officers from any censure or 
discountenance ”. 3 Still, now that he no longer requjpd 
the seat which Newcastle had held for him in reserve, he 
hinted that the Duke had not wished to see him in Parlia- 
ment “ in that honorable manner I was in the last, and 
thank a number of honest independant freemen am in 
the present ”. 4 And in August 1761, Fuller, when asking 
for an appointment for Thomas Nightingale, brother of an 
eminent Maidstone banker, once more reminded Newcastle 
of his misdeeds : 

. . . The Whigs and Dissenters in general, indeed, I might say, all 
who are any ways connected with this town, stand in need of 
something to heal their minds of the soreness they felt and have 
felt, by and since the recommendation of Mr. Northey by the 
Administration. 

1 Add. MSS. 32921, fi. 6-7. In another letter, on March 26, Bar- 
rington reported a further conversation with Bute reassuring New- 
castle of Bute doing him most ample justice (ibid. S. 78-9). 

2 Ibid. fi. 101-4. 

3 March 29, 1761 ; ibid. f. 160. The figures were : Fuller 483 votes, 
Northey 452, Hanger 440. 

4 Rose Fuller to Newcastle, April 4, 1761 ; ibid. fi. 315-16. Cf. 
with this a letter which Fuller’s nephew by marriage, W. Sotheby, 
had written to Lord Hardwicke on September 18, 1756, when asking 
for his support with a voter at Romney — he described Fuller as being 
“ of too much property to desire to be brought in by any interest 
that should entirely restrain the freedom of his vote ” (Add. MSS. 
35692, f. 374). 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 145 

The favour to Mr. Nightingale would convince them that 
“ they are not slighted "h 1 

St. Albans. — Among the papers of James West at the 
British Museum there are two volumes of his correspondence 
concerning the management of the borough of St. Albans. 2 
Fsom that mass of material I choose a few examples to 
show the character of its politics. Very seldom — in fact, 
only three times— does one find matters of public interest 
discussed in these papers covering a period of about twenty- 
seven years, and whenever they occur, they are of a local 
character. On February 2, 1755, Dr. Handley, a leading 
man in the Corporation, wrote to West : 

Mr. Gore and Mr. Hale [Members for Herts] have sent circulatory 
letters all over the county of the designed bill to regulate the car- 
rages desireing the oppinion of their constituents relateing to it, and 
how they would have them act. — How far something of that kind 
may be thought proper by you to our worthy gentry here must 
leave to your superior judgment, but if you will permit to give 
mine believe it will bee taken well. . . . 3 

West obviously took the hint, for on February 17 the 
Mayor is foimd explaining to him at considerable length 
how the interests of the borough would be affected by the 
enforcement of the so-called “ Broad Wheel Act ” of 
36 George II. 4 The second reference to a public interest is 
contained in a letter from West to Handley dated Sep- 
tember 29, 1759 : 

I am glad to tell you that after three years constant application, 
I have at last fixed the post to come every day to St. Albans, whose 
prosperity and convenience I am always thinking of. 5 

The third is correspondence about the billeting of troops at 
St. Albans — as J ohn Page, M.P. for Chichester, said in reply 
to a suggestion of Major Gibbon of the Hampshire Militia 

1 Add. MSS. 32927, ft. 207-8. 2 Add. MSS. 34734 and 34735. 

3 Add. MSS. 34734, f. 92. 4 Ibid. f. 94. . 5 Ibid. f. 329. 

VOL. I L 



146 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


(father of Edward Gibbon, the historian) for quartering two 
of its battalions at Chichester : 44 One of the tacit obliga- 
tions upon a Member of Parliament was to keep the place 
he represented as free as he could from being pesterd and 
burthend with soldiers. . . .” 1 

What we would now call political problems (and a 
future generation may possibly describe as party man- 
oeuvres) do not appear in the correspondence, which 
is engrossed with petty local intrigues and jealousies, 
scrambles for the civic honours of the borough, and endless 
applications for Government jobs and favours. 

When after eight months out of office (November 1756- 
July 1757) West returned with Newcastle to his old place 
at the Treasury, it was thus that he was congratulated by 
one of his St. Albans constituents : 

I beg leave to congratulate you on your return to that place, 
which has given you so many opportunities, and will still afford you 
more, of indulging two of your most amiable and favourite passions, 
the love of your King and country, and compassion for your dis- 
tress’d friends. . . . 2 

And here are two typical applications from freemen of 
St. Albans : 

H. Luck, writing to James West on April 12, 1759, asks 
for some small place 44 not attended with hurry, fatigue or 
confinement ”. 44 1 have an interest in the borough of 

Barnstaple as well as St. Albans, which I hope will intitle 
me to your favour. . . .” 3 

1 See letter from John Page to Newcastle, September 25, 1761 ; 
Add. MSS. 32928, f. 356. See also letter from John Dodd, Member 
for Reading, to Newcastle, November 4, 1760 : “ As I find the people 
of Reading so very desirous of chusing me this next general election, 
I think it incumbent on me ... to beg your Grace will speak to Lord 
Barrington [Secretary at War] to order the regiment that is now 
quarterd at Reading to be immediately removed ...” (Add. MSS. 
32914, f. 96). 

2 Add. MSS. 34734, f. 122. 3 Ibid. f. 277. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 147 

John Stoughton, on May 6, 1759, reminds West of an 
occasion when, “ my being a freeman of St. Alban, you 
was so kind to promise me, that you would get me to the 
Board in order to be a superviser in the Excise. . . .” 1 

Army matters play a considerable part in the corre- 
spondence — West had to obtain commissions for gentlemen 
and discharges for privates. To give one example : 

I trouble you now [wrote Handley on March 24, 1759] at the 
request of Mr. Franklin, the butcher, who has a son a soldier in the 
Royal Artillery at Bombay in India, he has been gone four years, 
and the old man says if you will by any means procure his discharge, 
he and his famely will for ever serve you with single votes 2 if requisite 
the young fellow has a vote. I should be glad, if it be in your power, 
if you will interest yourself in earnest in this affair. . . . The old 
man says that last election you promised if he would serve you 
that if he ever wanted any service in return you would do every 
thing in your power. . . . Our enemies are very bussy, but such 
things as these must always frustrate their wicked designs. 3 

I conclude with a letter from a St. Albans alderman to 
James West, dated December 5, 1759 : 

I heartily congratulate you on your election of High Steward of 
our borough of St. Albans, I believe we are all extreemly sensible 
of the benefitts we are likely to enjoy under the influence of a gentle- 
man whose abilitys and interest are so very extensive, and more 

1 Add. MSS. 34734, f. 286. 

2 “ Single votes ” means that they would vote for him alone in a 
two-member constituency. 

3 Add. MSS. 34724, f. 276. The general election of 1761 gave the 
Franklin family a good opportunity for bringing up their request once 
more ; and the following information was supplied to West by Robert 
James from the East India House, on April 30, 1761 : 

. . . William Franklin went to Bombay in the year 1755 as a 
mattross in the King’s Train of Artillery, but whether he is living 
or not cannot appear in any of our offices, and if living, as he is in 
His Majesty’s service, his discharge cannot depend upon the Company. 
By the last advice the said Train was sent from Bombay to the other 
side of India to assist in the siege of Pondicherry (Add. MSS. 34935, 
f. 315). 




148 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


especially as you have given us such strong assurances in your 
polite letter to the Mayor to support the body and be of real benefitt 
to every member thereof, which hath hastned my intentions of 
troubling you with the following. . . A 

Dover. — There was a castle at Dover, forts, ships, trade, 
and packet boats, which, in terms of patronage, read£ : 
the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, the Ordnance, the 
Admiralty, the Treasury (through the Custom House), and 
the Post Office. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
the Lord Warden nominated to one seat, and this custom 
so much tended to harden into a regular privilege that 
in 1689 an Act of Parliament was deemed necessary to 
declare its illegality. 2 Still, the influence of the Lord 
Warden survived, especially at Hythe and Dover. There 
was, however, also a strong independent element in the 
borough, and early in the eighteenth century a leading 
local family, the Papillons, appear among its representa- 

] Add. MSS. 34734, f. 353. 

2 See George Wilks, The Barons of the Cinque Ports and the Parlia- 
mentary Representation of Hythe (1892). In February 1613-14 Lord 
Northampton, the Lord Warden, claimed it to be “ the auncient usage 
and privilege that my selfe and my predecessors have ever had in the 
noiacon [nomination] of one of the Barons to be elected in the several! 
ports . . .” (ibid. p. 66 ) ; and in 1683 Colonel Strode, by order from 
the King, reminded the Corporation of Hythe of the privilege “ which 
the former Lord Wardens have ever enjoy'd . . . ‘ The power or pre- 
eminence of recommending one of the Barons ... to be elected for 
each of the ports ’ ’’ (p. 88). But the Act of 1689 declared that all 
such nominations or recommendations were and are contrary to the 
law and constitution of this realm ” (pp. 89-90). There were other great 
Boyal officers who in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries enjoyed 
similar privileges ; see, e.g., Sir Richard Worsley, History of the Isle of 
Wight (1781), for its Governor's claims in its boroughs ; Pink and 
Beaven, The Parliamentary Representation of Lancashire , for the Chan- 
cellor of the Duchy nominating in the sixteenth century to one seat 
at Liverpool ; etc. Lecky’s wrong assumption that the Duchy of 
Cornwall exercised an important influence in Cornish boroughs in 1761 
(see England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. iii. p. 29) is probably based 
on similar privileges possessed by its officials in an earlier age. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 149 

tives. Later on, Dover was brought into very close con- 
nexion with the Government through the person of Lord 
Hardwicke, its Recorder and Steward 1718-64, who 
himself 

was strongly attached to his native town of Dover, and to the old 
frfends of his family in that place and neighbourhood, such as the 
Papillons, the Plumptres, the Pussells, the Minets, the Wellards, 
the Gunmans, with whom he kept up an unbroken correspondence. 
He was constantly visited by them, and many from these families 
received his invaluable support at their start in life, or during the 
progress of their careers . 1 

Although Dover naturally benefited by this connexion, 
sentiment played the chief part in it, and when the Govern- 
ment took to sending the Corporation what one disappointed 
candidate properly described as a conge d’elire , 2 they were 
soon reminded of the limitations to their influence. 

Philip Minet, of a leading Huguenot family at Dover, 
wrote to Hardwicke on April 22, 1756 : 

The seat in Parliament which late Mr. Burrell occupied being 
vacant, I should be glad to know if your Lordship has any person 
perticularly to recomend . . . ; any body from your Lordship 
would meet with success, but as the good people my townsmen have 
been much disgusted at persons being named, sent downe and re- 
comended, by the Ministry with very little notice or time given 
dhtfor, diwy* and a great - amtsbvr trosAf giWi’y enrfrn&a? a person wha 
would opose such. It might be therefore necessary his Grace the 


1 See Philip C. Yorke, Life of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, vol. ii. 
p. 563. 

2 Peter Burrell, jun., wrote to Newcastle on April 16, 1756 : 

You may run some risque ; . . . there are 800 voters, many of whom 
are ripe for opposition, many more kept steady by the Duke [of 
Dorset, then Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports] and Lord George 
Sackville, they expect some connection between them and their 
candidates and a conge d' elite may be a dangerous experiment . . . 
(Add. MSS. 32864, fi. 298-9). 

See also letter from Lord George Sackville to the Duke of Newcastle, 
April 17, 1756 (ibid, f, 314). 



150 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

Duke of Newcastle should fix on some person agreeable to the 
towne. 1 

Minet’s letter concluded with the suggestion that either Sir 
Gilbert Heathcote, Hardwicke’s son-in-law, or H. V. Jones, 
Hardwicke’s nephew and private secretary to Newcastle, 
would be a suitable candidate. Similarly, John Saqre, 
Assistant Agent of the Packet Boats, wrote from Dover on 
April 20 : 

. . . The distiqueshd loyalty of this place has for many years past 
induced us to pay the greatest regard to the recommedations of 
the Ministry on such occasions, having allway chose such as they 
recommended, though intirely strangers to us ; by these methods 
(without any ways consulting the inclinations of the Corporation) 
I fear the Ministry will in time loose their influence here and indeed 
I may venture to say, so much of it is allready gone amongst the 
common freemen (and I am perswaded for no other reasons than 
above) that if any gentleman of fortune and carractor that is 
known to this Corporation should offer at this time to oppose a 
person sent down that we know nothing of, and that has no 
natural inclination as well as interest to serve us, I realy fear the 
consequence. 

We have above 800 voters and tho many of them are biased 
by their places and other ways influenced, yet a great majority I 
beleive are independent ; would it not therefore be prudent in the 
Ministry at this time to indulge us in their approbation of Mr. 
Jones . . . when we consider the station Mr. Jones is in, we think 
it the greatest compliment we can pay to his Grace of Newcastle, 
and we conceive very agreeable to my Lord Chancellor. . . . 2 

Newcastle at first had asked the “ friends of the Govern- 
ment . . . not to engage themselves ”, 3 meaning next to 
recommend to them his candidate ; but when, in a very 

1 Add. MSS. 35692, f. 360. 

2 Ibid. f. 343. The letter is not to Hardwicke, for it starts 
“ Sir ”, nor does it seem to be addressed to H. V. Jones. It is, 
however, now among the Hardwicke Papers. Jones, too, was a native 
of Dover. 

3 Newcastle to Barham, Agent of the Dover Packet Boats, April 
,17, 1756 ; Add. MSS. 32364, f. 322. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 151 


dutiful letter, his own agent at Dover transmitted the 
suggestion of Jones’s candidature , 1 Newcastle readily 
accepted it. In 1759, Edward Simpson, Judge of the 
Cinque Ports, was returned, at Hardwicke's recommenda- 
tion, in the place of Jones, and when in 1761 Lord George 
Sackville, who had sat for Dover since 1741, moved to 
Hythe, the Town Council “by general consent” offered 
his seat to Sir Joseph Yorke, Minister at the Hague , 2 and 
on February 17, 1761, the Duke of Dorset, the Warden of 
the Cinque Ports, wrote to them “ recommending Sir 
Edward Simpson to represent this town again in Parliament 
and expressing his best wishes for the success of General 
Yorke ”. 3 The fine distinction should be noted between 
the rights which obviously the Lord Warden still claimed 
with regard to one seat, and his concurrence in tbe choice 
made by others for the second. 

Thus in populous boroughs, even such as were of 
“ distiqueshd loyalty ”, Government influence had to be 
exercised with a certain discretion ; but such niceties are 
completely lost in the summaries compiled by reformers 
from which most of the information concerning tbe un- 
re formed VdrVmment is derived. 

Boroughs with about 500 Voters 

Some of these eleven boroughs did not differ much in 
social structure from the medium-sized type, others came 
near that of pocket borough, and in all of them alike election 
contests were rare — only three w r ent to the poll in 1754 and 
none in 1761 . They formed a very heterogeneous collection. 
Hertford was a rather dignified constituency with a large 
Nonconformist vote ; local families of rich business men 

1 Add. MSS. 35692, f. 345. This letter, obviously forwarded by 
Newcastle to Hardwicke, is now among the Hardwicke Papers ; see 
Newcastle's reply, ibid. f. 358 ; further, in the Newcastle Papers, 
a letter from Barham, dated April 25, 1756 ; Add. MSS. 32864, f. 399. 

2 Add. MSS. 35692, f. 438. 3 Ibid, i 394. 



152 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

were practically in control of the borough. In 1761 one 
Member was a rich brewer, John Calvert, and the 
other, Timothy Caswall, an officer in the Guards, was 
the nominee and successor of his uncle, a prominent 
banker, Nicholas Brassey. Aylesbury was corrupt and 
well within the radius of London official and commercial 
influences ; in 1761 one of its Members was Welbore Ellis, 
a placeman of Irish extraction and son-in-law of Sir William 
Stanhope, who had considerable influence in Buckingham- 
shire, and the other the famous John Wilkes, the son of 
a London distiller, descended on both sides from pious 
Nonconformists ; on his expulsion he was succeeded by 
Anthony Bacon, a London merchant. Rochester was con- 
sidered an Admiralty borough, Sandwich was under the 
influence of the Admiralty, the Treasury, and some Kentish 
neighbours. At Berwick-on-Tweed the main influence 
was in the Corporation itself. Peterborough was under the 
influence of neighbouring squires and of its own town not- 
ables ; in 1761 Sir Matthew Lamb, whose brother Robert 
was Dean of Peterborough, 1744-64, and its bishop, 1764- 
1769, was one of its Members. 1 At Taunton the local 
Nonconformists had a considerable influence and in 1754 
applied to Newcastle to provide them with a candidate 
“ most agreable to His Majesty and most likily readily to 
go thiXj ’ with the necessary expeace of securing his elec- 

1 The father of Sir Matthew Lamb, first Bart. (1755), had been land 
agent to the family of Coke, of Melbourne, Derbyshire, and Matthew 
married the heiress of that family. He also inherited “ a large fortune ” 
(according to the Historical Register, £100,000) from his uncle, Peniston 
Lamb, a barrister. He himself was confidential adviser to Lords 
Salisbury and Egmont and was said to have “ feathered his nest pretty 
handsomely at their expense ” (see A. Hayward, Sketches of Eminent 
Statesmen and Writers (1880), vol. i. p. 332). He is said to have left 
a million pounds. His son, Sir Peniston Lamb, second Bart., M.P., 
and subsequently first Lord Melbourne, occupies a prominent place in 
the Memoirs of Mrs. Baddeley, a well-known courtesan, while his 
wife was much admired by the Prince of Wales (George IV). The 
second Lord Melbourne was the famous Prime Minister. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III , 153 

tion ”J Situated in the cloth-manufacturing district, even 
about the middle of the eighteenth century, Taunton 
occasionally returned local business men, and towards the 
end of the century became an exclusive preserve of rich 
bankers and merchants. Of the remaining four boroughs, 
Stamford was under the influence of Lord Exeter and other 
neighbouring big landowners ; Newcastle-under-Lyme under 
that of the Leveson-Gowers ; Wareham of various local 
squires (the Pitts, Bankeses, and Draxes, who all finished 
by selling their Wareham property to J. Calcraft) ; whilst at 
Chichester, although the town was fairly independent, the 
Duke of Richmond, the owner of the neighbouring estate 
of Goodwood, exercised a considerable influence. 

To strengthen it, the young Duke of Richmond in 
1757 asked Newcastle that at Chichester he should be 
allowed to “ name to the places depending on the Treasury 
and Customhouse ”, and on another occasion extended his 
claim even to its ecclesiastical preferments. He wrote 
to Newcastle on August 26, 1757 : “I shall be willing to 
take the recommendations of any of the gentlemen of the 
neighbourhood, but lett me have the doing of it”. 1 2 And 
again on October 29, 1758 : “ ... I hope that your Grace 
will allow all the recommendations to go thro’ me. This is 
what my father allways did. I think I have a right to it, 
and it is among the very few favours I ask of your Grace.” 3 
Finally, in November 1758, Richmond thus expounded his 
theory of patronage to John Page, M.P. for Chichester (it 
curiously resembles that which now in the United States 
invests Federal Senators with the Government patronage 
in their own States while their party is in office) : 

That he believed it was the general custom with Ministers to 
make that compliment to the person of the highest rank in the 
country and living near to the place in which he cultivated an interest 
in order to strengthen that interest, which the power of disposing 

1 Add. MSS. 32736, f. 25. 2 Add. MSS. 32873, f. 293. 

3 Add. MSS. 32885, f. 118. 



154 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


of places would always greatly contribute to, unless the principles 
of such persons was suspected with respect to the Government. 

The counter-claim to official favours which Page 
produced in reply to Richmond's expose seems worth 
reproducing, for it was the answer of one of the compara- 
tively few Whigs left in Parliament who were Whigs by 
principles and not for profit, as far as their own persons 
were concerned : 

After hearing him with all the patience he himself could think 
due to his quality, I presumed to tell him ; that I had served near 
thirty years in Parliament ; that I could prove myself a poorer man 
by fourteen or fifteen thousand pounds in consequence of it ; that 
I never had any employment under the Crown, nor any private 
pecuniary reward from any Minister, though in general a friend to 
them. 

Lastly, he mentioned that before the general election of 
1754 Henry Pelham, to induce him to stand again, had 
promised him a share in recommendations to vacant posts 
at Chichester. 1 


The Narrow Constituencies 

It is extremely difficult to give any coherent account of 
the remaining 149 boroughs ; but when even the most 
considerable constituencies, such as Bristol, treated their 
Members primarily as agents called upon to secure their 
specific interests, one cannot wonder if in towns with a very 
restricted electorate the remunerative capacities of the 
vote were even more marked and were turned even more 
to the profit of individuals. The ideas of the time closely 
connected franchise and representation with property, and 
gradually the vote and seat themselves tended to become 

1 John Page to the Duke of Newcastle, November 22, 1758 ; Add. 
MSS. 32885, ff. 507-8. For other correspondence on this subject, see 
Add. MSS. 32873, f. 422 ; 32875, f. 407 ; 32885, if. 155, 174-6 ; 3288G, 
,f. 181. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 155 

realty, like an advowson, sublime in its ultimate significance, 
beneficial in practice to its owner. 

Patronage being the produce of the franchise, it was 
desirable that the professional character of the Members 
should, if possible, harmonise with that of the borough. 
Thus towns on the coast showed a preference for naval 
officers, not only because of the glamour of their exploits 
at sea. When in 1747 Dr. Ayscough, secretary to 
Frederick, Prince of Wales, encouraged William Lemon, a 
Cornish mine-owner, 1 to fight the Boscawen interest at 
Truro, Lemon replied : 

The majority of the electors here are so attached to the Tre- 
gothnan family by the behaviour of Captain Boscawen, and his 
taking some of their sons to sea with him, that the attempt you 
advise me to make in this place would, I am persuaded, prove 
fruitless. 2 

On a vacancy at Chichester, in 1755, John Page, to prepare 
the ground for Keppel, a cousin of the young Duke of 
Richmond, discoursed at the cofEee-house that it would be 
reasonable for the town to accept the recommendation of 
the Duke’s guardians, 

and that the person would, from the reason of things be Commodore 
Keppel, to whom I would, in that case, give my vote, not only upon 
account of the recommendation, but because of the Commodore’s 
merits as a good officer .,and_a rising man in the Navy where he would 
be able and, if chosen, willing to serve the sons of his friends who 
should go into the sea service. 3 

The style in which requests were sometimes addressed to 
naval commanders can be seen from the following letter 

1 About “ the great Mr. Lemon ”, who was “ the principal merchant 
and tin smelter of Cornwall ”, see Parochial History of Cornwall, vol. 
ii. pp. 67-8. He held from Frederick, Prince of Wales, “ a grant for a 
term of years of the dues on all minerals and metala (tin excepted) 
which he might cause to be discovered within the Duchy lands of 
Cornwall and Devon ”. 

2 Hist. MSS. Comm., Fortescue MSS., vol. i. p. 109. 

3 Add. MSS. 32852, ff. 7-8. 



156 THE STRUCTURE OE POLITICS 

which on the eve of the general election of 1761, Luxmore, 
the manager of Okehampton, wrote to Rodney : 

I understand that you are now about to have the Marlborough as a 
fix’d ship, and beg leave to remind you of your promise to me, to 
make Joe Hunt your Captain, so soon as you had one. ... I have 
therefore wrote Mr. Hunt’s friends that as the Marlborough will 
be soon ready for you, he may depend upon being her captain for 
that I had your promise long ago. 1 

Rodney thereupon wrote to Robert Andrews, the London 
manager for Okehampton : 

On my arrival here I received the enclosed letter . . . and as 
I know Lord Anson will not oblige me in this affair, hope you will 

lay it before his Grace of N le that he may insist upon it with 

his Lordship, in case his Grace should intend that I serve again for 
Okehampton. 2 

But as Rodney now stood for Penryn and not for Oke- 
hampton, Captain Peard, a freeman of Penryn “ whose 
friends have great influence ”, supplanted Joe Hunt as his 
candidate for the captaincy in the Marlborough . 3 

Almost as welcome as admirals in the naval boroughs 
were Secretaries to the Admiralty such as Clevland, 
M.P. for Saltash, 1741-43 and 1761-63, and Sandwich, 
1747-61, and Philip Stephens, M.P. for Sandwich, 1768- 
1806, or distinguished Admiralty lawyers such as Edward 
Simpson, M.P, for Dover, 1759-64, and Dr. George Hay, 
M.P. for Sandwich, 1761 -68. 4 Oldfield thus describes the 

1 December 14, 1760 ; Add. MSS. 32916, f. 257. 

2 December 19 ; ibid. f. 255. Both these letters were forwarded by 
Andrews to the Duke of Newcastle with a covering letter of December 
22 ; ibid. i. 253. For previous correspondence between Newcastle and 
Anson about Lieut. Hunt and Okehampton, see pp. 43-4. 

3 See p. 390. 

4 James Marriott, of Doctors’ Commons, another lawyer practising 
in the Admiralty courts (in 1764 he succeeded Dr. Hay as Advocate- 
General), asked Newcastle in a letter of January 20, 1761, to promote 
his candidature for Aldborough in Suffolk — “ this borough . . . being 
maritime, I hope I can always be of use to my constituents in my 
profession ” (Add. MSS. 32917, f. 447). 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 157 


position of the Sandwich freemen at the end of the thirty- 
eight years for which Stephens had been their representa- 
tive in Parliament : 

The voters were hound to this gentleman by every tie of gratitude, 
as there is scarcely a single family connected with Sandwich, which 
has not been provided for by him in the admiralty, navy or marines. 1 

Merchants constituted the most serious competition 
to sailors in maritime boroughs. About Fowey Lord 
Edgcumbe remarked, in December 1761, that Captain 
Walsingham, R.N., would do better in the borough than 
Mr. Earle (an official of the Ordnance), but that the people 
“ would rather have a merchant than either ” ; 2 the 
opponent was a merchant who tried to win the borough 
by promising to promote its trade. Thus also Sir Samuel 
Fludyer, a leading cloth merchant, established a strong 
interest at Chippenham, in the cloth-manufacturing dis- 
trict of Wiltshire. In the London commercial directories 
of 1738-63 his firm appeared as “Samuel and Thomas 
Fludyer ”, and in 1769 it became “ Fludyer, Marsh & 
Hudson ” ; Sir Samuel Fludyer sat for Chippenham from 
1754 till his death in 1768 ; his brother, Sir Thomas, from 
1768 till his death in 1769; their brother-in-law, Samuel 
Marsh, 1774-80, and Giles Hudson from 1780 till his death 
in 1783 — the borough remained in the firm. Nathaniel 
Newnham, when trying to establish himself at Ashburton, 
wrote to Newcastle on May 26, 1760 : 

I ... am satisfied that the great services I have already done 
and may do that borough in promoting the exportation of its manu- 
factores has procured me several staunch friends there. . . . 3 

At New Shoreham, a place famous for corruption, 4 the cor- 


1 Key to the House of Commoyis, p. 247. 

2 See pp. 395- 6. * 3 Add. MSS. 32906, f. 285. 

4 New Shoreham was the first borough to be disfranchised for 
corruption, in 1771 its representation being thrown into the rape of 
Brambcr. Fox an early case of very open bribery at Shoreham (about 



158 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

porate interests of the town also received due consideration 
in the choice of Members. On September 25, 1766, in a 
letter to Newcastle signed by 80 out of its 136 voters, they 
recounted how at his recommendation they had elected 
Admiral Cornish — “ and we were much delighted with the 
Admiral’s generosity to us since that happened ” — but with 
regard to the forthcoming general election they humbly 
hoped “ that one of the gentlemen your Grace pleases to 
name may have it in his power to assist in building 
merchant vessells, it being the chief manufacture of this 
borough . . 1 

Most striking of all is the case of Tiverton as related by 
its historian, Martin Dunsford, 2 a local cloth merchant who 
towards the end of the century became the leader of a 
movement for extending its franchise. In 1765 the death 
of Oliver Peard, the political manager of Tiverton and 
“ one of the principal merchants ” in the town, 

who had conducted an extensive woollen trade, by which a consider- 
able part of the poor inhabitants had been employed many years, 
occasioned not only a present general stagnation of business, but 
great fears among the labourers, that the trade itself would be 
removed elsewhere . . . unless some other merchant, of fortune 
• and capacity, could be influenced to settle in Tiverton. They 
therefore applied, in a body, to the Mayor and corporation, to re- 
quest them to elect Mr. Charles Baring , 3 a considerable merchant 
of Exon, to fill one of three vacancies then in the corporation, as 

100 electors actually received “£20 appiece” with a promise of “20 
more ”), see letter from William Michell to Newcastle, November 8, 1753 
(Add. MSS. 32733, f. 222) ; “ I never heard of any things being done 
in so publick a manner ”. 

1 Add. MSS. 32977, f. 163. 

2 In his Historical Memoirs of the Town and Parish of Tiverton 
(1790), pp. 245-52. About Dunsford see M. L. Banks, Blundell's 
Worthies (1904), pp. 89-97. 

3 Fourth son of John Baring (who was the first of the family to 
settle in England, as cloth manufacturer and merchant, at Larkbeer, 
near Exeter) and younger brother of John Baring, M.P. for Exeter, 
1776-1800, and of SirFraneis Baring, first Bart., M.P. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 159 


he . . . had offered to reside in the town, and conduct a con- 
siderable woollen trade in it. . . . 

The majority of the Corporation were at first willing to do 
so, but subsequently the Mayor and his party changed their 
minds, giving as a reason that 

Mr.' Baring had expressed his intention to have his brother and friend 
also elected to fill the other two vacancies, and to lay the members 
of the corporation under obligation to him in trade ; and by these 
means to engross the sole interest and direction of the corporation 
. . . and get himself or brother chosen one of the representatives in 
Parliament for the borough. . . . 

When the wool-combers, weavers, etc., learnt of the change 
in the Mayor’s attitude, grave disorders ensued which 
finally resulted in the sacking of the Mayor’s house, much 
destruction in his works and fulling mills, agreements 
between combers and weavers never in future to work for 
any members of the Corporation who did not vote for 
Baring, etc. The further transactions, which supply an 
extraordinarily interesting picture of economic and social 
conditions in the cloth-manufacturing country, need not 
detain us here. The political situation alone concerns us, 
of which these were the main elements : the chief attrac- 
tion which Tiverton had for Baring was obviously that 
it returned Members to Parliament; the Corporation, in 
which the franchise was vested, consisted of smaller 
merchants who would have welcomed him as a leader and 
friend but feared him as a master ; whilst the “ labouring 
poor ”, who had no vote either in the choice of the Corpora- 
tion or of Members of Parliament, tried to force the Corpora- 
tion to deliver the borough to Baring in the hope that he 
would provide them with employment. 

Besides patronage and trade, public works were among 
the most usual corporate interests secured at elections. 
About 1750 Tewkesbury suffered severely from the de- 
plorable condition of its roads, some “so narrow that 



160 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

two horses could scarcely pass each other ; others . . . 
so deep in mud that the travelling public made tracks 
in the adjoining fields ’k 1 Under the leadership of 
“persons of property in the borough" a club was there- 
fore formed in 1753 to use the forthcoming general 
election for a scheme of public utility. In a letter in 
Felix Farley s Bristol Journal on January 20, 1753, Lord 
Gage, who had represented the borough since 1721 and 
claimed that he had neither bought his constituents nor 
sold them for selfish purposes, raised the following com- 
plaint : 

I must own myself greatly mortified to find many of my friends 
engaged in a scheme, which, if persisted in, must deprive me of 
the honour of representing them ; although I flatter myself their 
resolution to choose no members but such as will give £1500 each 
towards mending their roads, does not proceed from any personal 
dislike to me, but from the benefit they conceive the trade of 
Tewkesbury will receive by it. 2 

And as Lord Gage refused to accede to these terms, he 
and his son Thomas (subsequently Commander-in-Chief in 
America) were defeated by John Martin, a partner in the 
well-known London bank at the sign of the Grasshopper, 
and Nicolson Calvert, a London brewer, who “ made their 
public entry into the town with pickaxes and shovels 
carried before them, and flags, with inscriptions thereon, 
of ‘ Calvert and Martin ’ on one side, and ‘ good roads ’ on 
the other. . . 

Or again, the following account from Newport in the 
Isle of Wight was sent by Ralph Jenison to Henry Pelham 
on February 18, 1754 : 

The people of that place have taken the opportunity of paving 
their town against a general election and Mr. Holmes [the Govern- 
ment manager] says the candidates are to pay for it, that and the 


1 See “ J. T. ”, “ Tewkesbury Politics in 1753 ”, in the Gloucestershire 

Notes and Queries, vol. v. (1891-93), pp. 509-11. 2 Ibid. 



AT THE ACCESSION OE GEORGE III 161 


expence at the day of election and some gratuities to particular 
people, will amount to six hundred pound for each candidate, which 
Mr. Holmes desires may be paid into his hands before lie leaves 
London. 1 

At Oxford, 2 on May 12, 1766, the Mayor and Aldermen 
addressed a letter to Robert Lee, one of their Members, 
describing the distressed condition of the city, which had 
a debt of £5670, and offering to re-elect him and his 
colleague if they discharged it. At the same time, they 
expressed their indignation at some unauthorised “ person 
or persons ” who had “ taken upon themselves to expose 
the city to a person in London ”, and stated that, should 
their sitting Members refuse to advance the money, 

the whole council are determined to apply to some other person or 
persons in the county to do it, and if possible, by that means, to 
keep themselves from being sold to foreigners. 3 

The editor of the Parliamentary History adds the remark 
that it was 

generally affirmed, and as generally believed, that the gentlemen 
who signed this letter . . . were not actuated by any motives of 
self-interest, and that they only meant to benefit the corporation 
in general by their request. 

The methods employed in the management of narrow 
corporations and the terms in which their “ politics ” 
were transacted will be analysed at length in the chapters 
on the Cornish boroughs and on Harwich and Orford, 
while examples of fairly free boroughs with a strong 
tradition of heredity in representation will be found 
in the chapter on Shropshire. Here, I merely add an 

1 Add. MSS. 32734, ff. 148-9. 

2 Oxford was not one of the “ narrow constituencies ”, but the 
following action of its corporation is typical of practices adopted by 
many a corporation borough. 

3 See Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 398 ; “ foreigner ” here is 
of course used in contradistinction to gentlemen of the county. 

VOL. I M 



162 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

extreme example of a burgage borough, and I choose 
Clitheroe, where a conflict in 1780 gives the terms in 
which such Parliamentary seats were discussed. 

There were 102 burgages at Clitheroe entitled to a vote 
in elections. In 1717, on the death of Sir Ralph Assheton, 
whose family had frequently represented the borough in 
the seventeenth century, 1 his sons-in-law, Thomas Lister 
and Nathaniel Curzon, “ became possessed of a very 
considerable joint property ” and of four burgages at 
Clitheroe which they continued to hold in common. 
After the contested election of 1722 they jointly bought 
the 37 burgages of their defeated opponents, 2 and such 
purchases were continued until the joint holding com- 
prised 53 burgages, “ a majority of the whole ” which 
converted “ what was before scarcely a reasonable chance 
of representing the borough sometimes, into an absolute 
certainty of representing it for ever ”. 3 From 1722 till 
1780 the two families equally shared its representation, 
but in 1780 Thomas Lister (subsequently first Lord Ribbles- 
dale), having increased his separate holding from 13 to 
30 burgages, played a peculiar trick on his partner, Asshe- 
ton Curzon (subsequently first Viscount Curzon). The 
total number of burgages being 102, if the joint 53 were 
annihilated, Lister’s separate 30 would be a majority of 
the remaining 49, and then he could fill both seats, paying 
no attention to Curzon ; he achieved this by refusing to 
concur in the conveyances of the joint property which 
were required for creating nominal voters for the election, 
i.e, after the Curzons had spent their share of money on 
joint purchases, Lister deprived Curzon “ of the natural 

1 Another member of the same family, Mr. Ralph Assheton, repre- 
sented Clitheroe in Parliament, 1868-80. 

2 The sum paid for 31 of these 37 burgages was only £2950. 

3 The account given above is based on two pamphlets published in 
1781, an Apology for the Conduct of Thomas Lister, Esq., respecting the 
Borough of Clitheroe, and An Answer to the Apology, etc. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 163 

advantages of his property for his own benefit One 
can well understand the indignation of the Curzon family, 
but in neither account of the transaction is it remembered 
that the object discussed in such absolutely proprietary 
terms was the representation of a borough in Parliament. 
And^ when the Lister side tried to belittle the solidity of 
the Curzon interest in the borough, it was pointed out by 
their opponents, as proof of its real strength, that William 
Curzon, Member for Clitheroe, 1734-47, “ was a stranger 
in the borough and . . . never paid the compliment of 
attending at his own election 

From my knowledge, limited to one period, I naturally 
am not able to draw wide conclusions ; detailed informa- 
tion would be required about earlier periods in order to 
judge how this peculiar condition of things had come to 
exist. So much, however, seems clear that, besides the 
absence of true political or religious issues (it is the latter 
which stir most the average plain man), there was a curious 
lack of correlation in the growth of the English political 
organism. Power to exercise decisive influence in pro- 
blems of national importance was vested in an electorate 
not equal to comprehending them, and in the absence of 
organised parties, that power was used primarily to satisfy 
local or even personal needs. Seeing how the Members 
were selected, one can only wonder that the results 
were not worse than they were (but the same might be 
said even to-day when, what we at least consider to be, 
a clean Parliament and a clean Government arise from 
party funds and organisations thinking almost exclus- 
ively in terms of “ vote-catching ”). Naturally the ridicu- 
lous state of the franchise in the majority of boroughs 
tended to further the proprietary type of politics, whilst 
in turn the “ proprietary ” politics, prevalent even in most 
of the big and free borough constituencies, explain why 
the unreformed franchise was suffered to continue so long. 
Seeing the purpose for which the unenfraflchised popula- 



164 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


tion of Tiverton wished to use the Parliamentary repre- 
sentation of the borough, is there anything morally 
repugnant in the proprietary claim of those who held it ? 

Eighteenth-century politics and elections may seem 
quaint to those who assume that present-day party politics, 
caucuses, and election stunts are “ normal ”, and that 
any other system is curious and extraordinary. But 
in reality they all are based on the simple fact that the 
aim in Parliamentary elections is not the mental and moral 
uplifting of the electorate, but the acquisition of seats ; 
and once a strictly defined purpose is set to human activi- 
ties, once they are fixed in definite forms, a ritual develops 
at the expense of devotion. The forms acquire an inde- 
pendent life of their own, grow and become complex, and 
the original meaning or purpose is forgotten ; the Thibetans 
are not the only people to employ praying wheels. The 
correlation of human activities with their avowed purposes 
is in most spheres so dim and uncertain (think, e.g., of 
education) that one wonders how anything is ever achieved. 
Still, the answer is simple: if in most tasks humanity 
scores three marks in a thousand, and learns by experience 
to consider this a fair average, only with regard to periods 
widely different from our own are we able to perceive the 
missing 997 points. The result of any electoral system 
is a House consisting of individuals representative, not so 
much because they have passed through a peculiar and 
possibly altogether irrelevant system of “ election ”, but 
because they belong to circles which are primarily con- 
cerned with the nation’s political business and form 
therefore what may be called the political nation. 


Patronage 

I feel it incumbent on me, in conclusion of this chapter, 
to attempt a synopsis of the state of representation and 
patronage in England at the accession of George III. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 165 


But the more one knows about the internal condition of 
boroughs (as about the characters of men) the more 
difficult it is to classify them. Weather-charts are neatest 
and most comprehensible where there are no proper 
stations for observation. To this it might be objected 
that the reformers of 1790-1832 drew up many a clear 
and* exhaustive chart of representation, though they were 
undoubtedly well-informed. But then their purpose was 
to show up the absurdities of the system, and they did not 
therefore mind glossing over difficulties and stating the case 
in bald, plain, unqualified terms ; a student of history 
hesitates to proceed in the same rough and ready manner. 
I therefore wish to re-state once more certain difficulties 
which should be boldly faced before they are passed over. 

There were few places, such as Old Saruin, which 
could in unqualified terms be put down as absolutely and 
irrevocably under the command of one man, his heirs or 
assigns. In most cases “ control ” meant merely a com- 
mand so complete that it required exceptional negligence 
or ill-luck on the part of the owner to be deprived of it. 
Still, cases of that kind did occur, and there was almost 
always room for anxiety, even in the case of burgage 
boroughs over which the hold of the owner was usually 
most secure. In 1761 any one would have declared 
jf&wflkEiK* hhf lAwnYigffif pswpee&jT hiw Avgrara? 

Their hold on it was shaken and ultimately destroyed 
when the eleventh Duke of Norfolk, lord of the manor of 
Horsham, who had conformed to the Church of England, 
developed an interest in boroughs. 1 Boroughbridge was 
(and remained) the property of the Dukes of Newcastle ; 
and yet in 1763 Lord Lincoln, Newcastle's heir-apparent, 
suddenly became hysterical over it : 

... If you have any regard my dearest Lord, for my tolerable ease 
of mind [he wrote to Newcastle on March 19, 1763] for God’s sake ! 

1 See W. Albery, A Parliamentary History of Horsham (1927). 



166 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


dont forget what you have promis’d me, if something is not done 
now, depend upon it, the borough is lost to your family for ever} 

At Beeralston the majority of burgages were the pro- 
perty of Sir F. H. Drake, fifth Baronet, and the Earl of 
Buckinghamshire. But attention was required, and in 
October 1741, Rowe, Drake’s chief agent and a friend of 
the family, wrote to the young baronet, then at Cam- 
bridge, about attempts made to split holdings and propose 
fresh burgagees : 

If they multiply tenants upon you in this manner and a dispute 
arises, you can have no relief but in St. Stephen’s Chapel. It 
therefore behoves you to look about betimes and to make yourself 
master as soon as possible at least of election law. ... Not knowing 
what may happen, you should always be present at the choosing 
the Portreeve, to keep your friends together and, though you are 
not of age, to let them know how soon you shall be. . . . Keep the 
trust of the parish lands as long in yourself as you can and don’t 
let complaisance draw from you what you have a power to keep. . . } 

One might perhaps best sum up the position in the 
burgage boroughs by saying that they nearest approached 
complete control, as the basis for it was in the property 
itself, and not in influence over persons. But even there 
the hold was not absolute, because in view of the com- 
plexities and intricacies of electoral law, the title to the 
“ property ” was seldom perfectly clear and unassailable. 

Where human beings were concerned, there never 

1 Add. MSS. 33067, f. 347. For Newcastle’s reassuring reply see 
Add. MSS. 32947, ff. 263-4 : “ I shall not lose sight of the object . . . 
but it must be done in a gentle, quiet way and not by force. . . .” 
The question was of burgages belonging to the family of Andrew 
Wilkinson, Newcastle's manager. For further correspondence about 
them see Add. MSS. 32965, ff. 97 and 189 ; finally this question of the 
Borough bridge burgages was one of the factors which produced the 
break between Lord Lincoln and the Duke of Newcastle in 1766. 

2 See Lady Eliott-Drake, The Family and Heirs of Sir Francis 
Brake, vol. ii. pp. 244-5. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 167 

could be absolute certainty. Grarapound was always 
talked about in proprietary terms ; but (as is shown in 
the chapter on Cornish boroughs) in 1758 it suddenly 
" renounced the name ” of its patrons, the Edgcumbes, and 
put itself under different management. Truro was a 
stronghold of the Boscawens which for a long time no one 
ever thought of contesting ; but when in 1780 Basset, one 
of the richest mine - owners in Cornwall, attacked the 
Falmouth interest, the Corporation of Truro suddenly 
discovered that “ the interference of any Peer of Parliament 
in the election of Members of the Lower House is illegal, and 
subversive of the very essence of our Constitution ”, and 
declared that they would elect Bamber Gascoyne and Henry 
Rosewame, a local merchant, “ freely, and without expence ” 
to them. 1 Lord Shelburne purchased Caine from Duckett 
and Northey in 1763-65, 2 and henceforth it was deemed his 
pocket borough 3 — but a candidate was elected against his 
will in 1807. Even the Duke of Newcastle lost a candidate 
at Lewes in 1768, though it must be added that the Duke’s 
illness, the incoherence of his actions at that time, the divi- 
sion in his own family coupled with the imminence of his 
death and the consequent change of owners, contributed to 
that result. Totnes was, in 1761, reckoned a Government 
borough, though the hold on the Corporation was never very 

1 See P. Jennings, “ Hotes on the Parliamentary History of Truro ”, 
Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, vol. xix. (1913), p. 232. 
But lest anyone suspect in this opposition a symptom of political 
discontent at the close of the American war, the praise should be noted 
which they gave to Gascoyne for having “ shown himself an able and 
steady Member in support of his Majesty and his Government (a 
conduct which, if generally pursued, we incline to think, would be 
most likely to put a speedy end to the present calamitous war, already 
lengthened by our unhappy divisions). . . 

2 See my essay on “ Thomas Duckett and Daniel Bull, Members for 
Caine ”, Wills Archaeol. Mag., June 1928. 

3 After the Reform Act of 1832, Caine was represented by the Earl 
of Kerry, 1832-36, by the Earl of Shelburne, 1847-56, and by Lord 
Edmond Fitzmaurice, 1868-85, when it was merged in the county. 



168 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

strong ; 1 by 1783, when John Robinson was compiling 
his chart of boroughs for George III, no trace was left 
of Government management at Totnes. Portsmouth, a 
corporation borough, for many years accepted the 
Admiralty’s recommendations for both its seats, but about 
1774, under the leadership of a prominent local man, John 
Carter, a revolt was started in the Corporation (largely by 
the Dissenters) which assumed a real political character 
and seriously endangered the hold of the Admiralty 
upon it . 2 

In fact, there was no absolute certainty where there were 

1 Charles Frederick, an official of the Ordnance and M.P. for Queens- 
borough, in a letter dated Dartmouth, August 30, 1754, wrote about 
Totnes : 

The Government interest is very precarious in that borough, 
its whole strength depends on one vote among the aldermen, there- 
fore if one of our friends should dye before the chusing of a new 
mayor or one of the aldermen in the Government interest can be 
bought off, it is gone out of the Ministry’s hands. Lord William 
Seymour . . . has offered Mr. Vavasor, an alderman of Totnes, 
£700 for his vote, this Vavasor is very poor, has a large family, -and 
consequently is to be doubted where the temptation is so consider- 
able, however he has promised he will be very firm, provided he is 
forgiven a debt of £271 which the Navy have against him . . . 
(Add. MSS. 32736, ff. 382-3). 

2 See Lake Allen, The History of Portsmouth (1817), R. J. Murrell 
and R. East-, Extracts from the Records of the Borough of Ports- 
mouth (1884), and P. A. Taylor, Some Account of the Taylor Family 
(1875). There is also much valuable information about Portsmouth 
affairs in the Sandwich MSS. at Hinchingbrooke. The true political 
character of the movement is established by Thomas Binsteed, Lord 
Sandwich’s agent, telling him with reference to a proposed Address 
to the King concerning America : “ . . . if the Address were to be 
made to the Deity, and originate from our side, Mr. Carter and his 
party would oppose it ” (letter of November 6, 1775). Compare with 
this the dictum of one of the least partisan among present-day Conser- 
vative leaders, who thus explained an unexpected action of his own : 
“If the Opposition moved the Ten Commandments as amendment to 
the Address, the best Christian among the Conservatives would have 
to vote against them 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 169 


any real voters, and there was no keeping them without 
constant attention, expense, importuning of Ministers in 
their behalf, entertaining them, pleasing their wives and 
daughters, 1 kissing their babies : in short, all the things 
which to this day make the nursing of a constituency the 
next worst occupation to touting for advertisements. 

One last serious difficulty which should be noted with 
regard to classification of boroughs arises from the confusion 
of private “ interests ” with Government influence. Few 
extensive electoral interests could be maintained except 
with the help of Government patronage lavished at the 
recommendation of the borough patrons ; whilst influence 
in Government boroughs had to be managed through 
Ministers and local agents, who more often than not tried 
to get away with them. The condition of Government 
boroughs and the methods of managing them are more fully 
described in the chapter on Harwich and Orford, which in 
1761 were the two Treasury boroughs par excellence, though 
that did not prevent Newcastle a year later from hoping 
that he would be able to retain influence in them even after 
he had ceased to be its First Lord. It is more difficult 
to define the position in boroughs where the Government 
influence was closely intertwined with some original private 
interest of a Minister or agent who managed them on behalf 
of the Government. This was the position of Newcastle in 
the Sussex boroughs of Seaford, Hastings, and Rye, of the 


1 Cf., e.g., election accounts at Grampound in 1754 : to each 
freeman’s wife, “ and where no wife to his eldest daughter ”, one 
guinea “ to buy a ring ” ; p. 432. Robert Maxwell, on August 8, 1754, 
after his return to London, thus described his electioneering at Taunton 
in a letter to Lord G. Saekville : “ I arrived here last night from 
Taunton after a great deal of smoaking, some drinking, and kissing 
some hundreds of women ; but it was to good purpose. ... I may 
venture to say that I have now near 150 majority ...” ( Stopford 
Saekville MSS., Hist. MSS. Comm., 9th Report, pt. iii. p. 131). He got 
elected, hut for the cash expenditure on that election from secret 
service funds, see pp. 256 and 525-33. 



170 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


Duke of Dorset at Hythe. and of Lord Holmes in the three 
boroughs of the Isle of Wight. It may be seen in the case 
of the Sussex boroughs how difficult it is to draw a line 
between the two interests, especially after they had been 
treated as identical for some forty years. Newcastle’s 
relation to all three was more or less the same, but by 1768 
he had lost Hastings, because its manager, Edward Milward, 
considered himself bound to the Treasury and not to 
Newcastle ; he retained Rye, because its manager, Thomas 
Lamb, took the opposite view; and he was able to save one 
seat at Seaford by concluding a compromise with an inde- 
pendent candidate, and because the Duke of Grafton, then 
First Lord of the Treasury, did not press an opposition 
against him. With regard to all three boroughs, Newcastle 
behaved as if they were his allodial possessions, and not 
fiefs he held qua Minister of the Crown ; e.g ., in 1761 
he felt it necessary to make excuses to Hastings for not 
recommending a Pelham — “ I should with pleasure now 
recommend one of my own family to you, had there been 
any one capable at present of representing you ”. 1 Part of 
his influence in these boroughs still survived in 1768, by 
force of personal loyalties and regards, but none passed to 
his heirs on his death, which occurred shortly after that 
general election. 2 


The Government Interest 

It is impossible numerically to express the size of the 
“ Government interest ” ; it pervaded practically the 
entire country — “ that . . . power which every one who 
proposes to establish an interest in a Corporation town is 
desirous of having on his side ’ ’ 3 — whilst on the other hand 

1 Add. MSS. 32920, f. 369. 

2 Thomas Pelham of Stanmer, who now became Lord Pelham, at 
first claimed an influence at Seaford (see Add. MSS. 33088, fi. 292, 294, 
302-4, 310, 319, and 327), but ultimately was not able to maintain it. 

3 See p. 136. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 171 

it was hardly anywhere unalloyed, and, like all electoral 
“interests”, was changing and shifting, receding in one 
quarter and invading new ground in another, developing 
when looked after or decaying rapidly when neglected. 
Even in the places which most specifically went by the 
name of Government boroughs, it can be fixed by a snapshot 
only, and then naturally all kinds of accidental features 
enter into the picture ; and that of 1761 is no longer true 
in 1780, nay, not even in 1768. 

Harwich and Orford were in 1761 the two safest 
Treasury boroughs ; Seaford, Hastings, and Rye were under 
the Treasury and the Duke of Newcastle. At Dover the 
Government (in this case a very complex entity) can be said 
to have held one seat. Five seats in three Isle of Wight 
boroughs were at the disposal of the Treasury with a 
first lien on them for the family of Lord Holmes, the 
Government manager ; about Dartmouth, I am not clear 
whether it was under the Treasury or the Admiralty, 
but I believe it was under the former ; into Totnes 
the Treasury could import one Member, whilst the other 
seat had to be filled by someone with local connexions. 
These were nineteen seats managed directly by the . 
Treasury without the candidates having to “ undertake ” 
them. 

The Cornish boroughs were a chapter by themselves 
and as such are conceded one in this book, and a mere 
enumeration will suffice here of those under Government 
management or within the orbit of its influence. Saltash 
was an Admiralty borough, and will therefore be included 
with the other boroughs of that description. The two 
Looes and Camelford were managed for the Treasury, but 
were practically under the control of the managers. The 
6ix seats of Edward Eliot of Port Eliot, the five of Lord 
Falmouth, the four Cornish seats of Lord Edgcumbe (and 
one in Devonshire), the four of Humphrey Morice, all in 
varying degrees required the help and patronage of the 



172 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


Treasury and were therefore usually at its disposal. 1 The 
position of these boroughs and their patrons may approxi- 
mately be described as follows : In 1761, candidates for 
them were expected to obtain the placet of the Treasury. 
The patron or manager naturally had the first option if 
he wished to hold a seat himself or fill any with his own 
relatives, but if there was a disposable surplus for strangers, 
the Treasury expected to have its recommendation accepted. 
Still, its command over these Cornish borough-patrons was 
far from complete ; witness John Buller, sen., and Edgcumbe 
going with Newcastle into opposition. 

Lastly, in 1761 the Treasury nominated to Old Sarum 
and to one seat at Okehampton, which had been pawned 
with it by Thomas Pitt. 


1 Lord Falmouth, when asking Newcastle to have a friend presented 
to the living of Clements, explained that “ the suburbs of my borough 
of Truro are in the parish ”, and asked the Duke to consider 
“ how low in estimation it will set my brothers and self in the 
country if so trifling a favor . . . shou’d be refused us who are in 
His Majesty’s service ...” (February 21, 1756; Add. MSS. 32863, 
ff. 53-4). 


Lord Edgcumbe wrote to Newcastle on July 6, 1766 : “As your 
Grace knows how necessary it is for me to obey the commands of all 
my borough friends, I flatter myself you will easily pardon the troublj 
I now give you, which is to acquaint your Grace that the living^ 
Landulph ... is likely to become vacant ...” (Add. MSS. 32£ 
f. 27). 

When at the assizes at Bodmin, two men from Morice’s so-ce 
pocket boroughs were condemned to death for wrecking, he wrotj 
Lord Shelburne, then Secretary of State, asking for a reprieve, 
is a passage from the summary of his letter of August 31, 1767, as 
in the Home Office Papers, 1765-69 (pp. 184-5) : “ Needs not cxpla 
his Lordship the situation one is in with voters of boroughs just bj 
a general election, and how apt they are to fancy one has not 
one’s utmost if one fails of success in a point that they have set) 
hearts upon ”. About Morice and his boroughs see also pp. 201 
373-4. 

Examples could be multiplied indefinitely ; what they show 
that even in the narrowest Cornish borough it was important for t| 
patron to prove thqt he had influence with Administration. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEOROE III 173 

Next, there were about twelve seats in Admiralty 
boroughs ; Saltash, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Rochester, and 
one seat at Queensborough. were considered safe in 1761, 
though several of them were lost subsequently. Also at 
Sandwich the Admiralty recommended to one seat, but 
this always required much care and attention. 1 Hedon 
was an Admiralty borough in 1761, though it was neither 
at the beginning nor at the end of the century, and a 
special connexion seems to have existed between it and 
Lord Anson, First Lord of the Admiralty, about which I 
am not certain how much of it was official and how much 
private. 2 

At Queensborough the Admiralty nominated to one seat 
and the Ordnance to the other. Such distinctions between 
Government departments may seem peculiar to people who 
have never served in one ; those who have, will know 
that not even in the middle of a war do inter-departmental 
feuds disappear, nor can inter-departmental diplomacy be 
neglected— some examples of both will be found in the 
chapter on Harwich. A perfect summary of the position 
at Queensborough appears in a letter which Henry Pelham 
wrote to Newcastle on July 24, 1753 : “ . . . the Fleet 
and the Ordinance have great influence there, and therefore 

1 John Clevland, Secretary to the Admiralty, wrote to Newcastle 
on February 26, 1761, urging him to declare his candidate for Sandwich 
or else there was the danger of " a friend of your Grace’s not being 
chose there” (Add. MSS. 32919, f. 293); and on October 3, 1776, 
John Robinson, when writing to George III about an office for 
William Hey, M.P. for Sandwich, wished for some delay to “ give 
time to arrange Sandwich which at present requires attention 
before the vacancy can be made with safety ” (Add. MSS. 37833, 
fl. 67-8). 

2 G. R. Park, History of Hedon (1895), gives no information on this 
point; while the offer which in 1753 Lord Anson made to his father- 
in-law, Lord Hardwieke, of a seat at Hedon for his youngest son John 
(see Add. MSS. 35359, S. 378-80), proves nothing, as the heads of 
Government departments at that time treated departmental boroughs 
as if they were their own property. 



174 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

their dependants want to nominate” 1 — which they did: 
Admiral Sir Piercy Brett represented Queensborough, 
1754-74, and Sir Charles Frederick, Surveyor-General 
of the Ordnance, 1754-84. Of the twelve Admiralty 
seats in 1761, six were held by naval officers, 2 two by 
officials of the Admiralty, and one by a nephew of its 
First Lord. For on boroughs controlled by a Govern- 
ment department its leading officers and officials had a 
first lien. 3 

Thus in 1761, Administration as a whole can be said 
to have had 32 seats under its more or less immediate 
patronage — not all of them very safe — besides the three 
seats pawned by Thomas Pitt, and a first claim to the 

1 Add. MSS. 32732, f. 348. Interesting correspondence about 
Queensborough in 1774 is preserved in the letter-book of Lord Town- 
shend, at that time Master-General of the Ordnance (R.O., W.O. 46/9, 
PP . 47-9). 

2 The number of naval officers who “ sat on the Government 
interest” was given, on p. 41, as nine; but Newport (Isle of Wight), 
Penryn (where Rodney’s seat was acquired from Lord Edgcumbe), 
and apparently also Dartmoor, were not Admiralty boroughs. 

3 Under George III the more frequent changes of Ministers and the 
growth of a bureaucracy tended to strengthen in the Government 
boroughs the influence of the departments at the expense both of 
Ministers and of Members. When in October 1766 Newcastle applied 
to Sir Charles Saunders, then First Lord of the Admiralty, on behalf 
of a friend recommended by Sir Matthew Fetherstonehaugh, M.P. for 
Southampton, Saunders replied that he would gladly oblige him and 
Sir Matthew, 

but your Grace perfectly knows that the interest of Government 
cannot be supported in the naval boroughs, ii favours are bestowed 
upon them through the medium of any applications that do not 
come from the Corporations, or the principal people in them, to the 
person who presides at the Board of Admiralty ; and that conse- 
quently how great soever my inclinations are to appoint 'Captain 
Hollwall to a guardship at Portsmouth, the giving him one in this 
mode may subject me to the imputation of not being so attentive 
as I ought to be to the, interest of Government in that borough, as 
well as to many difficulties and inconveniences (Add. MSS. 32977, 
ff. 232-3). 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 175 

marketable surplus of some 25 Cornish seats, and also of 
some in Devonshire, Dorset, Somerset, etc. 

Private Patronage. — In 1792 the authors of the Report 
on the State of Representation wrote as follows : 

The patronage your Committee have divided under two heads 
— 'Nnyninalion, and Influence ; and attributed it to distinct persons, 
under the descriptions of Peets and Commoners. 

With respect to this first division, your Committee desire to have 
it understood, that 

By a nomination, they would describe that absolute authority 
in a borough which enables the patron to command the return. . . . 
These [boroughs], in general, are the private property of the patrons, 
or have the right of voting vested in a small corporate body, the 
majority of whom are his immediate dependents. 

By influence, your Committee would describe that degree of 
weight acquired in a particular county, city or borough, which 
accustoms the electors on all vacancies to expect the recommenda- 
tion of a candidate by the patron, and induces them, either from fear, 
from private interest, or from incapacity to oppose, because he is so 
recommended, to adopt him. 1 

I propose to adopt the same division, except that I 
exclude from patronage such “ influence ” as was primarily 
based on tradition or on good-will, and was not of a binding 
character, i.e. which was conceded voluntarily, but could 
not be enforced. I therefore do not include any counties, 
for in none, probably not even in Westmorland or Rut- 
land, could the most powerful man carry his candidates 
without the co-operation of other independent landowners. 
Nor do I include boroughs such as Chester, Durham, or 
Newcastle-on-Tyne, however faithful they were to the 
hereditary principle. For to this we have remained faith- 
ful even under the widest franchise and a secret ballot, 
without considering ourselves peculiarly unreformed or 
unredeemed. The two most revolutionary innovations 
made in Parliament in our own time were the coming in 


1 Pp. 30-31. 



m 


THE STRUCTURE OE POLITICS 


of Labour men and of women ■ and as soon as tlie sons 
of three Labour leaders had come of age, they became 
candidates for Parliament, as the sons of peers in the 
eighteenth century, while the first three women who took 
their seats all inherited them from their husbands . 1 In 
saying that I eliminate seats held mainly through tradition 
or good-will, I do not mean to imply that there was no such 
influence in the places which I mention ; in at least four out 
of live constituencies something of both was required, but 
their absence could, in some degree or other, be replaced by 
compulsion, and it is the means of enforcing one’s claim 
which primarily constitutes possession. 

I give the result of my investigations, but further 
research will undoubtedly show that my list requires 
correction ; and as to the classification by “ nomination ” 
and “ influence ”, probably no two men, from the same 
data, will reach the same conclusions. 

Borough Patronage of Peers 

Names of Patrons. Nomination. Influence. 

Duke of Newcastle (7) Aldborough (2) Lewes (1) 

Boroughbridge (2) Newark (1) 

Retford (1) 

Duke of Bedford (4) Tavistock (2) Okehampton (1) 

Bedford (1) 


1 One wonders indeed what eighteenth-century reformers would 
have thought of the peculiar new system of inheritance which now 
seems to be growing up among us, the inheritance which goes from 
the husband to the wife once chosen by him without the safeguard of 
periodical re-election. 

Nor is the hereditary principle in elections limited to Great Britain 
or to Parliament. In Connecticut the family of Baldwin for over a 
century supplied a dynasty of Governors to the State, to the distinct 
advantage of the public. And on the death of the founder of the new 
enthusiastic sect of our time, the Salvation Army, no one was thought 
of as a possible successor to him on either side of the Atlantic except 
his son. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 177 


Names of Patrons. 

Nomination. 

Influence. 

Duke of Grafton (3) 


Thetford (2) 

Bury St. Edmunds (1) 

Duke of Devonshire (3) 

Knaresborough (2) 

Derby (1) 

Duke of Dorset (2) 

East Grin stead (2) 


Duke of Marlborough (2) 

Woodstock (2) 


Duke of Rutland (2) 


Newark (1) 

* 


Grantham (1) 

Duke of Bridgwater (2) 

Brackley (2) 


Duke of Richmond (1) 


Chichester (1) 

Duke of Ancaster (1) 


Boston (1) 

Duke of Bolton (2) 1 


Winchester (1) 
Lymington (1) 

Marquis of Rockingham (3) 

Malton (2) 

Higkam Ferrers (1) 


Earl of Abingdon (1) 


Westbury (1) 

Lord Anson (1) 

Lichfield (1) 


Lord Archer (2) 2 

Bramber (2) 


Lord Bathurst (1) 


Cirencester (1) 

Viscount Bolingbroke (1) 


Wootton Bassett (1) 

Lord Boston (1) 


Bodmin (1) 

Earl of Bristol (1) 


Bury St. Edmunds (1) 

Lord Bruce (4) 3 

Great Bedwin (2) 
Marlborough (2) 


Earl of Buckinghamshire (2) 

Beeralston (1) 

St. Ives (1) 

Earl of Cornwallis (2) 

Eye (2) 


Lord Edgcumbe (5) * 


Lostwithiel (2) 

Penryn (1) 

Fowey (1) 

Plympton (1) 

Earl of Egremont (1) 


Taunton (1) 

Earl of Exeter (1) 


Stamford (1) 

Viscount Falmouth (5) 


Truro (2) 

Tregony (1) 

Penryn (1) 

St. Mawes (1) 


1 His hold on these boroughs was very uncertain, as was also the 
influence which he exercised at Christchurch and Whitchurch. On a 
rough average one can say that he influenced the election of two 
Members. 

2 His hold on the borough was uncertain. 

3 His hold on Great Bedwin was not yet complete jn 1761. 

VOL. I N 



178 


THE STRUCTURE 0'F POLITICS 


Names of Patrons. 

Lord Fever sham (2) 

Lord Foley (1) 

Viscount Folkestone (1) 
Earl of Godolphin (2) 
Earl of Gower (3) 

Earl of Guilford (I) 

Earl of Hardwicke (1) 
Earl of Ilchester (1) 
Viscount Montague (2) 1 
Lord Melcombe (2) 

Lord Onslow (2) 

Earl of Orford (4) 

Earl of Oxford (1) 

Earl of Pembroke (2) 
Earl of Portsmouth (1) 
Earl of Powis (2) 

Earl of Sandwich (2) 
Earl of Shaftesbury (1) 
Earl of Suffolk (1) 

Earl Temple (2) 

Earl of Thanet (1) 
Viscount Weymouth (2) 


Nomination- 

Downton (2) 


Lichfield (1) 


Reigate (1) 
Midhurst (2) 


Castle Rising 0) 
Callington ($) 2 

Wilton (2) 


Castle Rising (1) 


Lord Wycombe (Shelburne) (1) 


Influence. 


Droitwich (1) 

Salisbury (l) 

Helston (2) 

Newcastle - under - 
Lyme (2) 

Banbury (1) r 

Shaftesbury (1) 

Melcombe Regis (1) 

Bxi iiqwAfox. 

Guilford (2) 
Ashburton (1) 

Droitwich (1) 

Andover (1) 

Ludlow (2) 
Huntingdon (2) 
Shaftesbury (1) 

Buckingham (2) 
Appleby (1) 

Weobly (1) 

Tam worth (1) 
Chipping Wycombe 
0 ) 


Scottish Peers 

Earl of Bute (1) Bossiney (1) 

Viscount Irwin (2) Horsham (2) 


1 The family was Roman Catholic, and therefore could not exercise 
the patronage in its own favour. 

2 In 1761 Callington and Ashburton *ere really the property of his 
mother, the Dowager Lady Orford. She had inherited the influence 
from the Rolle and Tuckfield families. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 179 


Borough Patronage of Commoners 

[The constituencies in this table are arranged by counties, with the 
Cinque Ports at the end, and Hampshire (co. Southampton) under 
“ S ” — as was always done in eighteenth-century lists.] 


Names of Patrons. 

W. D*ake (2) 

R. Waller (1) 

W. Clayton (1) 

Lord Verney (2) 

G. Hunt (1) 

J. Rashleigh (1) 

H. Morice (4) 

R. Nugent (1) 

C. Phillips (2) 

E. Eliot (6) 

John Buller (4) 

W. Trevanion (1) 

Sir J. Lowther (3) 
Sir F. H. Drake (1) 
T. Pitt (3) 

G. Treby (1) 

N. Ryder (1) 

H. Bankes (1) 

J. Bond (1) 

"7 . Eune '( 2 ) 

J. Pitt (1) 

T. E. Drax (1) 

J. Tucker (1) 

T. Lister (1) 

A. Curzon (1) 

P. Lcgh (2) 

Sir J. Cust (1) 

W. Whitmore (1) 

B. Forester (2) 

T. Lockyer (2) 

T. Medlycott (1) 

C. Tudway (1) 


Nomination. 

Agmondesham (2) 


Liskeard (2) 

St. Germans (2) 
West Looe (2) 

Appleby (1) 
Beeralston (1) 
Old Sarum (2) 


Corfe Castle (1) 
Corfe Castle (1) 
Tuyiiru ''Aegis '( 2 ) 


Clitheroe (1) 
Clitheroe (1) 
Newton, Lancs. (2) 


Influence. 

Chipping Wycombe 

( 1 ) 

Great Marlow (1) 
WendoveT (2) 

Bodmin (1) 

Fowey (1) 

Launceston (2) 
Newport (2) 

St. Mawes (1) 
Camelford (2) 
Grampound (2) 

East Looe (2) 
Tregoney (1) 
Cockermouth (2) 

Okehampton (1) 
Plympton (1) 
Tiverton (1) 


Wareham (1) 
Wareham (1) 
Weymouth and Mel* 
combe Regis (1) 


Grantham (1) 
Bridgnorth (1) 
Wenlock (2) 
Ilchester (2) 
Milborne Port (1) 
Wejls (1) 



180 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


Names of Patrons. 

Nomination. 

Influence. 

E. Hooper (2) 


Christchurch (2) 

H. Buxrard (1) 


Lymington (1) 

Sir J. Barrington, Bart. (1) 

Newton, Hants. (1) 


J. Jolliffe (2) 

Petersfield (2) 

T. Townshend (1) 


Whitchurch (1) 

T. Fonnereau (3) 


Aldeburgh (2) 
Sudbury (I) 

Sir J. Downing (2) 


Dunwich (2) 

Sir K. Clayton, Bart (2) 

Blctchingley (2) 


Sir J. Colebrooke, Bart. (1) 

Gatton (1) 


T. M. Molyneux (1) 

Haslemere (1) 


P. C. Webb (1) 

Haslemcre (1) 


C. Cocks (1) 

Reigatc (1) 


F. Ho ny wood (1) 


Steyning (1) 

T. Duckett (2) 


Caine (2) 

P. A’Court Ashe (2) 

Heytesbury (2) 

G. A. Selwyn (2) 

Ludgershall (2) 


Sir J. Rushout (1) 


Evesham (1) 

E. Lascelles (2) 

Northallerton (2) 

Lord Galway (1) 

Pontefract (1) 


T. Yorke (2) 

Richmond (2) 


W. Aislabie (2) 

Ripon (2) 


T. Frankland (2) 

Thirsk (2) 


E. Dering (2) 


N. Romney (2) 


There were in April 1761, 165 English peers : 21 dukes, 1 

1 marquis, 78 earls, II viscounts, and 55 barons ; besides, 

2 English dukedoms, 3 earldoms, 1 viscountcy, and 8 
baronies— together, 14 peerages — were held by Scottish 
or Irish peers. 

Of the 21 English dukes, 11 had, under both headings 
of “ nomination ” and cs influence ”, about 29 seats at 
their disposal. The remaining 10 English dukes had no 
Parliamentary boroughs at their disposal : these were 
the Dukes of Norfolk, Somerset, Cleveland, Beaufort, 
St. Albans, Leeds, Kingston, Portland, Manchester, and 
Chandos. This does not mean that they had no borough 
influence, but it did not reach the level of “ patronage ” ; 

1 This figure Hoee not include the Dukes of the Blood Royal. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 181 

thus, e.g.y the Duke of Somerset had some at Totnes ; the 
Duke of Kingston at Nottingham ; the Duke of Portland 
in 1768 carried Carlisle against Sir James Lowther ; the 
Duke of Chandos had an influence in various places in 
Hampshire, etc. Of the remaining 144 English peers, 37 
returned 68 Members of Parliament ; and to these have 
to be added the Earl of Shelburne (Lord Wycombe in 
England) and two Scottish peers, Lord Bute and Lord 
Irwin, who together nominated to four seats. 

This makes a total of 51 peers nominating Members or 
influencing their elections for 101 seats. 

The division between peers and commoners, to which 
the eighteenth century attached an importance even 
then no longer justified by the social and economic structure 
of the country, naturally does not strike us as something 
fundamental, especially if we free ourselves from the legend 
of the close Whig “ oligarchy Still, I have kept to it, 
for the division itself helps to destroy that legend. Here 
are 51 peers with an average of only two seats each — the 
whales prove rather common fry ; and if we analyse in 
detail the list of large borough owners there is only the 
lifelong election agent, the Duke of Newcastle, with seven 
seats, and two professional dealers in boroughs, who owed 
their very peerages to their electoral interests, Lords 
Falmouth and Edgcumbe, with five seats each. 

Of commoners I obtain a total of 55 borough patrons 
determining or influencing the elections for 91 seats. 1 Five 
only among them had influence in more than one borough : 
three Cornish “professionals” (Eliot, Morice, and Buller) 

1 I have omitted from this list Lord Holmes (an Irish peer) with his 
five seats in the Isle of Wight, as his influence in them depended so much 
on Government support that he has to be treated as a manager rather 
than as a patron ; I have, however, included in it John Buller, though 
he stands very near the border line, because on the whole I think his 
influence at East and West Looe was stronger than that of the Govern- 
ment. 



182 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

and one ex-professional (Thomas Pitt), and Sir James 
Lowther, the Leviathan of Cumberland and Westmorland. 
46 of the 91 seats controlled by commoners were filled in 
1761 by the patrons and 13 by their close relatives ; i.e. 
almost two-thirds were kept for the families, besides eight 
for which friends or dependants were returned ; only 25 
were sold (twelve of them in Cornwall). The list of patrons 
includes the names of some of the best county families, a 
good many men who never solicited any favours under 
George II (Lister, Curzon, Legh, John Pitt, Tudway, Drax, 
Hunt, Rashleigh, Deering, etc.) ; and some who were to be 
among the most strenuous champions of the Opposition 
under George III (Lord Yerney, T. Townshend, the Clay- 
tons, the A’Courts, etc.). These men sitting “ in their 
own right ” in the House of Commons are certainly not 
representative in the meaning we now attach to the word, 
but are as representative as any juryman ; and in the 
absence of an organised party system, the freest and most 
independent House of Commons would not essentially 
differ from a jury. 

Taking peers and commoners together, I obtain for 
England a total of 106 borough patrons determining or 
influencing the election for 192 seats ; adding 32 seats 
more or less under the immediate management of the 
Government, I obtain a total of 234 borough seats under 
patronage. The number is high — almost half of the repre- 
sentation of England — and could be raised still further by 
adding seats which were not free, but merely disputed 
between patrons. What was the influence which this state 
of the franchise exercised on divisions in the House ? 

Divisions Analysed 

Let us first examine the vote on General Warrants 
taken at 4.15 a.m, on February 18, 1764 (but usually 
referred to as the division of February 17). From the 
very beginning jt had been realised that the session would 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 183 


be critical for the Government, and every effort bad been 
made to secure a large attendance ; “I never knew a 
stricter muster and no furloughs allowed,” wrote Lord 
Chesterfield on October 17, 1763, to Philip Stanhope, who 
held a minor diplomatic appointment in Germany and was 
summoned to London to attend Parliament. 1 And when 
on February 15, 1764, the Government majority had 
shrunk to ten (207 v. 197), frantic activity was displayed on 
either side to bring up every available Member for the 
crucial division. 2 George Onslow, M.P. for Surrey, one 
of Newcastle’s reporters from the House of Commons, 
wrote at the outset of the debate on Friday afternoon, 
February 17 : “ Everybody almost is down of both 

sides ” ; 3 and this was Horace Walpole’s description of 
the scene : . . one would have thought that they had 

sent a search warrant for Members of Parliament into 
every hospital. Votes were brought down in flannels 
and blankets till the floor of the House looked like the 
pool of Bethesda.” 4 

On February 18 Newcastle wrote : “ Yesterday, upon 
the great question of the warrant, there were 218 to 232 ” ; 5 
and similarly in a letter on February 21 . 6 The same figures 
were given by Horace Walpole to Lord Hertford on Feb- 
ruary 19, but George Grenville, in his diary, puts the 
minority at 220, 7 and this is also the figure given by Charles 
Townshend in his Defence of the Minority ; whilst The 
History of the Late Minority , having put the Opposition 
vote at 218, follows up the statement with a list containing 

1 See also Chesterfield’s letter to him of October 19, 1764. 

2 See, e.g., on the Government side the letter from Edward Kynaston, 
M.P., to Charles Jenkinson, M.P., Secretary to the Treasury (Add. 
MSS. 38202, f. 97) ; and on the Opposition side numerous letters from 
the Duke of Newcastle to various Members in Add. MSS. 32956. 

3 Add. MSS. 32956, f. 19. 

4 To Lord Hertford, February 19, 1764. 

5 Add. MSS. 32956, f. 37. 

8 Ibid. i. 59. 7 Grenville Papers , vol. ii. p. 492. 



184 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

221 names. The Journals of the House of Commons put the 
figures at 232 v. 218, without the tellers; 1 their inclusion 
or omission explains the most common difference between 
the various accounts. In the Newcastle Papers there are 
three lists of “ names of those who voted against putting off 
the question about the illegality of the warrant ”, the first 
drawn up on February 22, the second on the 27th, and the 
third on March 2 ; 2 they show certain doubts and changes, 
but each contains 222 names. Both the History of the Late 
Minority and the lists in the Newcastle Papers add names 
of “ absent friends ”, and these naturally differ even more 
than the lists of those who actually voted. Lastly, in the 
Liverpool Papers, containing calculations made on the 
Government side, there is a “ List of Friends Absent 
February 17, 1764 ” (46 names), 3 and a “ List of Persons 
who voted with the Minority on the 17th February, 1764, 
who are friends or nearly so ” (49 names). 4 I cannot enter 
here into the differences between the various lists, but 
must state the basis of my calculations : I put the figures 
at 234 and 220, and take the names as published in The 
History of the Late Minority , but transfer W. Plumer 
to the list of absent Members. I also classify as absent 
T. Duncombe, J. Hayes, R. S. Lloyd, and T. Willoughby, 
though in some papers they are stated to have voted with 
the Opposition. 

Thus, even after the most frantic attempts to secure 
attendance, the House was 103 short of its full number. 
I know of no list of the majority. But from the lists men- 
tioned above of absent friends on either side (some are 
counted as “ friends ” by both) 70 names can be collected, 
to which I add Duncombe, Hayes, Lloyd, and Willoughby, 
one vacant seat, and six Members who can be proved to 

1 Vol. xxix. p. 846. 

2 Add. MSS. 32956, ff. 68-71, 118-21, and 186-9 ; see also lists of 
“ Original Tories who voted with us,” ibid. If. 116 and 18. 

3 Add. MSS. 38337, f. 192. 4 Ibid. f. 193. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 185 

have been absent 1 though they are not mentioned in any 
of these lists which were drawn up for pragmatic and not 
for statistical purposes or for historical record. Thus the 
number of Members unaccounted for is only 22, and they 
need not concern us any further ; but it should be remem- 
bered that the figures are only approximately correct. 
I divide the English constituencies into four types : the 
counties ; the larger boroughs, 2 (with over 1000 and with 
500-1000 voters) ; the smaller boroughs which include 
all the remaining English constituencies, barring the two 
Universities. 



Voted with the 

Known to have 


Minority. 

been Absent. 

80 Members for counties . 

37 

46% 

15 

19% 

90 Members for the larger 





boroughs 3 

45 

50% 

14 4 

15-5% 

315 Members for the smaller 





boroughs 

126 

40% 

46 

14-5% 

4 Members for the Universities 

1 

25% 

1 

25% 

489 

209 

43% 

76 

15-5% 


Thus of the total of 489 English Members, 209 voted 

1 E. Wortlcy Montagu was travelling in the East and apparently 
had never taken his seat in the Parliament of 1761 ; John Craufurd 
was with his regiment in Minorca, where he died the same year ; four 
diplomats holding important or distant posts could not be summoned 
home to attend Parliament— Henry Grenville at Constantinople, 
George Pitt at Turin, Andrew Mitchell at Berlin, and Joseph Yorke 
at The Hague (there is a letter from him to his brother, Lord Royston, 
dated The Hague, February 17, 1764; Add. MSS. 35367, f. 26). The 
seat vacant at the time was County Perth, its Member, John Murray, 
having succeeded to the Dukedom of Atholl. 

2 For statistical purposes these larger divisions have to he adopted 
or otherwise the results are too easily affected by accidents ; the con- 
stituencies with about 500 voters I join to the smaller bodies. 

3 The word “ borough ” stands here for its electorate ; a populous 
borough may appear among the “ smaller boroughs ” if it had a narrow 
franchise. Thus, e.g., Shrewsbury is included among the “ smaller ”, 
whilst Bridgnorth is counted among the “ larger ” boroughs. 

4 Among these I include the Speaker, who did not vote. 



176 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


of Labour men and of women; and as soon as the sons 
of three Labour leaders had come of age, they became 
candidates for Parliament, as the sons of peers in the 
eighteenth century, while the first three women who took 
their seats all inherited them from their husbands . 1 In 
saying that I eliminate seats held mainly through tradition 
or good-will, I do not mean to imply that there was no such 
influence in the places which I mention ; in at least four out 
of five constituencies something of both was required, but 
their absence could, in some degree or other, be replaced by 
compulsion, and it is the means of enforcing one's claim 
which primarily constitutes possession. 

I give the result of my investigations, but further- 
research will undoubtedly show that my list requires 
correction ; and as to the classification by “ nomination ” 
and <£ influence ”, probably no two men, from the same 
data, will reach the same conclusions. 

Borough Patronage of Peers 

Names ot Patrons. Nc-nination. Influence. 

Duke of Newcastle (7) Aldborough (2) Lewes (1) 

Boroughbridge (2) Newark (1) 

Retford (1) 

Duke of Bedford (4) Tavistock (2) Okehampton (1) 

Bedford (1) 


1 One wonders indeed what eighteenth-century reformers would 
have thought of the peculiar new system of inheritance which now 
seems to be growing up among us, the inheritance which goes from 
the husband to the wife once chosen by him without the safeguard of 
periodical re-election. 

Nor is the hereditary principle in elections limited to Great Britain 
or to Parliament. In Connecticut the family of Baldwin for over a 
century supplied a dynasty of Governors to the State, to the distinct 
advantage of the public. And on the death of the founder of the new 
enthusiastic sect of our time, the Salvation Army, no one was thought 
of as a possible successor to him on either side of the Atlantic except 
his son. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 187 


was not so much the condition of the English franchise 
Iwhich defeated the Opposition on this occasion as the 
racial conflict between the two kingdoms. 

Let us next examine the vote on the Repeal of the 
Stamp Act, usually referred to as of February 21, 1766, 
but in reality taken on Saturday, February 22, at 2 a.m. 
The -figures usually given are 275 for and 167 against the 
Repeal ; 1 but the List of the Minority in the House of 
Commons who voted against the Bill to repeal the American 
Stamp Act 2 (published in Paris in 1766) contains 168 
names. This, discounting the Speaker, leaves 114 absent. 
Arranging this new minority in the same divisions as before, 
we obtain the following results : 



Voted against 

Assuming a proportionate 
distribution of those 


the Repeal. 

Absent, there would 

80 Members for counties 

29 

36% 

have been Absent. 

16 

90 Members for the larger 

boroughs 

19 

21% 

18 

315 Members for the smaller 

boroughs . 

85 

27% 

65 

4 Members for Universities 

1 

25% 

1 


— 

— 

— 

489 Members for English 

Constituencies . 

134 

27% 

100 

24 Welsh Members 

7 

29% 

5 

45 Scottish Members . 

27 

60% 

9 


Thus in England the opposition against concessions to the 
colonies was strongest among the representatives of the 
counties ; it reflected the authoritarian attitude of the inde- 

1 See, e.g., reports from Rockingham and Conway to the King in 
The Correspondence of King George III, edited by Sir John Fortescue, 
vol. i. pp. 274-5 ; James West's report to Newcastle, Add. MSS. 32974, 
f. 49 ; letter from R. Palmer, chaplain to the Speaker, to Dr. Richard 
Gust, Records of the Cust Family, vol. iii. (edited by Sir Lionel Oust), 
p. 96 ; etc. 

2 The date of the division is not given, but it clearly refers to that 
of February 21-22. 



188 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


pendent country gentlemen. Seeing that their attendance 
in Parliament was as a rule weaker than that of the urban 

c 

representatives and the placemen, and that therefore the ^ 
number of absentees is likely to have exceeded the 16 ' 
given them on a proportionate division of the total of 114 
absent, it is uncertain whether among them there was a 
majority for the Repeal, even after the Declaratory Act 
had been added with a view to gaining their acquiescence. 
On the other hand, most marked of all was the majority 
in favour of the Repeal among the representatives of the 
larger urban constituencies, obviously under pressure from 
the trading interests. The representatives of the smaller 
boroughs stood half-way between those of the counties 
and of the big city electorates, the proportion of those who 
voted against the Repeal tfcing about the same as in the 
rest of England taken together. The various conflicting 
influences on this occasion seem to have neutralised each 
other, and made the representatives of the smaller boltfughs 
into a mere padding to the more independent part of the 
House. The Scotch once more voted to an overwhelming 
degree on what would now be described as the “ reaction- 
ary ” side, probably less from interest or authoritarian 
convictions than as a consequence of the continuous 
baiting which they had suffered during the preceding years 
from the “sons of h6erty 

1 There is in the Newcastle Papers . nother list of the minority 
which voted against the Repeal of the Stamp Act on February 21-22, 
1766 (Add. MSS. 32974, f. 169) ; it was sent to Newcastle by Sic 
William Meredith, M.P. for Liverpool. This, too, contains 168 names, 
but only 153 tally with those given in the printed list. Still, judging by 
certain other evidence ( e.g . West’s note to Newcastle written on 
February 22, at 2.15 a.m. ; Add. MSS. 32974, f. 49), neither is 
altogether correct. On the whole I prefer, for reason into which I 
cannot enter here, to take the printed list for basis of my calculations. 

I add, however, the corresponding figures obtained from an analysis 
of Meredith’s list — there voted in the minority : Members for English 
counties, 30 ; for larger boroughs, 17 ; for smaller boroughs, 87 ; for 
Universities, 1 ; W<jlsh Members, 8 ; Scottish Members, 25. Thus for 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 189 

era third example I take the division over Wilkes, on 
sfjary 3, 1769, when 219 are stated to have voted for 
^expulsion and 137 against. At the close of the year 
i Gentleman’s Magazine published a list of Members of 
h House of Commons, marking against each how he had 
voted on that occasion ; 1 the list is not, however, altogether 
abdicate— in some cases, where a change had supervened 
Pace the division, it gives both Members, it omits other 
Members altogether, it wrongly marks many as not yet 
sleeted on that day, etc. These mistakes and omissions 
recount for the best part of the 16 hi the last column. Mis- 
takes in the marking of votes I have not attempted to check, 
and it will be noticed that the number of those who voted 
against Wilkes’s expulsion exceeds here by three that 
usually accepted — all these figures must be taken as no 


more than approximately correct. 



For Wilkes’s 
Expulsion. 

Against. 

Absent. 

Vacant or not 
accounted for. 

80 Members foe counties 
90 Members for the 

22 

23 

32 2 

3 

larger boroughs . 

29 

28 

32 

l 3 

315 Members for the 





smaller boroughs 

124 

84 

100 

7 

4 Members for the 





"Universities 

1 

1 

2 


48ft Members for "English 





constituencies 

176 

136 

166 

11 

24 Welsh Members 

10 

4 

9 

1 

45 Scottish Members . 

32 


9 

4 


218 

140 

184 

16 


our purpose there is very little difference between the two lists ; that 
of Meredith reduces the number of Scotchmen voting against the 
Repeal by two, but otherwise emphasises even more strongly the 
conclusions given above. 

1 The date of the division is not named, but I can see no other than 
that of February 3 which the facts would suit at all. 

2 This includes Wilkes himself. 

3 This is the Speaker, Sir John Oust, M.P. for Gjantham. 



190 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

Taking the 174 Members returned by the most . nce 
sentative English constituencies — the counties, the h an ls 
boroughs, and the Universities — we find that 52 voted e e 
the expulsion of Wilkes and 52 against, whilst 66 w^ ' 
absent and four are not accounted for. 1 Opinion amor 
the independent members was divided between adherent 
to certain constitutional principles and dislike of the-ver 
dubious character over whom the battle was fought. 1 
these circumstances the representatives of the smaller 
boroughs, among whom the Government influence was 
strongest, gave the casting vote for expulsion, and it seems 
but right that there should have been a make-weight in 
favour of Government on such an occasion. The opponents 
of Wilkes were, moreover, supported by an absolutely solid 
Scottish contingent, again voting on racial lines. 

What are, then, the general conclusions we can draw from 
these three divisions ? They do no more than confirm 
what we could have expected from the preceding survey 
of the personnel of the House and of the electoral structure 
of the country. The knights of the shires, independent 
of the Government in their constituencies and not, as a 
rule, soliciting personal favours, and the representatives 
of the larger urban constituencies, similarly not depending 
on the Government for their seats, responded more freely 
to public opinion than the Members for rotten boroughs 
and close corporations. Still, the difference was “ on the 
margin ” ; the bulk of Members in both categories con- 
sisted of men similar in type and character, and even the 
Members for the worst among the rotren boroughs did not 
remain impervious to the currents of popular feeling ; 
many of these were, in fact, more L dependent of the 

1 T. Whichcote, M.P. for Lines., is telescoped in the list with 
James Whitshed, M.P. for Cirencester ; Sir J. Molesworth, M.P. for 
Cornwall, is wrongly marked as not yet a Member ; one seat for Kent 
was vacant ; and the Speaker, Sir J. Oust, M.P. for Grantham, is 
the fourth. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 191 


Eminent, representing their own pocket boroughs or 
se of patrons belonging to the Opposition, than they 
iild have been as representatives of electorates requiring 
Dvernment assistance in their corporate concerns. The 
Aten boroughs supplied the Government with a make- 
weight of about 5-10 per cent in the House in favour of 
authority, but also of statesmanship, when such was 
present in the Ministers ; this make-weight being very 
much less than party discipline supplies at present. As 
for American problems, had the number of the knights 
of the shire been doubled at the expense of the rotten 
boroughs, it seems doubtful whether the result would have 
been much more favourable to sound Imperial statesman- 
ship. Anyhow, in none of the three crucial divisions 
analysed above does the result seem to have been funda- 
mentally vitiated by the rotten boroughs ; the Scottish 
issue was of greater weight, and while it strengthened the 
Whig opposition in the south, it supplied a counter-weight 
to the other side in the House in the form of a more or 
less solid contingent from “ North Britain 

Pitt’s remarks during the debate on the Repeal of the 
Stamp Act about “ the rotten part of the Constitution ” 
are often quoted, but they were made in reply to argu- 
ments about virtual representation, and not in reference 
to divisions in the House. He himself represented, from 
1735 till 1747, the seven famous burgages of Old Sarum, 
1747-54 an electorate of less than 75 at Seaford (un- 
constitutionally influenced by the Duke of Newcastle), 
1754-56 Newcastle’s pocket borough of Aldborough with 
less than 50 electors, and 1756-66 the 32 members of the 
Corporation of Bath. At no time during his thirty-one 
years in Parliament did he, the idol of the whole Empire, 
represent as many as 100 electors, or experience what it 
meant to have dealings, e.g with the 5000 “ independent ” 
voters of Bristol. 




Ill 


THE GENERAL ELECTION OF 1761 




Ill 


THE GENERAL ELECTION OF 1761 
On March 3, 1761, Horace Walpole wrote to Horace Mann : 

. . . Parliament . . . now engrosses all conversation and all 
purses ; for the expense is incredible. West Indians, conquerors, 
nabobs, and admirals, attack every borough ; there are no fewer 
than nine candidates at Andover. The change in a Parliament used 
to be computed at between sixty and seventy ; now it is believed 
there will be an hundred and fifty new members . . . venality is 
grosser than ever ! The borough of Sudbury has gone so far as to 
advertise for a chapman! We have been as victorious as the 
Romans and are as corrupt. . . } 

These were casual remarks and an epigram, not an affidavit 
to serve as evidence in the court of history. But so much 
history is fancy weaving on the warp of a few common 
“ texts ” that Horace Walpole’s casual remarks and illus- 
trations have gone the round of the textbooks (rightly so 
called) on English history. 2 

1 Letters of Horace Walpole (ed. by Mrs. Paget Toynbee), v. 29. 

2 See, e.g., Mr. W. Hunt’s beautifully embroidered version in his 
History of England, 1760-1801 , p. 19 : “ ... in this election the 
Crown itself used its own means of corrupt influence. Private men 
followed its example. A new class of candidates appeared, men 
without party connexion or local interest, who had lately become 
rich, West India merchants, ‘ nabobs 1 gorged with' the spoils of the 
East, shareholders of the East India Company, admirals and others 
who had reaped a splendid harvest from the destruction of the commerce 
and shipping of France. The competition for seats was extraordinary ; 
at Andover there were nine candidates. Constituencies which had 

195 



196 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

On closer examination only a single one of the more 
general statements quoted above is found correct — that 
which appears as a mere “ belief At the general elec- 
tion of 1761, 128 men entered the House of Commons who 
had never sat in it before, and another twenty-two who 
had sat previously, but not at the dissolution ; the estimate 
of “ an hundred and fifty new members " (in a total of 558) 
was thus singularly accurate. 1 But the further statement 
on which its value largely depends, that “ the change in a 
Parliament used to be computed at between sixty and 
seventy ", is a gross inaccuracy. The number of new 
Members returned at the general elections of 1747 and 1754 
was about the same as in 1761. 2 

Nor is there evidence to show that election contests 
were more numerous than usual. The number of con- 
stituencies which in 1761 actually went to the poll was 
48 3 out of a total of 315 ; it was, in fact, smaller than it 
had been at the general election of 1754, which itself was 
comparatively quiet, with no opposition on a national scale 
and no Prince of Wales to back it (as in 1741 and 1747). 
The number of candidates who “ stood the poll ” was, 
however, invariably only a fraction of those who tentatively 
“ offered themselves ” (e.g. in 1761, Andover with its “ nine 
candidates ” finished by returning the sitting Members 


long obeyed the oTders of great landlords were no longer to be reckoned 
upon. . . . Bribery was carried to a preposterous height. . . . The 
borough of Sudbury went so far as to advertise itself for sale.” 

1 To these might be added five elected in December 1761, to replace 
men who had been returned simultaneously for two constituencies ; 
none of these five had sat in Parliament before. 

a I have not analysed the personnel of those Parliaments, but in 
the lists published in the Gentleman’s Magazine the number of new 
Members is 162 in 1747 and 161 in 1754, in 1761 — 158. The figure 
for 1761 is not far out, and there is no reason to assume that the lists 
of the other two Parliaments contain any greater element of error. 

3 This figure covers the whole of Great Britain, whereas the figure 
of 41, given on p. 104, refers to England only. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 197 

unopposed). In the majority of constituencies the elec- 
torates were small, the voting was everywhere open, the 
keeping of election promises— on whatever basis and by 
whatever means they were obtained — was considered a 
matter of honour ; the canvass, therefore, supplied more or 
less valid indications of chances, and the man who saw that 
he had none would, more often than not, “ drop his 
pretensions and decline the poll 

Peculiar circumstances at first kept down electioneering 
activities in 1760, and subsequently compressed them into 
a short time, producing perhaps thereby an impression of 
greater intensity. Security of tenure was an important 
consideration, when a seat in Parliament was a lease paid 
for in advance on something like “ a house . . . which I had 
taken for seven years ’V The danger of an appeal to the 
country was negligible ; between 1715 and the dissolution 
of 1784 the duration of three Parliaments only (in 1747, 
1774, and 1780) was slightly shortened by the Government. 
The main risk lay in the death of the Sovereign, which until 
1867 had, within six months, to be followed by a dissolu- 
tion of Parliament. In 1760 George II had reached his 
seventy-seventh year, and was not expected to last another 
Parliament. Hence at first many people were unwilling 
to become candidates. Lord Kinnouil, when advising the 
Duke of Newcastle to aim at a quiet general election, with 
the least possible disturbance of the status possidendi, re- 
marked that the age of the King “may probably contribute 
to the more easy execution of this plan “ Nobody, except 
some extraordinary genius, or where the future settlement 
of an interest is materially concerned, will spend much upon 
such a tenure.” 2 Newcastle agreed with Kinnouil : 
“ ■ . . I feel every day that private persons will not risk 
much money to get into this next Parliament, in its present 

1 Lord Bath to the Duke of Newcastle, November 21, 1759. Add. 
MSS. 32899, f. 19. 

2 July 10, 1760 ; Add. MSS. 32908, ff. 160-77. 



198 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

circumstance.” 1 Similarly John Calcraft reported on 
August 14, 1760, to Colonel Harvey, then on active service 
in Germany : “ Elections surprisingly quiet.” 2 By the 
beginning of October, Newcastle wrote that “ people begin 
to stir a little more of late than they had done, about 
elections "\ 3 But it was only after the death of George II 
(October 25, 1760) that a more intense interest awoke in 
the forthcoming general election. “It is imagined there 
will now be a great contest to get into Parliament ”, wrote 
Edward Hooper to James Harris on November 8, 1760. 4 
And the Duke of Newcastle to Lord Granby, on November 
25 : “ There is not much opposition yet declared ; tho’ some, 
which would not have been, had it not been for our late 
great, and ever to be lamented loss.” 5 

With the vastly improved prospects of tenure, did 
corruption really reach an unusual height ? There is some 
confusion of ideas about electoral corruption : no employer 
of labour, when made to pay higher wages, will call it an 
increase in output, but corruption is frequently measured 
by expense ; as if the “ purity " of an election was affected 
by whether the freemen of some borough received flO or 
£20 per head, or by the size of the lump sum paid for a seat 
to its patron. 

1 The Duke of Newcastle to Lord Hardwicke, August 16, 1760 ; 
Add. MSS. 32910, ff. 120-35. 

2 Add. MSS. 17495, f. 103. Colonel Harvey was from a well-known 
Essex Parliamentary family, a brother of William Harvey, M,P. for 
the county, and Eliab Harvey, K.C., M.P. for Dunwich. 

3 The Duke of Newcastle to Lord Powis, October 10, 1760. Add. 
MSS. 32912, f. 295. It is not certain whether even this statement 
was not largely an expression of the Duke’s dominant sentiment, 
which was fear. 

4 Letters of the First Earl of Malmesbury (1870), vol. i. p. 83. Edward 
Hooper, from an old Dorset family, sat for Christchurch, 1734-47, 
when he was appointed Commissioner of Customs ; it was through his 
interest that his cousin, James Harris, the father of the 1st Earl of 
Malmesbury, was returned for Christchurch. 

5 Add. MSS. 32915, f. 59. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 199 

But what did constitute corruption in eighteenth-century 
England ? For the elector the vote, for the borough its 
representation, for the Member his seat in Parliament, 
were valuable assets from which advantages were ex- 
pected. The Member had to show due “ regard 55 to his 
constituents, individually and in the aggregate, to accord 
to them or obtain for them “ benefits ”, and in short be 
“indefatigable in serving his friends' 5 ; just as he himself 
expected proper “ consideration ” and “ marks of favour 
from His Majesty and the Administration, if he was counted 
among their “friends — “protection is due to attachment, 
and . . . sentiments of friendship to be reall and lasting 
must be reciprocal! ’h 1 By the middle of the eighteenth 
century these things had come to be considered perfectly 
legitimate and honourable ; and it was merely the manner 
and the circumstances in which they were received, and the 
person from whom they were solicited and accepted, that 
distinguished finding one's legitimate account from taking 
a bribe. A Member could expect to be provided for by the 
leader of his party or group, and his not being offered any 
favours would mark hi m as an insignificant and neglected 
person ; but an interested change of sides at a critical 
moment was corrupt. In the same way, every constituency 
up and down the country, especially every borough con- 
stituency, had to be nursed, but such loving care allowed 
of infinite variations. 

There were, among the boroughs, faithful wives— still, 
even they had not been guided by passion in the choice 
of their husbands, but had paid proper regard to the 
candidate’s family, rank, and financial circumstances ; 
“ You would be flinging yourself away ”, explained a fine, 
high-minded man to his daughter in 1769, “ had your 
husband neither birth nor fortune. ... You would blush 

1 Hans Stanley to the Duke of Newcastle, June 26, 1759 ; Add. 
MSS. 32892, ft. 245-6. 



200 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


for ever to be tied to a low man, and you would starve with 
a gentleman who could not maintain you. 55 Then there 
were kept mistresses, rather expensive, relatively faithful, 
but not wedded to their elects, and with the money-nexus 
playing a greater part in their relations than attachment. 
Lastly, there were prostitutes, “ ready to receive any 
adventurer whatever who will bring them money and 
content to have him introduced by the name of u General 
Gold ’’d Numerical impressions are always unreliable ; 
but wbat can be their value, where distinctions are of such 
a delicate nature I A slow, downward movement was 
almost unavoidable when financial benefits were an essential 
part of the electoral system, virtue being more easily lost 
than recovered. Still, though rare, cases are known of 
constituencies which to some extent retrieved their 
character, e.g. Bishop's Castle, in Shropshire, after having 
for a long time been notorious as an “ open ”, venal borough, 
from 1768 to 1820 led a much better regulated existence 
under Clive patronage. 

A close examination does not reveal any widespread or 
rapid downward movement in 1761, and the contemporary 
outcry about the incredible growth of corruption is merely 
an inaccurately worded complaint at the “ Immense 
Expense 55 of elections (words fraught with such painful 
meaning as to be accorded capitals even by men who other- 
wise were sparing of them). But even those complaints, 
or rather such clamour, cannot be accepted without the 
evidence of figures, as sentiment discounts past payments, 
no less than future, and, like water at the freezing-point, 
expense weighs heaviest at the moment of liquefaction. 

The so-called “ price of seats 55 was in reality a payment 
regulated by certain conventions of the market rather than 
by the cost of production, and there was, as a rule, a wide 
difference between the expense and trouble involved in the 
control of a constituency and the sum paid for a “ ready - 
1 See the Hindon election of 1774. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 201 

made ” seat at an election. No average whatsoever can be 
formulated with regard to the expense of establishing and 
maintaining an “ interest ” in a constituency ; the task 
was too complex, it varied from place to place, and 
depended as much on the nature and character of the man 
who undertook it as on the constituency itself. It was a 
process which extended over years, and even over genera- 
tions, and involved appeals to tradition, sentiment, interest, 
fear, etc. Nor could there possibly be an average price 
when so often a pretium affectionis was paid, e.g. in contested 
elections where two families fought out rival claims to the 
representation and control of a constituency long disputed 
between them — especially as in such contests more or 
less permanent possession and not a septennial lease was 
frequently in question. No one ever tried to establish an 
electoral influence in Parliamentary boroughs with a view 
to making money, and whereas scores of big fortunes were 
sunk into Parliamentary boroughs, 1 not a single one, even 
of moderate size, is known to have been acquired through 
them. The price which a candidate paid at an election for 
a “ ready-made ” seat to the patron or manager of a 
borough was usually but a part of the cost involved in its 

1 A good illustration of the economics of pocket boroughs is found 
in a paper wherein Humphrey Morice, in April 1780, explained to 
XatJ “the reason which mdseeH hhs pari with Ad? estate 

and his interest in two boroughs” (Launceston and Newport) — he 
had sold them to the Duke of Northumberland : 

An estate of twelve hundred pounds p. ann. in a maner given 
up to the supporting the boroughs and three thousand pds. besides 
annually expended for that purpose and keeping up the house &c. 

The trouble of it not to say anything of the expence is more 
than Mr. II. can bear with a constitution much impaired by the 
gout. . . . 

He lost a member last year after all the trouble and expence 
he had been at and notwithstanding the establishd interest, he 
seems to have he may be worse off next time. . . . 

(See Correspondence of King George III , ed. by Sir John Fortescue, 
vol. v. p. 55). 



202 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


control, and was seldom expected to reimburse all the 
expense which the patron was put to, year after year, in 
preserving his “ interest ” in the constituency. Most of 
the borough seats sold by patrons or local managers went 
to candidates put up by the Government or approved by 
it, and such compliance with its wishes was paid for in 
titles, ribbons, Court honours, office, promotions, etc;, all 
adjusted to the rank, standing, and requirements of the 
person concerned ; and also, on a humbler level, by support 
for the patron's electoral interest — office appointments, 
Vjobs, livings, promotion, etc., had to be provided for 
influential men in the constituency at the recommendation 
*pf the patron. 

/ It is these imponderables of Government favour which 
explain why the prices usually quoted for seats were in 
appearance so low. The net expenditure of the Govern- 
ment at the general election of 1754 was not more than 
£30,000, 1 in 1774 about £50,000, and in 1780 approximately 
the same ; 2 and in 1761 no money was spent by the Treasury 
on the general election. But, to give an example taken at 
random, Sir George Yonge, fifth and last Baronet, “is 
reported to have said in his old age that he had inherited 
£80,000 from his father, his wife brought him a like amount, 
the Government paid him £80,000, but Honiton swallowed 
it all ”. 3 Even though this statement must not be treated 
as statistical evidence, it gives some idea of the difference 
between the cost of nursing one expensive constituency and 
the apparent total expenditure of the Government at a 
general election. In fact, if £50,000 really represented the 
whole, or even the larger part, of the Government expendi- 

1 See pp. 248-51. 

2 See W. H. Donne, Correspondence of King George 111 with Lord 
North , vol. ii. pp. 424-6. 

3 W. G. Willis Watson, in Notes and Queries, eleventh series, 
vol. i. p. 191. Sir George Yonge represented Honiton, 1754-61 and 
1763-96 ; he and liis ancestors sat for it 101 years in twenty-nine 
Parliaments. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 203 


ture, any number of subjects of the King could have 
afforded seriously to compete with him in election activities. 
For £50,000 was no longer a vast sum in the eighteenth 
century. Lady Bute, in 1761, is said to have inherited 
about £800,000 from her father, E. Wortley Montagu ; 
Lord Bath, at his death in 1764, was reputed to have left 
£1,200,000; the fortune of Sir Samuel Fludyer, M.P., a 
London merchant, was valued in 1767 at about £900,000 ; 
William Beckford, M.P., Lord Mayor of London, wrote in a 
letter to Lady Cathcart, in 1770, that his son’s fortune will 
be £40,000 a year, besides many thousands in cash ; 1 etc. 

It was because the price of pocket boroughs was in a 
way conventional that one can talk at all about an average ; 
this, in 1761, was £2000 for a seat. On February 3, 1761, 
the Duke of Newcastle wrote to Lord Hardwicke that he 
had found a place for Sir Gilbert Heathcote, Hardwicke’s 
rich and shy son-in-law. “ But the expence will be very 
great — the same as the Duke of Newcastle has mention’d 
upon other occasions, vizt. 2000£, and the Duke of Newcastle 
is sorry to observe that there are few, or no places where it 
will be less.” 2 Lord Hardwicke (who was accustomed to 
have his sons returned by borough-patrons free of charge) 
replied the same day that Sir Gilbert “ thinks, as every body 
must, the sum exorbitant ”, but “ is ready to give it, 
may h/t HscHii goiag 'Ao-unx to SfeaAtesr 

bury, and any personal attendance ”. 3 At Penryn the two 
Clive candidates, who stood on the Basset interest, deposited 
£2000 each, which Hardwicke, in a letter to Bute, described 
as “ the current price of the times ”. 4 John Calcraft re- 
ported on December 2, 1760, to Colonel Edward Harvey 
that everybody was striving to get into Parliament and that 
it must cost Harvey £2000, if an opportunity was found ; 5 
similarly to Jenison Shafto, when negotiating a seat for 

1 Hist. MSS. Comm., Appendix to Second Report, Cathcart MSS., 
P- 25. 2 Add MSS. 35420, f. 177. 3 Add. MSS. 32918, f. 228. 

* See p. 387. 6 Add.JVISS. 17495, f. 179. 



204 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


him through Lord Bateman at Leominster : “ You have a 
sure seat in Parliament and as things go it will be a cheap 
one for 2000 guineas is offer’d everywhere.” 1 The “ cheap- 
ness ” in this case seems to have been in pounds being 
charged (as they usually were), and not guineas ; for from 
Lord Bute’s letter to the Duke of Newcastle, March 18, 
1761, it appears that “Mr. Shaftoe, who conies in for 
Leominster, will, (to accommodate) relinquish his place to 
either of the candidates for Midhurst ; on paying his 
expences, amounting to £2000, and on being secur'd by 
promise in some proper office . . . ; 2 the office being 

obviously his intended profit on the transaction. 

Similarly, £2000 were asked of Sir Thomas Clarke, 
Master of the Rolls, for a seat at Lostwithiel and refused 
by him ; Lord Edgcumbe, however, asserted “ that he 
cannot possibly defray the expence with less ”. 3 Again, 
Lord Chesterfield, in a letter to his son, Philip Stanhope, 
October 19, 1764, speaks of “ the £2000, which your seat [at 
St. Germans] cost you in the present Parliament When 
Lord Thomond (the brother of Lord Egremont and brother- 
in-law of George Grenville) was returned both for Mine- 
head and Winchelsea, £2000 were “ to be paid by the person 
that comes in the room of Lord Thomond [at Winchelsea] 
. . .’V Whilst a memorandum by the Duke of Newcastle, 

To speak to the Duke of Devonshire and my Lord Hardwiclce 
about Ld. Edgcumbe and his boroughs. 

The Master of the Rolls. 

Sir William Baker. r £2000. 

Admiral Rodney > 

Ld. Falmouth has only £1500. 6 


1 December 3, 1760 ; Add. MSB. 17495, f. 179. 

2 Add. MSS. 32920, i. 291. 

3 Ibid. ft 200 and 245. 

4 Ibid, f. 220. 5 Ibid. i. 103. 


AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 205 

In short, the ordinary price of safe seats in the disposal 
of patrons was in 1761 £2000, and only in exceptional cases, 
where other advantages were expected, 1 £1500; whilst in 
1754 the price of £1500 for a seat, or £3000 for the brace, 
seems to have been of more frequent occurrence. But 
then the better chances of survival in a Parliament 
coupled with the life of the young King have to be 
remembered ; and further, that owing to “ credit- 
inflation ” through war-loans, subscribed in excess of 
actually available means, the general level of prices 
had in those seven years, if anything, risen even more 
than the price of seats. 

As for an invasion of “ constituencies which had long 
obeyed the orders of great landlords ” by a new class 
of candidates, “ men without party connexion or local 
interest ”, nouveaux riches of every description, 2 the 
complaint is perennial, and yet always brought up as new. 
Lecky, starting with 1700, writes about “ individual 
capitalists, and still more the two great corporations ” (the 
Bank of England and the East India Company) which 
“ descended into the political arena ” and “ wrested 
boroughs, by sheer corruption , from the landlords who had 
for generations controlled them . . . ”. 3 Another author 4 
speaks about the “ sensible alteration " which in 1747 “ was 
found with regard to many of the boroughs ” : “ The vast 
successes of the war, the prodigious prizes taken from the 
enemy, and the many advantages Britain had acquired in 
point of trade, enriched the marine and mercantile gentle- 

1 E.g. in Selwyn’s offer to Bute of two seats at Ludgershall, at 
£1500 each. 

2 See p. 195, n. 2 . 

3 History of England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. i. pp, 200-201. 

4 I quote this passage from an article by Lord Ebrington (now the 
Earl of Fortescue) on A Bye-Election in 1747, published in The 
Nineteenth Century, in June 1889 (p. 922). It is marked as quoted 
from Ballantyne’s Life of Lord Carteret, pp. 323-t, but I have failed to 
trace it in that book. 



206 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

men to such a degree that numbers of them were able to 
aspire to seats in Parliament and were supported with a 
greater effusion of money than ever had been known to be 
expended on such occasions.” For 1761, there are Horace 
Walpole’s remarks to embroider upon ; for 1768, the dictum 
of Lady Sarah Osborn : “ The landed interest is beat out, 
and merchants, nabobs, and those who have gathered 
riches from the East and West Indies stand the best chance 
of governing this country.” 1 But Sir Robert Peel, on the 
night of his defeat, June 25-26, 1846, still saw “the Manners, 
the Somersets, the Lowthers, and the Lennoxes” pass before 
him ; and “ those country gentlemen, ' those gentlemen of 
England ’ Sir Charles Burrell, Sir William Jolliffe, Sir 
Charles Knightly, Sir John Trollope, Sir Edward Kerrison, 
Sir John Tyrrell, ... Sir John Yarde Buller ”. “ They 
trooped on : all the men of metal and large-acred squires. . . . 
Mr. Bankes with a Parliamentary name of two centuries 
and Mr. Christopher . . . ; and the Mileses and Henleys 
were there, and the Buncombes, the Liddells, and the 
Yorkes ” ; and Walter Long from Wiltshire, and Charles 

1 Political and Social Letters of a Lady of the Eighteenth Century, 
1721-71. Edited by E. F. D. Osborn (1890), p. 178. See also the very 
interesting, but unfortunately meagre entry in Cavendish's Debates 
under November 21, 1768 (vol. i. p. 61) : 

Several petitions were presented, complaining of undue 
elections. The House seemed to set themselves against the 
admission into Parliament of certain adventurers; men who, 
having no personal interest anywhere, go about canvassing from 
borough to borough, with their pockets full of money. It was 
said, that though there certainly was good reason to oppose their 
admission, yet if even such persons have a legal majority of 
votes (the bribery not being proved) they ought to be sitting 
members. 

I have compared these remarks with the entries of election petitions 
noted on that day in the Journals of the House of Commons, but find 
it impossible to ascertain to whom the remarks referred — none of the 
Members returned for the boroughs discussed that day seems to come 
under that description. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 207 


Newdegate from Warwickshire. “ But the list is too long,” 
writes Disraeli ; “or good names remain behind.” 1 

The truth of the matter is that the landed nobility and 
gentry of Great Britain (like British trade) are found dying 
whenever their condition is examined, but that in each 
generation their ranks and fortunes are restored by an 
infusion of blood and treasure from those who have acquired 
wealth in the (ever declining) trade. 

As for social standing, the names of considerably more 
than half the Commons of 1761 were in the books of the 
peerage and baronetage. The rest were almost all of gentry 
origin. There were not more than a dozen men in the 
House who could be truly described as of obscure origin ; 
and probably not more than forty for whom pedigrees had 
to be concocted under George III, as they had been for some 
older families under the Tudors or Stuarts. For even the 
list of the fifty merchants in the Parliament of 1761 con- 
tains many an old name : the Hon. Thomas Harley, son 
of the Earl of Oxford ; the Hon. Thomas Walpole, son of 
Lord Walpole ; Peregrine Gust, son of Sir Richard Cust, 
second Baronet; Frazer Honywood, descended from the 
famous Mary Honywood who “ had at her decease [in 1620] 
lawfully descended from her 367 children ”, and who on 
one occasion is recorded to have entertained 200 of her 
progeny 2 (she could feed them once, but Robert Honywood, 
k " her onlie husband ”, could not endow them all with 
landed estates) ; Arnold Nesbitt, of the Nesbitts of Lismore ; 
John Bristow, of old gentry, brother-in-law to the Earls of 
Buckinghamshire and Effingham, etc. 

The composition of the Parliament of 1761 can be 
examined from yet another angle : the family relation of 
the Members to their constituencies and to Parliament in 

1 Benjamin Disraeli, Lord George Benlinck (1852), pp. 299-300. 

2 Sec Nichols, Topographer and Genealogist voL i. pp. 397 -til, 
“ The Posterity of Mary Honywood ” ; also Morant, Essex, vol. ii. 
p. 167-70, and Notes and Queries, twelfth series, vol. iv. p. 23 1. 



208 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

general. Roughly, 40 per cent of those returned in 1761 
sat for constituencies which, their ancestors in the male line 
had previously represented, in the majority of cases for 
generations ; another 35 per cent belonged to old- 
established Parliamentary families, though they did not sit 
for family constituencies in the narrow sense of the term 
given it above ; and only 25 per cent of the House of 
Commons had no Parliamentary ancestry. 

This figure of 25 per cent might appear high, but it must 
not be brought up as in any way bearing out the contention 
about “ the new class of candidates . . . without party 
connexions or local interest For there was frequently 
a “ local interest ” without Parliamentary ancestry, and 
where there was neither, “ party connexions ” (if one 
can speak of “ parties ” in 1761) appear strongest. The 
majority of “ merchants ” were men without Parliamentary 
ancestry, but some of them had a very strong local interest, 
e.g. the Wiltshire clothiers ; then there were men with 
local connexions arising from their profession, admirals 
at places such as Portsmouth, Plymouth, or Rochester, 
recorders at various boroughs, etc. Lastly, the 25 per cent 
include a number of men strongly rooted in their con- 
stituencies, but whose families for some reason or other 
had not sat before. As for civil servants or professional 
politicians put up by the Government or some political 
“ connexion for pocket boroughs, they did not require, 
and frequently had not, a local “ interest ” of any kind. 
Had Edmund Burke (to give the best-known example, 
though he did not enter Parliament till December 1765) a 
“ local interest ” at Wendover or Parliamentary ancestry ? 
But it was just men like him who had the strongest “party ” 
connexions ; and he, though exceptional in ability, was not 
of a rare type. 

The number of men in the Parliament of 1761 who were 
unsupported by family, “ party ”, or local connexions, but 
sat merely because they had money and were prepared to 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 209 


spend it on elections, was exceedingly small ; and of those 
who can be said to have thus entered it for the first time 
in 1761, there were perhaps three, if so many. 

One last test shall be applied to the assertion that there 
was a vast change in the Parliament of 1761 by analysing 
the various types of “ interlopers ” named by those who 
make it. 

To begin with the admirals supposed to have been 
enriched by prizes : five of those who sat at the dissolution 
no longer stood at the election of 1761, whilst only two 
entered the House for the first time ; on the balance a loss 
of three, though not a single admiral was among the un- 
successful candidates at the polls (junior naval officers are 
not taken into account, because those who stood for Parlia- 
ment did so usually on a family interest, and not in an 
official capacity, nor on the strength of prizes). 

As to East Indian nabobs “ gorged with the spoils of the 
East ”, there were only two : the famous Robert Clive, who 
at Shrewsbury kept out Lord Pulteney, the son of Lord 
Bath, a young man burdened with difficult parents, an 
unhappy youth, little character, and no merit ; 1 and 
Clive’s cousin, faithful friend, and secretary, John Walsh, a 
man of good character and a scientist of mark. Besides 
these, a cousin of Clive’s stood at Penryn, but was defeated, 
and Laurence Sullivan unsuccessfully attacked Thomas 
Walpole (and the family interest of the Dowager Lady 
Orford) at Ashburton — which in spite of rather strained 
family relations, may have impressed his cousin Horace. 
But one would indeed be sorry for a British House of 
Commons which had no place for a Clive ; as John Bennett, 
Mayor of Shrewsbury, explained to the irate and over- 
bearing Earl of Bath in a letter dated June 27, 1759 : “ The 
Colonel, being of a family of great antiquity and meritt 

1 See on him, Mrs. Stirling’s The Holhams, which contains some 
interesting letters from him to Charles Hotham; also John Calcraft’s 
Letter Books at the British Museum. 

VOL. I P 



210 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

amongst us, and having so remarkably distinguished 
himself in the service of his country, was agreed by all to 
be a proper candidate.” 1 Besides Clive and Walsh, only 
some nine or ten merchants could be (remotely) classed as 
“ East Indians ”, because, together with much other big 
business, they had prominent interests in the East India 
trade and at one time or another were Directors of the East 
India Company (H. Crabb Boulton was the only one among 
these who had ever been out to India). In short, the 
nabobs in 1761 are a “ mare’s nest ”. It was only in the 
Parliament of 1768 that the “ nabobs ” for the first time 
became a more definite and more numerous body, provoking 
a scare-mongering indictment from Chatham, the grandson 
of Governor Pitt of Madras, and 1735-47 M.P. for Old 
Sarum, where the political foundations of his own branch of 
the Pitt family had been laid with money sent over from 
India. And it was not until about 1780 that the so-called 
“ Bengal Squad ” made its appearance, with adventurers 
of doubtful character, such as Richard Barwell, Paul 
Benfield, or General Richard Smith. 

As for the “West Indians” and “West India mer- 
chants ”, there were comparatively few big merchants 
in Great Britain in 1761 who, in one coAnexion or another, 
did not trade with the West Indies, and a considerable 
number of gentry families had interests in the Sugar 
Islands, just as vast numbers of Englishmen now hold 
shares in Asiatic rubber or tea plantations or oil-fields, 
without thereby becoming Asiatics. Classifying as West 
Indians those only who were bom in the West Indies, had 
spent there part of their lives, had been members of the 
Assembly or Council or had held office in one of the islands, 
the number of West Indians returned at the general election 
of 1761 amounts to twelve, marking an increase of only two 
on their number at the dissolution. 

Lastly, the “ merchants ” — a term as wide as “ trade ” 

1 See p. 322- 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 211 

is even now. Of these some are already included among 
the East and West Indians, but taking them all over again 
one finds their total number in the new Parliament to have 
been 50, marking an increase of three on their number 
at the dissolution. There had been a very severe financial 
crisis in 1759, which re-occurred early in 1761 . On May 28, 
1761, Joseph Watkins, a London merchant, reported to the 
Duke of Newcastle : “ Private credit is at an entire stand in 
the City, and the great houses are tumbling down one after 
the other, poor Touchet [51. P. for Shaftesbury, 1761-68] 
slop’d yesterday and God knows where this will end, for 
private paper has now no subsistance, every one is afraid of 
his neighbour. . . .” x Touchet managed soon to reopen, 
but at least two other of the merchant M.P.’a (Bristow 
and Henniker) were in similar difficulties, whilst William 
Belchier the banker, who had been prominent for years as 
dabbler in several boroughs 2 and had sat for Southwark in 
the previous Parliament, had refrained from dabbling or 
standing at the general election of 1761, being bankrupt. 
Again the story of a mass attack from this quarter in 1761 is 
found to be a legend. 

To sum up : the number of changes in the new Parlia- 
ment was by no means greater than usual. The number of 
contests which were carried to the poll was, if anything, 
smaller. As to widespread corruption, there was a rise in 
the price of seats, fully justified by circumstances, but 
which anyhow can merely indicate the cost, not the extent 

1 Add, MSS. 32923, E. 282. 

2 John Gordon wrote to the Duke of Newcastle on May 4, 1754, 
that Bclchier’s brother had boasted the night before “ that thu banker 
bad obtained eleven seats in parliament, and that he would be of the 
party that would oppose the ministry, and taulks in so lofty a state, 
as to vex better men, that such plebeians should be so Beated with the 
best of the Kingdom” (Add. MSS. 32735, fl. 228-9). John Gordon or 
Sempil was a Government spy and an old driveller— the type of man 
usually employed to cater for the fears of “ Administrations”. But 
Belchier at that time certainly dabbled in several boroughs. 



212 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

of corruption. Nor did the character of the House change 
to any appreciable extent : the number of admirals 
diminished ; the East India Lobby (if one can at all speak 
of such a thing in 1761), the West Indians and merchants, 
increased very little. There was a time when writers 
dealing with the accession of George III would have 
prefaced their remarks with the Latin tag : novus nuscitur 
ordo rerum. Consciously or sub-consciously, this idea still 
lingers at the back of people s minds ; they forget that 
even an age pregnant with great events takes some time . 
to give them birth. The Parliament elected in 1761 was 
remarkably normal. 



IY 

SECRET SERYICE MONEY UNDER THE 
DUKE OF NEWCASTLE 


213 




IV 


SECRET SERVICE MONEY UNDER THE 
DUKE OF NEWCASTLE 

Accounts and Legends 

When leaving the Treasury in July 1766, Lord Rocking- 
ham inquired of the old, experienced Duke of Newcastle 
how to close the secret service accounts and what to do 
with the money remaining in his hands. Newcastle there- 
upon sent him accounts covering part of the time he him- 
self had been at the head of the Treasury. 

. . . I have sent the two last books of the present King [he wrote 
to Rockingham on July 25, 1766, in a letter marked “ Very Secret”], 
signed as usual by the initial letters of His Majesty’s name ; which is 
the method always used. I believe the late King used to bum them 
in the presence of the person, who was concerned ; but I chose rather 
to bring the books away, and keep them for ray own justification. 

The arrear always went over to the next account ; and, I suppose, 

I paid it to my Lord Bute who succeeded me ; I am sure, I did not 
retain it myself. But I will enquire of Jones how that was. 

You will see all the private money which pass'd thro’ my hands 
in this reign ; that it was much more than in the former reign : 
hut I am afraid, your Lordship has found that very much increased, 
since. 1 

Hugh Valence Jones, Newcastle’s late private secretary, 
replied to his inquiry on July 26 : 

In answer to your Grace’s question, whether I remember what 
was done with the money, which remain’d unpaid upon closing’ the 

1 Add. MSS. 32976, f. 243. 

215 



216 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


present King’s 'private account in 1762 ; — I have the honour to 
acquaint your Grace, that, to the best of my recollection . . . the 
balance . . . was carried by your Grace to His Majesty, at the 
same time with the booh which was signed by the King. If, after 
this, any doubt should remain, I am sure, I shall be able, in one 
minute, to clear it up, when I have the honor to see your Grace, 
and can have an opportunity of explaining the accounts, which ware 
constantly attended to with the utmost care. 1 I 

Going back to the time of Newcastle’s resignation, oVe 
finds the closing of these accounts mentioned in a lettjr 
from Newcastle to Rockingham : j 

I was this day at Court [he wrote on May 14, 1762]. His Majesty 
was barely civil. ... I desired the King’s leave to attend Ms 
Majesty some day next week, to settle my private account ; and tint 
I hoped His Majesty would allow me to retire from my employment 
a day or two after the Parliament rose. His Majesty ask’d m* 
whether I should go to Claremont ? 1 said, yes ; 1 might after- 

wards go to other places. 2 

That this was all the King had to say to him, “ after near 
fifty years spent in the service and in undoubted zeal ” for 
the Royal family, was to Newcastle a subject for justly 
bitter reflections , 3 though the King’s question, which 
seemed specially offensive to him, was the kind of question 
frequently asked by George III when embarrassed ; and 
that he was, is shown by the fanciful account which, the 
same day, he gave to Lord Bute of the conversation : 4 

The D. of N. has been here and said he is preparing his accounts, 
that he may retire. I did not say anything more than that I hoped 
they would be full ; he is to bring them next week. . . . 


1 Add. MSS. 32976, f. 279. 2 Add. MSS. 32938, f. 264. 

3 See, e.g., besides the letter to Rockingham quoted above, New- 

castle’s letter to the Duke of Cumberland, May 17, 1762 ; ibid. 
f. 306. 

4 Bute MSS. ; for date the King’s letter is marked merely 
“ 45 m pt. 2 ”, but obviously was written on May 14, 1762. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 217 

He obviously thought that this would have been the 
right kind of “spirited" remark to make to the oldest 
servant of the Crown ; but as no mention of it occurs in 
any letter from Newcastle, though he revelled in com- 
plaints, one must assume that it was never made. Any- 
how, the secret service accounts, which had always been 
“ attended to with the utmost care ”, were “ full ” ; and 
Rockingham, in accordance with the promise in his letter 
of July 26, 1766, 1 did “ return them safe ”, and they are 
now among the Newcastle Papers at the British Museum. 

Volume 33044 of the Additional Manuscripts contains 
what may be described as three “ books ” ; of the first 
there is one copy, of the second three copies, and of the 
third two. The first is in the handwriting of John Roberts, 
who, as “ the very faithfull secretary ” 1 2 of Henry Pelham, 
had been entrusted by him with the secret service accounts, 
and who continued to keep them during Newcastle's first 
term at the Treasury, from March 1754 till November 
1756. The book consists of rough notes, in which the 
names were originally indicated merely by initials, though 
a good many were filled in afterwards ; it closes on 
November 9, 1756, with an entry of £1359 : 14:6, the 
balance in hand, paid over to Jones, Newcastle’s private 
secretary. A clean copy was probably made from these 
notes for George II, 3 but by 1766 Newcastle’s over- 
burdened memory and anxious mind no longer retained 
any record of what had passed about it with the King — 
in the letter to Rockingham he speaks of George IPs 

1 Add. MSS. 32976, f. 254. 

2 Thus he is described on the monumental tablet put up to him by 
his sisters in Westminster Abbey ; see my note on “ Three Eighteenth- 
Century Politicians ”, in the English, Historical Review, July 1927. 

3 Newcastle, in November 1756, at the end of one of his last paP eis 
on secret service disbursements (Add. MSS. 32997, f. 72), puts the query: 
“ What X shall do with the Book ? ” — but there is no reply to it. 



218 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

way of dealing with secret service accounts as if he had 
never had any personal experience of it. 

The next boold'^«*ts in July 1757, after Newcastle’s 
return to the Treasury, and virtually closes with the 
death of George II in October 1760. The first three 
entries, in what appears to be the original copy, are 
in the Duke’s own handwriting, the rest in that of'H. V. 
Jones, who continued to keep the accounts so long as 
Newcastle had the disposal of the money. At the death 
of George II they stop for almost five months ; during 
these George III aspired to virtue and Bute to office, and 
no money was paid into, or disbursed from, the secret 
service fund ; not even the late King's arrears were cleared. 
But when the rule of “ religion and virtue ” in the new 
reign had been secured by Bute’s assumption of a Secretary- 
ship of State, Administration was allowed to revert to its 
ordinary methods, and Newcastle to resume the manage- 
ment of the secret service money. On March 6, 1761, the 
day on which he “ recommended ” the appointment of 
Bute to the King, the “private pensions ” appear at the 
head of his “ Mem d8 for Lord Bute ’’J The subject of 
secret service money was thus opened up between them. 

Five days later, Newcastle “ receiv’d the King’s orders 
to pay the arrears ... up to Michaelmas last ”, and these 
accounts are incorporated in the “ old book ” ; whilst the 
“new book ”, now opened, continues t511 May 25, 1762. 
The two together contain the “ private account ” men- 
tioned on May 14 ; they were both submitted to the King 
by Newcastle at the parting interview, on May 26, and 
were initialled by him. Always afraid of prosecution and 
impeachment, Newcastle preserved them for his own 
“ justification ” ; and indeed they serve this purpose, but 
in a way which was hardly in the Duke’s mind — they 
dispose of the legends which have since grown np about 
secret service money and the use to which it was put. 

1 Add. MSS. 32919, f. 475. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 219 

Legends naturally surround all “ secret service ” ; its 
very name inspires fear and distrust and stimulates men’s 
imagination — it is believed to be wise and wicked, efficient 
and powerful. In reality, the most common character- 
istic of political “ secret service ” at all times is its stupidity 
and the unconscionable waste of money which it entails. 
Where its task is to obtain “ intelligence ”, it most fre- 
quently produces tales which could not stand five minutes’ 
cross-examination in a law court, but which, by the pre- 
sumed nature of the service, are secured against effective 
criticism, and are made credible by being framed to suit the 
bias of the employers. Where the task of a secret service 
is corruption, it buys men whose services are not worth 
having, and, more often than not, changes into a mutual 
benefit society for pseudo-political parasites. Bribery, to 
be really effective, has to be widespread and open ; it has 
to be the custom of the land and cease to dishonour the 
recipients, so that its prizes may be attractive for the aver- 
age self-respecting man. Such was political corruption in 
Great Britain about the middle of the eighteenth century, 
and the true mystery about the secret service fund of 
that time is why it should have existed at all, when, to say 
the very least, nine- tenths of the subsidising of politicians 
was done in the full light of the day. But it did exist, 
wrpjAyrftg ■a wc fcyetfi fci Vu w nVoTupoi a'nos , mu 

a wide held for fanciful anecdote to later generations. 
The legend about the secret service has become deeply 
embedded in the history of the period ; here are a few 
examples. 

According to Sir Nathaniel Wvaxall, John Roberts had 
avowed to a common friend of theirs “ that while he 
remained at the Treasury, there were a number of members 
who regularly received from him their payment or stipend 
at the end of every session, in bank notes ”, and that the 
sums varied from £500 to £800. One would hardly"$*ncss 
that “ a number of Members ” stands for an average of 



220 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


about 15 individuals in a House oi 558 ; nor, when reading 
Mr. W. R. Williams’s note on John Roberts in the Dictionary 
of National Biography — “ it is said that he paid each 
ministerial Member from 5001 to 800/. per annum ” — 
would one guess (had not Mr. Williams indicated the 
source) that “ each ministerial Member ” — there were 
nearly 400 of them — is his renewing of Wraxall’s .words 
“ a number of Members But that is how historical 
legends grow. The further stories in Wraxall — how 
Roberts used to squeeze the money into the hands of 
Members as they passed him, how Newcastle, Fox, etc., 
tried to get hold of the book of pensioners after Henry 
Pelham’s death, and he (Roberts) delivered it to George II, 
who burnt it in the presence of Pelham’s disconcerted suc- 
cessors — are too obviously embroidered to be accepted by 
any but the most uncritical readers. After Pelham’s death. 
Fox refused the post of Secretary of State and Leader of 
the House of Commons, because Newcastle denied him its 
“management”, i.e. the political patronage of which secret 
service money formed only a very small part ; and it seems 
probable that Roberts submitted to George II Pelham’s 
secret service book — the King’s “ private account ”, as it 
was called — and that the King burnt it as, according to 
Newcastle, was his habit. But Roberts continued for 
more than two years ami a half in charge of the secret 
service funds under Newcastle ; and in all probability the 
late recipients of the “ King’s bounty ’’ from those funds, 
so far from wishing the fact to remain hidden from New- 
castle, clamoured that, as successor to his ever- lamented 
brother, he should continue the favours bestowed on them 
by Henry Pelham. Certain lists preserved in the New- 
castle Papers 1 seem to eonfirm (what one would have any- 
how expected) that Newcastle was accurately informed of 

1 F g. Add. MSS. 33038, f. 352, “ Diminution of Pensions since 
April 1754 ” ; and f. 415, containing a comparison of pensions in 
March 1754 and March 1755. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 221 

* 

the secret service pensions paid at the time of Pelham’s 
death. 

Mr. W. J. Smith, the usually careful and well-informed 
editor of the Grenville Papers, found among them a letter 
from Lord Saye and Sele to George Grenville, dated Novem- 
ber 26, 1763, wherein he returned a bill for £300 which 
Grenville had favoured him with that morning — “ as good 
manners would not permit my refusal of it, when tendered 
by you ” ; he added that no spur was required to make 
him support Administration. 1 This letter Mr. Smith has 
printed “ as an interesting illustration of the mode in 
which some part at least of the Secret Service Money was 
disposed of ” ; and the reader is left to picture to himself 
his Lordship much taken aback by the sudden offer of a 
bribe, but sufficiently self-possessed to postpone its return 
till he had reached his own house. G. E. C., in his Com- 
plete Peerage , in a footnote to the entry about Richard, 
6th Viscount Saye and Sele, misquotes the letter as re- 
turning “ a bill sent him lor having supported the Adminis- 
tration ”, and remarks that his Lordship “shows himself 
neither insulted nor surprised at the offer ”. But why 
should he have been, on being paid the half-yearly instal- 
ment of a pension which, to begin with, he himself 
had urgently solicited and, next, had enjoyed for ten 
years, and which, though explained as help to enable 
him to attend the House of Lords, had been given 
as royal charity to a man of high rank and no 
means, rather than as a bribe ? What needs to be 
explained is not why Grenville tendered him the bank 
bill, but why Lord Saye and Sele returned it. Did he 
wish to exchange it for a place both of honour and 
profit, or perhaps would he have preferred a step in 
the peerage ? for by that time his financial position had 
changed considerably. Whatever his motives may have 
been, he still drew the same pension eighteen yhars 
1 Vol. 3, pp. 145-6, footnote. 



222 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

later. 1 It is dangerous to quote a single letter relating to 
business of that description without a thorough knowledge 
of the circumstances, and of the habits and methods of the 
time. 2 

1 See Secret Service Accounts of John Robinson, 1779— B2, Add. 
MSS. 37836, ft 61-114. 

2 Richard Fiennes, the great-grandson of the 1st Viscount S^ye and 
Sele, was the son of a country clergyman, and succeeded in 1742 to 
the title, but apparently to very little besides. On April 3, 1750, he 
wrote to Lord Brooke (Add. MSS. 32720, f. 212) : 

It has given me much concern that I have not had the oportunity 
of paying my respects to you to have acknowledg’d the great honour 
you did me by introducing me to his Grace the Duke of N^castle 
who was exfcreamly obliging and promised to recommend jjreTto His 
Majesty’s favour would I continue to attend the House of Lords till 
the latter end of last session of Parliament : which I accordingly did 
and should likewise have attended it this session . . . had suitable 
or even necessary means been ready for such an attendance, but as 
they were not then, so neither now are they : permit me therefore 
to renew my sollicitations to your Lordship to speak to hi.s Grace 
in my behalf ; and to acquaint him my neglecting Parliament was 
through necessity. . . . 

P.S. If your Lordship thinks proper, communicate this letter with 
my duty to his Grace. 

Lord Brooke forwarded this letter to Newcastle, adding from himself 
(April 13, 1750 ; Add. MSS. 32720, f. 209) : 

. . . Your Grace will there see the true reason of his absence and 
likewise joined to that very little knowledge of the world and busy- 
ness renders his situation the more unhappy. I hope your Grace’s 
goodness will . . . make this easy to him by soon procuring him 
such a settlement from the King's bounty that he may be enabled to 
attend his commands in a manner suitable to his rank. . . . 

There arc two more letters from Lord Brooke to the Duke of New- 
castle, who had gone to Hanover with the King, pressing for a settle- 
ment for Lord Saye and Sele and assuring the Duke that he would be 
“found worthy of His Majesty’s favour ” (Add. MSS. 32721, fi. 287 and 
495). The matter appears once more in a paper on '* Requests from 
several Lords ” (undated but apparently drawn up in 1753) : “ Lord 
Say an<LSele — a small pension — £600 p.a.” (Add. MSS. 32995, f. 52). 
It was now granted, and it can. be traced throughout the secret service 
accounts of 1754-56 and 1757-62 (see Add. MSS. 33044), and 1779-82 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 223 


When, in 1756, the sum spent on “ secret and special 
service ” suddenly rose to the unprecedented height of 
over £140,000, Leicester House alleged, and which is more 
surprising, seems to have believed, that this addition was 
for buying votes in the House of Commons. 1 In reality, 
the expenditure of secret service money, in the strict 
sense of the term, was very moderate in 1756, and the true 
facts of the case can be learned from a letter which the 
Duke of Newcastle wrote to Lord Hardwicke on August 


(Add. MSS. 37836, ff. 61-114). Presumably it was paid also during the 
intervening years. 

Meantime Saye and Sole effectively provided for himself by marrying 
in 1754, at the age of thirty-seven, a widow of fifty-nine. “ His Lord- 
ship was the last of his line,” wrote The Gentleman's Magazine in the 
obituary note of the Viscountess in 1789 (vol. ii. p. 764), “ and though 
he knew his title of viscount must become extinct if this sprig of ever- 
green should survive him, yet he thought it better to get possession of 
a good buxom widow of nearly threescore, with an excellent fortune, 
that would furnish him with all the comforts and elegancies of life, 
than to pass his days in straitened circumstances, merely for the 
purpose of transmitting splendid poverty to a son.” “ She was sup- 
posed to be the viscountess delineated in Hogarth’s print of the Five 
Orders of Perriwigs, Coronets, etc.” 

Lastly, with regard to the style of Lord Saye and Sele’s letter to 
* Grenville, beginning with “ Honoured Sir ”, it should be noticed that 
it is peculiar, and one hardly knows whether to presume in it an element 
of banter or merely sec in it the involutions of a bizarre character, 
which Lord Saye and Sele seems to have been. Anyhow, it is not 
typical of anything I have seen in hundreds of volumes of correspond- 
ence dealing with patronage, pensions, etc. 

1 Samuel Martin, having put down the sums spent on secret and 
special service 1747-56, placed the following note against £90,000 of 
“ special service ” money : “ N.B. This was the year wherein the Duke 
of Newcastle then at the head of the Treasury was much opposed in 
the House of Commons as to the grant of the subsidy stipulated by a 
Treaty of that year with the Empress of Russia.” 

The Martin Papers are not yet catalogued at this time (July 1928 ) t 
and my best thanks are due to Mr. J. P. Gilson, Keeper of the l)lanu- 
scripts at the British Museum, for allowing me access to them, aw? to 
Mr. R. Flower for his valuable help in examining them. 



224 THE STRUCTURE OE POLITICS 

16, 1760. 1 That year (Midsummer 1759 to Midsummer 
1760) the income of the Civil List produced £1,080,000, 
“ £280,000 more than it was given for ”, and Newcastle 
submitted certain suggestions to George II as to presents 
to be made out of this surplus, among others one to the 
Hereditary Prince of Brunswick. When, on August 15, 
Newcastle brought the King a warrant for £5000 to 
the Hereditary Prince, the King u hew in a passion ” and 
demanded that a warrant be made out 

payable to himself; (as secret service). He would send it to 
Hanover, and that they should send it from Hanover to the Heredi- 
tary Prince ; and make the most of it for him. I replied only, It is 
Your Majesty’s own money ; you may do with it what you please. 

Still, Newcastle highly disapproved of the proposed 
method : 

Could ever any thing be so cruel to me, dcs preventing me of all 
opportunity of shewing my regard to this great and deserving 
young Prince? Or could any thing be so cruel to the nation, as to 
let the German Ministers only have the merit ? And this money, 
sent from hence to Hanover, have the appearance and merit of 
coming out of the revenue of the Electorate. 

Though he had said nothing to the King that day, he 
proposed to speak to him about the matter when bringing 
“ the warrant for the £5000 secret service ” and to represent 
to him that “ the immense sum in the Exchequer, on the 
account of the Civil List, is known to every clerk there ” 
and may easily produce an inquiry in Parliament next 
session, and whilst a present to the Hereditary Prince 
would be popular, an addition to the secret service fund 
“ will have the very contrary effect 

I will then instance the year, that I went out [1756]. The King 
had for special service, which was sent to Hanover for the payment 


1 Add. MSS. 32910, if. 122-7. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 225 


of troops etc., 90,000?., which we did not think advisable to lay 
before Parliament. I know the Princess of Wales said, that those 
great sums drawn that year on account of the Civil List, were 
employed for bribing the House of Commons, to approve the 
Russian treaty. The King does not know, what hurt he does to his 
own affairs. 

The allegations made by Leicester House in 1756 took 
root in contemporary opinion and continue to be reflected 
in many a text-book of history. They implied that votes 
in the House of Commons were bought for particular 
divisions. There is no indication of this having ever been 
practised under Newcastle ; neither in the secret service 
accounts, nor hi the mass of contemporary correspondence, 
have I found a single line which would supply any ground 
even for a suspicion of that kind. It might be argued 
that it is difficult to understand how allegations of that 
character gained credence if this was never done ; but 
anyhow, the complete absence of evidence of its having 
been practised is no less astonishing, and the burden of 
proof clearly rests with those who assert that votes for 
single divisions were bought. 

Nor is it inherently probable that this was done. The 
buying of votes would naturally have occurred when it 
was the Government which was in distress, and not the 
individual Member ; but when votes were eagerly sought 
for, Members certainly did not need to prostitute them- 
selves politically to the degree of accepting casual pay- 
ments in lieu of the customary rewards for adherence to 
Administration, which were places, contracts, or pensions. 
The case of the Treaty of Paris will perhaps be urged 
against this contention, and although it falls outside the 
period covered by this essay, and I do not possess the 
same amount of evidence about it as about transactions 
during Newcastle’s term of office, I shall take it as my 
last example of the growth of historical legends about fcifls 
“ secret service 

VOL. I Q 



226 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

Horace Walpole in his Memoirs of the Reign of George 
111 recounts how Henry Fox, “ leaving the grandees to 
their ill humour,” 

directly attacked the separate members of the House of Commons ; 
and with so little decorum on the part of either buyer or seller, that 
a shop was publicly opened at the Pay Office, whither the members 
flocked, and received the wages of their venality in bank-bills, even 
to so low a sum as two hundred pounds for their votes on the treaty. 
Twenty-five thousand pounds, as Martin, Secretary of the Treasury, 
afterwards owned, were issued in one morning ; and in a single 
fortnight a vast majority was purchased to approve the peace ! 1 

This account has become the common property of history 
books and is reproduced and embellished, not quoted, 2 
the writers apparently feeling no more the need to name 
their authority or to adhere to the exact terms of the 
statement than they would in saying that George II died 
in 1760. 

What evidence is there to support it ? There is nothj&§ 
about it in Horace Walpoles contemporary letters, *¥>ut 
then very few are extant for that period ; nor even in the 
vast correspondence of Newcastle, where a great deal is 
said about blandishments, intimidation, and defections. 
Some evidence, which partly supports but also circum- 
scribes Walpole’s story., is to be found in British Museum 
MSS.. which none of the historians who so glibly repeated 
it can have known. There is a computation in the Liver- 
pool Papers of “ Money issued for Secret and Special 
Service, from the year 1751 to the year 1763”, 3 and an 
entry in it shows that on December 9, 1762, i.e. the day of 
the first vote on the treaty, £25,000 were drawn by Samuel 
Martin fox “ secret service ” ; and in -the Martin Papers 

1 Edited by G-. F. Russell Barker (1894), p. 157. 

2 See, e.g., Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century (1892 
edfmon), vol. iii. p. 225, and William. Hunt. Histot y of England ij6o-l8oi, 
p. 40. 

3 Add. MSS. 383.35, fi. 214-15. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 227 


there is a copy of a receipt for this money which was paid 
oveT by him to the King. 1 These, obviously, are the £25,000 
which according to Horace Walpole, Martin owned to have 
been “ issued in one morning ”, and according to Mr. Lecky 
(who often treats statements as if they were cipher wires 
of which the wording must be changed for publication), 

“ were, expended in a single morning in purchasing votes 
It is immaterial whether George II is said to have died, 
expired, or been no more, on October 25, 1760 ; but there 

1 It runs as follows : 

George R. 

AVe acknowledge to have received of our trusty and well 
beloved S. Mfartin] Esq. the sum of 25,000: which sum in pursuance 
of an order dated the 9th day of December 1762 was issued to him 
at the receipt of our Exchequer for our special service. Given at 
our Court at St. James’s this 10th day of December in the 3rd year 
of our reign. 

Examined G. R.. 

Bute 

The memory of these £25,000 seems still to have haunted Bute 
seven years later ; for on November 4, 1769, as he was about to leave 
England “ to try once more the effect of a warm climate during the 
winter months ”, he wrote to George III concerning the accounts of 
the Civil List expenditure which were about to be submitted to Par- 
liament : 

... of tbe summa issued during, the year I had the honor to serve 
in the Treasury ; some were for Secret Service, others for Special 
Services ; which last were regularly delivi'd into Your Majesty’s 
hands ; and were dispos’d of by vour Self ; there was besides a sum 
of £25,000 issued on the tenth of December under the name of 
Secret Service, that I had the honor to carry to Your Majesty, in the 
same manner that I had done those before, that were issued for 
Your Special Service {The Correspondence of King George III, edited 
by Sir JohnFortescue, vol. ii. p. 110). 

As a matter of fact, in the accounts that sum was booked against 
Samuel Martin and Bute’s name was not mentioned in this connexion ; 
but his letter adds to our knowledge of the way in which this money*" 
was handled, and implicitly seems to confirm that this sum forn^ddhe 
financial substance of transactions to which usually very different 
dimensions are ascribed. 



228 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

is a difference bet wen money being “ issued 55 and 
“ spent Martin’s statement means that this unusually 
high sum was issued to him in a lump (which is correct), 
whilst Mr. Lecky’s embellished version seems to suggest 
that more money was spent in the afternoon, or at least 
on other days. Now the facts are these : for years it 
had been usual for the Secretary to the Treasury tQ draw 
the sum of £10,000 about four times a year for the secret 
service ; two instalments of that amount were drawn by 
James AVest, Newcastle's senior Secretary to the Treasury, 
on February 10 and May 26, 1762, and one by Samuel 
Martin on July 6 ; but on December 9 the sum drawn by 
Martin was £25,000 ; and the next issue to him for secret 
service was £10,000 on January 21, 17G3. In other words, 
the sum drawn on the morning of December 9 was unusually 
high, but it was the only one paid into the secret service 
fund whilst Fox was securing a majority for the treaty; 
and if all this ammunition had been spent in one morning, 
one would have to conclude that nothing was left for the 
afternoon and for other days. The rise by £15,000 above 
the normal indeed requires explanation ; and conversely, 
the amount to be explained is only £15,000, which is very 
much less than the current accounts of this transaction 
would make one expect. 1 But with regard to “ con- 
fessions ” such as that of John Ross Mackye. recorded or 
alleged by Wraxall, 2 one will require some better proof 

1 The explanation which I would tentatively suggest, until positive 
evidence is found, is this : Fox was securing a following for the new 
Administration ; some resignations of office by opponents had been 
received, the dismissal of others was imminent;, but the redistribution 
of places required time. The candidates on the waiting list received 
“pensions ” in lieu of office and until “provided for”. Votes were 
bought, but in a way different from that which is usually indicated ; 
and the difference between securing a regular following and buying 
votesj> the market is not unimportant. 

2 John Ross Mackye is reported by Wraxall ( Historical Memoirs, 
(1836), vol, iv. p. 671) to have claimed, in 1790, at a dinner at Lord 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 229 


than picturesque statements made under the influence of 
liquor, many years after the event, before accepting them 
as valid evidence either concerning the expenditure of 
secret service money or the methods of corruption. 


Public Pensions and Special Service 

The first thing to be ascertained with regard to “ secret 
service ” money as an instrument of Parliamentary cor- 
ruption is what sums were available for the purpose. 
This necessitates a careful examination of all entries in 
the Civil List accounts which might possibly have covered 
disbursements of that description. Material for such 
an inquiry abounds in the Civil List accounts for the 
years October 1752 to February 1769, called for when 
George III asked the House of Commons to pay his debts, 
and submitted to it in January 1770 ; 1 in the Treasury 
Papers at the Record Office ; in the Newcastle Papers at 
the British Museum ; and in those of several Secretaries 


Bessborough's, that it was through him that votes had been secured for 
the peace of 1763, “ With my own hand 1 secured above one hundred 
and twenty votes), m that most important question to Ministers. Eighty 
thousand pounds! ,jere set apart for the purpose. Forty Members of 
the House of Commons received from me, a thousand pounds each. 
To eighty others, I paid five hundred pounds apiece.” The figures, it 
will be noticed, are as beautifully even as at a “ sixpenny store ”. 
One would, however, like to know from what funds this money was 
taken and under what heading it was booked. The public accounts of 
that time are certainly not remarkable for their perspicuity ; still, I 
have searched carefully and have failed to find any loophole through 
which a sum of that size could have been drawn. It is hinted by 
Wraxall that Mackye made the statement under the influence of 
“ excellent champagne ”, to which he “ was partial ”, and similar 
circumstances seem required to make one accept it. 

1 Journals of the House of Commons, vol. xxxii. (1768-70), 167* 

603. The table published in the Grenville Papers, vol. iii. pp. 14.4-5, 
consists of short and confused extracts and summaries from the papers. 
The original MS. accounts are in the Record Office, T. 38/226. 



230 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

to the Treasury : James West, who, with a short interval in 
1 75G-57, held that office from 1 746 to 1762, Charles Jenkinson 
(1763-65), and John Robinson (1770-82). Certain diffi- 
culties arise from the year in various computations being 
calculated as from different days — Midsummer (July 5), Old 
Christmas (January 5), Old Lady Day (April 5) ; still in 
others as from October 25, the day of George II 's death 1 — 
and from the same items not being always classified in the 
same way ; still, even though the figures supplied in the 
various papers do not invariably agree and the way in which 
matters are mixed up causes confusion, results sufficiently 
reliable for our purpose can be obtained from them without 
entering into a minute examination of the Treasury 
accounts, 

A notebook of James West, preserved at the British 
Museum, contains “ An Account of the Income and Ex- 
pence of His Majesty’s Civil Government”, 1752-60. 2 
The table opposite gives all the entries which might be 
suspected of having supplied money for “ secret service ” ; 
I propose to examine them one by one. 

A detailed account for each year of the “ Pensions and 
Annuities ” payable at .the Exchequer can be seen in the 
Civil List accounts at the Record Office. 3 They start 
with the first dukes of the Kingdom, pillars of the State ; 
for some of these, pensions (most of which were presumably 
treated as “ additional/, salaries ” to Court offices) were 
merely a welcome and useful recognition of their import- 
ance, for others a necessary help to keep up the appear- 
ances of strength and splendour required from men 
placed so near the Throne. » In 1754-55 the second on the 
list is the Duke of Grafton with £3000, followed by the 
Dukes of St. Albans and Somerset, and further on by 

1 E.a. in the accounts submitted to the House of Commons in 1770 
the <year starts in October. 

2 Add. MSS. 30205, ff. 10-13. 

3 For 1754-59, T. 38/163, and for 1759-67, T. 38/164. 






AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 231 


the Dukes of Marlborough and Bolton ; the next year 
the Duke of Rutland appears in the list, in 1757-58 the 
Dukes of Devonshire and Dorset, etc. Besides other 
English noblemen, there is every year a long list of 
Scottish peers ; 1 some widows and orphans, the Fellows 
of Eton College, the Fellows and Master of Emmanuel 
College, Cambridge, readers of phvsick and modern history 
at Oxford and Cambridge, etc. etc., various deans, vicars, 
corporations, the poor of St. John the Baptist, and the 
church wardens of Sk Michael’s, CornhiJJ, etc. etc. Not a 
single Member of Parliament appears in these lists ; 
obviously it was not customary for Members of Parliament 
to figure in them (but one has only to turn over a few pages 
to find them drawing salaries as Grooms of the Bedchamber, 
as Keepers of the Records in the Tower or of His Majesty’s 
Tennis Courts, Rangers of Windsor Forest or of some 
London park, as Tellers of the Exchequer, as Clerics of 
the Pells, or of Foreign Estreats, etc. etc.). 

Next come the pensions “ per Paymaster ” ; “ by 
Compton ” is merely a different description of the same 
thing — he was Paymaster at that time, 2 and, in 1755, was 
succeeded in the office by Lord Gage. In a speech which 
Alderman Beckford delivered in the House of Commons on 
February 28, 1769, during the debate on the arrears of the 
Civil List, he is reported to have said : 

Are we, Sir, to have no account of this £800,000 [to be granted 
to the King] ; disposed of, perhaps to influence the freedom of the 
country ; to influence the freedom of this House ? A pensioner is 
an alms-man. Why should not P.P., for public pensioner, be placed 
upon his shoulders, as well as upon the shoulders of a poor man ? 


1 £5800, in a total of £8700, of these Scotch pensions are, however, 
marked in Add. MSS. 38338, f. 22, as “ police, not pension 

2 Charles Compton, fourth son of the 1th Earl of Northampton and 
father of the 7th Earl. He was consul at Lisbon, 1727-41, and envoy 
extraordinary, 1741-45. In 1745 he was appointed Paymaster of 
Pensions, was returned to Parliament for Northampton on December 9, 
1754, and died on November 20, 1755. 



232 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

An alms-man cannot vote ; and why should a pensioner ? . . . I 
want to see a list of the pensions paid by Lord Gage, paymaster of 
the band of pensioners. . . A 

Obviously he expected to find many Members of Parlia- 
ment on that list — would he have found any % 

In the accounts at the Record Office more than half 
the money spent on these pensions appears under the 
summary heading “ To clear Pensions and Annuities pay- 
able in this Office ”, but a detailed list for the year 1754 
is preserved among the Newcastle Papers. 1 2 It is as varied 
as that of the “ Pensions and Annuities ” payable at 
the Exchequer, but oil the whole is of a less dignified 
character. Its so-called “ English list ” contains 124 
entries, of which no less than 83 are pensions to women, 
British and foreign, and another 10 or 12 to male foreigners 
(among them appears the famous Handel with a pension 
of £400 a year). The Englishmen in this book are a very 
mixed gathering, but their pensions seem invariably of a 
charitable rather than a political character ; some are, 
presumably, to old servants and amount to £10 a year, and 
some to great noblemen, e.g. the Duke of Somerset appears 
again with a pension of £1000. At the very utmost, two 
entries in the list refer to Members of Parliament, but 
neither case is absolutely certain. 3 Next follows a list of 

1 Cavendish, Debates, vol. i. p. 268. 

2 Add. MSS. 33044, ff. 1-17. 

3 The entry “ Thomas Pelham, Esq. £800 ” seems to refer to Thomas 
Pelham of Stanmer, M.P. for Rye 1749-54 and for Sussex from 1754 till 
1768, when he succeeded Newcastle as Lord Pelham. I can find no one 
else in 1754 to whom this entry could refer, but having failed to trace 
anything about such a pension in the correspondence between Thomas 
Pelham and Newcastle, I cannot treat this identification of the recipient 
as proved, though it seems highly probable. The second entry men- 
tioned above reads : “ William Chetwynde, Esq. £100 This may 
r^fer either to W. Chetwynd, M.P. for Stafford (Inspector of Plays in 
the Loru"Chamberlain’s Office, £400 p.a. — see Add. MSS. 32995, f. 40), 
or to W. Chetwynd of Grindon, Warwickshire, wdio was not in Parlia- 
ment. The smallness of the pension seems to point to the latter. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 233 

“ other pensions or charities ” — to clergymen, professors, 
schoolmasters, to the poor of certain parishes, etc. Lastly, 
there are the payments to French Protestants. I have no 
list of these pensions for any other year, but there is no 
reason to assume that their character was different ; while 
it is clear that in 1754 they were not an instrument of 
political corruption. Nor is there any record in Newcastle’s 
voluminous correspondence during the next eight years of 
such a pension having been solicited or obtained by a 
Member of Parliament. 

As for the “ Privy Purse ”, under George II no money 
from it is known to have been used for elections or for 
pensions to Members of Parliament ; at least I have 
found no hint to that effect in Newcastle’s domestic 
correspondence, of which elections, places and pensions 
are the main topics. George III, beginning with Novem- 
ber 1777, set aside £1000 a month from his Privy 
Purse (which was higher than under George II) for 
financing elections ; possibly he may have used some 
minor sums from it to support his friends also at the 
general election of 1761, but so far I have never found 
any evidence to prove it. 

To take the last item not directly described as “ secret 
service ” hut which might be suspected of having covered 
money for Parliamentary corruption — the “ Contingen- 
cies Their ordinary purposes are clearly shown in the 
Civil List accounts and are enumerated in James West’s 
notebooks : 

Contingencies are under divers heads, vizt. law charges, rewards 
for services, liberates at the Exchequer, surplus on sheriffs’ accounts, 
and rewards for apprehending highwaymen, disbursements, printers 
of their bills, riding charges to messengers, post fines, City impost, 
rents payable by the Crown. 1 

It is stated in an analysis made in 1763 and preserved 
among the papers of Charles Jenkinson that “ the necessary 

1 Add. MSS. 30219, f. 11, and Add. MSS. 30216, f. 120. 



234 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


expenses under this head do not amount to more than 
£ 57,729 : 6 : 2-1 a year ” ; and this is the sum at which 
the contingencies approximately stood during the years 
1 751-55. 1 But also expenditure of a different and more 
mysterious kind, described as a rule as for “ special service ”, 
was included under “ contingencies ”, causing their sum 
total to vary considerably during the concluding years of 
George II’s reign. A digest in the Liverpool Papers— 
“ Particulars of the Sums paid for Contingencies in the 
Civil List Accompt for ten years ended the 5th day of July, 
1760 ” 2 — supplies a convenient survey of the principal items 
of “ special service ” money issued during the years 1756-60 ; 
the list is not complete, but as it is not here a question of a 
minute and exhaustive analysis, it will serve the purpose. 




In the Year ending July 5. 



1756. 

1757. 


1759. 

1760. 

To the Secretaries of the 
Treasury for special 

£ s. d. 

•3 

£ s. d. 

£ 

£ s. d. 

services 

To John Thornton, Esq., 

90,000 0 0* 

10,000 0 0 

•• 

30,000 

20,520 U 0 

for special services . 
To James Wallace, Esq., 

16,933 6 6 

10,520 11 6 


•• 

•• 

for special services . 
*To Andrew Drummond, 
Esq., for Bpeeial ser- 



18,000 0 0 



vices .... 
To Richard Stratton, 
Esq., lor special ser- 

* * 

•* * 

20,665 18 0 



vices .... 

.. 

• • 

5,254 10 0 



To Baron Mimckkausen 



1,585 0 0 




* £60,000 of this sum was issued in weekly instalments of £10,000 between September 23 
and October 21, 1755; see Add. MSS. 33038, ff. 450 and 472. 


Although I am not able fully to explain every single 
position, so much can be shown, that this money was used 

1 See “ An enquiry into the extraordinary expeneea of His Majesty's 
Civil Government . . . in . . . 1763 ... ”, Add. MSS. 38338, f. 104. 

2 Add. MSS. 38332, f. 223. 









AT THE ACCESSION - OF GEORGE III 235 

for service abroad, and not at home. 1 Thus the £90,000 
drawn by James West and Nicholas Hardinge in 1755-56 
are obviously those transmitted by George II to Hanover 
and mentioned by Newcastle in the letter to Hardwicke on 
August 16, 1760. 2 Similarly the £20,520 14s. in 1759-60 
booked against the Secretaries to the Treasury seem to 
have been sent to Germany. 3 The payments to John 
Thornton, the London banker, one may confidently assume, 
because of their date, his person, and the “ fees ” charged 
on them, 4 to have been for “ presents ” at the Russian 
Court — he had the remittance of Government money to 
Russia. 5 When, in 1759, Robert Keith was charged with 
certain negotiations at St. Petersburg, he was authorised 
to make “ private presents to proper persons ”, and “ to 

1 I have not read the papers in the Newcastle MSS. dealing with 
diplomatic affairs ; in these, presumably, detailed explanations could 
be found for the above disbursements. The only one among them of 
which I cannot define even the character is that of £10,000 in 1757 ; 
possibly the entry of £10,000 paid “ to the innholders which will be 
repaid ” — whatever this may mean — refers to it ; see paper signed by 
James West, Add. MSS. 33039, f. 13. 

. 2 See above, pp. 224-5. 

3 There is a note among the Newcastle Papers (Add. MSS. 32894, 
f. 209), docketed August 15, 1759, which seems to reiex to this trans- 
action : “ Nicholas Mageus, Esq., proposes to send the neat value of 
2u,t>0u£ sterling to Messrs. Hanbury & Halsey merchants at Hamburgh 
with directions that they shall dispose of the money in such manner 
as Prince Ferdinand shall be pleased to order. ...” £20,520: 14s. 
would be “ the neat value of 20,000£ ” plus charges for transmission. 

* It appears from the Treasury accounts at the Record Office 
(T. 38/163) that £16,000 in 1756 and £10,000 in 1757 were paid to 
John Thornton “ to reimburse the like sum expended by him for His 
Majesty’s service ”, whilst £933 : 6 : 6 and £520 : 11 : 6 were for “ fees 
attending the same ” ; the percentage is that of rather costly foreign 
remittances. A further confirmation of this money having been used 
for Russia is supplied by a paper of James West drawn up in 1757 
(Add. MSS. 33039, f. 13) containing the entry “for Russia £26^3 : 6 : ft*”, 
which is obviously the sum total of the first remittance with fees 
charged on it, and the second, without the fees. 

5 See, e.tj., Add. MSS. 32861, ff. 175 and 208. 



236 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

give as far as twenty thousand pounds sterling to such 
person or persons as can bring His Majesty’s wishes to 
bear. The money to be paid upon the exchange of the rati- 
fications ”. x A similar authorisation, up to £100,000, was 
again given to Keith by Lord Bute on February 6, 1762, 2 
and a letter of credit for that amount was issued to him 
from Messrs. Thornton & Cornwall in London on Messrs. 
Ritter, Thornton & Cayley at St Petersburg. 3 Payments 
made in these circumstances had naturally to appear as 
for “ special service ”, and in order to provide some cover 
for them in public accounts, they were booked against the 
banker through whom they were made. Similar trans- 
actions were covered by the entries which appear against 
two other London bankers, Andrew Drummond and 
Richard Stratton. 4 As for James Wallace, he was at that 
time Under-Secretary of State in the Northern Depart- 
ment, and his name once more suggests foreign service. 

1 Lord Holdernesse to Mr. Keith, February 13, 1759 ; Add. MSS. 
30999, f. 11. Holdernesse, however, forgot to inform Keith “ in whose 
hands the money was lodged ”, which did not matter much, as Keith 
had no occasion for it at that time ; see letter from Sir R. M- 
Keith, Memoirs and Correspondence (1849), vol. i. p. 34. Curiously 
enough, this letter from Keith, which is obviously a reply to the pre- 
ceding, is dated in this collection, “ St. Petersburg 2/13 May 1760 ”. 

*• k'iri. iwm, t u. * tu. vm**, m. 

4 These two sums are thus analysed in the Civil Service accounts 
for 1757-58 (T. 38/163, p. 48) : “ To Andrew Drummond & Co. to 
answer the following bills of exchange drawn, on them by Joseph Yorke, 
Esq., at the Hague [British Ambassador to the States-General] for His 
Majesty’s service, viz. : 

£ a. d. 

A bill from abroad ...... 3,207 0 0 

Fees attending tho same ..... 172 11 6 

Sundry bills from abroad and fees attending the same . 17,286 6 6 

20,665 18 0 

ftichard S+ratton to reimburse expences for His Majesty’s 

specia/service ...... 5,000 0 0 

To defray fees and charges attending the receipt thereof 254 10 0 


5,254 10 0 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 237 

Lastly, the exceedingly high sum of £112,641 : 13 : 9 
entered for “ contingencies ” between July 5 and October 
25, 1760, is shown by the Treasury accounts 1 to have 
covered £79,490 : 15 : 5j to Philip Adolph, Baron von 
Munchhausen (the Hanoverian Resident in London) “ for 
his late Majesty’s special service ” ; 2 and “ to Nicholas 
Magens, Esq., 3 to be remitted to the Marquis of Granby, to 
be paid by his Lordship into the hands of the Hereditary 
Prince of Brunswick £5000 ”, with £364 : 2 : 6 in “ fees 
attending the receipt thereof ” ; 4 etc. 

Thus contingencies also do not seem to have yielded 
money for Parliamentary corruption. But the mystery 
which surrounded the “ special service ”, and the fact that 
so much of its money was drawn through the Secretaries to 
the Treasury, who were also in charge of the domestic secret 
service funds, have given rise to legends and continue to 
confuse the accounts in various summaries of the expendi- 
ture of that period. 5 

1 T. 38/164. 

2 This money was to be repaid into the Exchequer (see Newcastle’s 
paper on the money remaining in the Exchequer at the death of 
George II ; Add. MSS. 33045, f. 141) ; and it was in fact repaid (see 
T. 36/200). 

3 A London banker who, together with Amyand, had frequently 
the remittance of Government money to Germany ; see, e.g., Add. 
dm. 32376, h. Y14-T5, mi, ft. 331-2, and 32839, L 9b. 

4 See about it also Newcastle’s Memorandum of August 19, 1760 
(Add. MSS. 33040, f. 5) : “ Mr. Magen9. His proposal about the 
f)000£ present, whereby no mortal can know any thing of it, ’till the 
money is certainly given by my Lord Granby, from the King, to the 
Hereditary Prince.” This is the present discussed on pp. 224-5. 

5 In time George III had to suffer from the same imputations 
with regard to “ special service ” money that Leicester House had made 
against the Government in the days of his grandfather. In a letter to 
Lord North, on February 28, 1771 (Donne, Correspondence of King 
Ge-orge III with Lord North, vol. i. p. 60), when discussing the question 
whether to spend money on “ the gaining the Court of Swe&en ”, he 
remarked : 

... as there is no publick mode of obtaining the money that is 



238 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


Secret Service Accounts 

-Under “ secret service ” disbursements, labelled as 
such, there occurs, first of all, a standing payment of 
£6000 a year to the two Secretaries of State, £3000 to each. 
The nature of these payments is incidentally explained in 
a speech which George Grenville delivered in the House of 
Commons on March 2, 17G9, during the debate on the 
arrears and debts due upon the Civil List ; whilst analysing 
its expenditure he described these “ secret service ” pay- 
ments as “ an annual salary added to the . . . Secretaries 
of State That this was their character and purpose 
seems further confirmed by the very considerable dis- 
crepancy between the salary of the Secretaries of State as 
entered in the Civil List accoimts — £1850 each— and the 
average of £5780 p.a. at which “ the clear profits of the 
office of Secretary of State ” during the seven years, 1747- 
1753, are put in the paper drawn up for Newcastle on the 
subject. 2 Presumably the £3000 of so-called “ secret 
service ” money have to be added, the rest being made up 
from fees, e.g. on commissions issued from the office. 
Thus this item of “ secret service ” can hardly, in fairness, 
be treated as such, and anyhow had nothing to do with 
Parliamentary corruption. 

Next, there is a regular payment of secret service money 


expended in that corruption, it must be taken from my Civil List, 
consequently new debts incurred ; and when I apply to Parliament 
for relieving me, an odium cast on myself and Ministry : as if the 
money had been expended in bribing Parliament. 

1 Sir Henry Cavendish, Debates of the House of Commons, vol. i. p. 
294. See also the remark in a letter from George Grenville to Thomas 
Whately, July 20, 1766 ( Grenville Papers, iii. p. 276), about “half 
England ” really believing “ that the three thousand pounds a-year 
which wfterjfayable to Mr. Pitt as Secretary of State now lie unapplied ” 
[in the Treasury]. 

2 See below, p. 281. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 239 


to the Post Office, 1 from 1745 till the death of George II 
fixed at £4510 a year, 2 but higher under George III. A fist 
of disbursements from this fund for the year ended on 
April 5, 1763, is published in the Grenville Papers ; 3 it 
was transmitted to George Grenville by Anthony Todd, 
Secretary to the Post Office : 


The Bishop of Bath and 


Brought forward 

£3375 

Wells 

£500 

Peter Hemet . 

300 

Thomas Itarasden . 

500 

Stephen Dupuy 

300 

Edward Willes 

500 

John French . 

300 

Thomas Willes 

300 

John Ernest Bode, jun. . 

300 

James Wallace 

400 

William Augustus Bode . 

200 

James Rivers 

200 

John Ulrick Selshop 

100 

Peter Morin . 

250 

John Calcott . 

60 

Cuchet Juvencel 

150 

James Holcomo 

40 

John Ernest Bode, jun., 


James Sanders 

60 

£400 ; extra allowance, 


Anthony Todd 

750 

£100 .... 

500 

The same person for dis- 


The same person for Seals, 


tributing these allow- 


&c 

75 

ances .... 

25 

Carried forward 

£3375 


£5810 


This list, besides a few parasites 4 present in every 
s'ecret service list in the eighteenth century, contains almost 

1 About this George Grenville, in the speech quoted above, made 
the following remark, the meaning of which I do not fully understand : 
“ That is a hardship upon the King’s revenue (when in office I thought 
it unjust)." 

2 For the way in which that figure was arrived at in 1745, see 
T. 53/41, pp. 466-7 and 675. A full list of the recipients is given, and, 
as in 1763, it includes no Members of Parliament. 

3 Vol. iii. p. 311. The sum total of this list falls short of the £6089, 
which appear as drawn during that year for the Post Office Secret 
Service in a computation of payments made for this purpose, 1727-65, 
preserved among the Liverpool Papers (Add. MSS. 38339, f. 19). 

4 The Bishop of Bath and Wells was Edward Willes, a younger 
brother of the Lord Chief Justice, and already in 1745 he was in receipt 
of secret service money from the Post Office ; Edward Wilfr^jun., was 
the third son of the Chief Justice, a barrister, M.P. from 1747-54 and 
1767-68, when he became one of the Justices of the King’s Bench. 



240 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


exclusively civil servants, and not a single sitting Member 
of Parliament. The Bode family were a regular Post 
Office dynasty still connected with it in the beginning of 
the nineteenth century ; 1 one of the functions of J. E. 
Bode, sen., in 1763 was, as Todd mentions in the covering 
letter to Grenville, “ engraving the many seals we are 
obliged to make use of ” (counterfeit seals for letters opened 
in the Post Office). PeteT Hemet was a superannuated* Post 
Office official, Thomas Ramsden (“ Latin secretary to the 
King”), James Wallace, James Rivers, and Peter Morin were 
past or present Under-Secretaries of State of the humbler 
kind — none of them ever sat in Parliament, and they were 
clerks rather than politicians ; similarly, Cuchet Juvencel 2 


There seems to have existed some connexion between the Willes family 
k'and the Post Office ; and in 1801 two members of the Willes family, 
Edward and Francis, still appear among its employees. An interesting 
“ Memorial ” by Anthony Todd, written on the death of the Bishop 
of Bath and Wells, in November 1773, is published by Sir John ' 
Forteseue in The Correspondence of King George 111, vol. iii. pp. 38-40. 
It pleads for using the money assigned to the secret department of 
the Post Office for rewarding those who work in it and “ are under- 
paid ”, describes the giving away of that money to strangers as “ a 
check to the service ”, and expresses the hope r ‘ that the nature of the 
service will now be so clearly«settled and understood, as that no part 
of the money allowed for carrying it on may ever hereafter be diverted 
from the purposes for which it was granted 

1 See entries in the Liverpool MSS. in 1801, Add. MSS. 38357-8. 

2 At one time he was provincial agent for North Carolina. Between 
1761 and 1767, he is repeatedly mentioned as a clerk in the office of 
the Secretary of State for the Southern Department (see Home Office 
Papers), and in July 1765 he was appointed private secretary to the 
Duke of Grafton, then Secretary of State (see Gentleman’ s Magazine, 
1765, p. 348). On April 6, 1767, he was made one of the Clerks of the 
Privy Seal and Register of the Court of Requests [H.O. Papers, 1766-69, 
p. 265). At the Privy Seal Office, he became attached to Chatham. 
He lived in a house on Lord Chatham’s estate at Hayes, cashed his 
annuity fo^^flim at the Exchequer, and even incurred debts on his 
behalf (see Chatham MSS. at the Record Office, G.D. 8/47). He died 
in 1786. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 241 


belonged to the minor official fry. These men, who would 
now be Foreign Office officials, seem to have been attached 
to the secret service of the Post Office for the double 
purpose of reading intercepted foreign correspondence and 
of drawing additional emoluments. “ I am informed ”, 
wrote James Wallace to Lord Bute on May 11, 1761, 
“ that the payments of the secret service branch of the 
Post Office, which have been suspended ever since His 
Majesty’s accession by reason of the alteration made in 
the Hereditary Revenue of the Crown, are now about to 
be put in course again from the time of suspension .” 
The post he had held in that office since 1749 was “ the 
German clerkship, the functions of which consist in trans- 
lating the intercepted letters that are in the German or 
Dutch languages ”J 

Thus foT purposes of Parliamentary corruption, we are 
finally left with no other secret service money than that 
paid to the Secretaries to the Treasury, which (with one 
single discrepancy of £2000 in 1756) 1 2 will be found to 
correspond exactly to the sums accounted for in New- 
castle’s secret service books. The table printed overleaf 
from the Liverpool Papers 3 covers almost the whole of 
George II's reign, and gives the money received and dis- 
bursed for secret service free of all “ special service ” 
accessories, which are lumped with it in many other tables ; 
each year is calculated till Midsummer (July 5). 

To complete the table of the secret service money of the 
Treasury under George II, we have to add £10,000, issued 
to West on September 29, 1760. 


1 Bute MSS. 2 Sec tabic opposite p. 230, footnote (2). 

3 See “ An Accompt shewing the Monies issued for . . . secret 
service . . . from Midsummer 1727 to Midsummer 1760 . . (Add. 
MSS. 38337, f. 44). The same figures appear in a paper in the New- 
castle MSS. covering the years 1730-57 : “ An Accompt o^rll Monies 
issued for Secret Service since the year 1730 distinguishing each year ” 
(Add. MSS. 33039, f. 37). 

VOL. I R 



242 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 



£ 

s. 

d. 

1728. 

45,743 

14 

0 

1729. 

. 57,880 

0 

0 

1730. 

53,391 

0 

0 

1731. 

63,918 

0 

0 

1732. 

73,781 

8 

0 

1733. 

87,470 

0 

0 

1734. 

. 117,145 

19 

0 

1735. 

66,630 

1 

10 

1736. 

95,312 

10 

4 

1737. 

61,999 

10 

0 

1738. 

. 72,827 

19 

0 

1739. 

74,249 

16 

0 

1740. 

80,116 

8 

5 

1741. 

80,976 

15 

2 

1742. 

64,949 

5 

5 

1743. 

54,300 

0 

0 

1744. 

. 34,970 

0 

0 




£ 

8. 

d. 

1745. 


. 24,000 

0 

0 

1746. 


22,000 

0 

0 

1747. 


41,000 

0 

0 

1748. 


33,000 

0 

0 

1749. 


38,000 

0 

0 

1750. 


29,000 

0 

0 

1751. 


32,000 

0 

0 

1752. 


40,000 

0 

0 

1753. 


35,000 

0 

0 

1754. 


50,000 

0 

0 

1755. 


40,000 

0 

0 

1756. 


38,000 

0 

0 

1757. 


50,000 

0 

0 

1758. 


. 40,000 

0 

0 

1759. 


. 30,000 

0 

0 

1760. 


. 40,000 

0 

0 


It will be noticed that the disbursements of secret 
service money through the Secretaries to the Treasury 
regularly increased about the time of a general election 
(1734, 1741, 1747, and 1754); that the expenditure was 
specially high during the last years of Sir Robert 
Walpole's administration, whilst he fought desperately for 
his political existence ; that it was lowest during Henry 
Pelham’s time at the Treasury (August 1743-March 1754), 
which serves further to explode the story of the numerous 
secret service pensions paid at that time to Members of 
Parliament by John Roberts. The secret service fund of 
the Treasury was used for various purposes, and never more, 
and often considerably less, than one-third of it went in 
pensions to Members of the House of Commons ; the average 
total under Pelham, including years of general elections, 
amounted to something over £30,000 ; how many pensions 
of £500-800 a year could be carved out of, say, even 
£10,000 L A comparison of the totals during the years 
when Henry Pelham was at the Treasury with those of 
Newcastle suggests that Pelham’s mysterious books — 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 243 


according to Wraxall, “ too sacred and confidential to be 
thus transferred over to the new Ministers ” — did not differ 
widely from those preserved in the Newcastle Papers, 
except that Pelham was more economical, and better 
fitted than his brother to withstand the importunities of 
political beggars. 

The General Elections of 1754 and 1761, and the 
Nursing of Constituencies 

The accounts which John Roberts kept under New- 
castle as First Lord of the Treasury open on March 21, 
1754, on the eve of the general election, and naturally 
during the next two or three months election expenses 
rank foremost. On March 13 James West wrote to 
Newcastle that he had received his commands through 
Lord Dupplin “ to know what engagements Mr. Pelham 
had mentioned to me relative to the next election In 
reply he sent Newcastle the following paper — “ all that I 
know from himself ” ; 1 the paper 2 is annotated in the 
margin by John Roberts, whilst further information can 
be obtained from a series of papers in Roberts's hand- 
writing preserved in Add. MSS. 32995. 

Shoreham . Agreed to defray all expences exceeding £1000 for 
Mr. Bristowe. 3 

Barnstap le. Agreed to defray all expences exceeding £1500 to 
Mr. Amyand. £1000 has been already advanced. 

Evesham . Agreed to defray all expences exceeding £1500 to 
Mr. Alderman Porter. 

Totness. Agreed to be at the whole expence for the Master of 
the Bolls in case he had stood, but as he has declined and (by 


1 Add. MSS. 32734-, f. 237. 2 j b j d fp 239-40. 

3 In the paper of March 16, 1754 (Add. MSS. 32995, f. 96)— this 
engagement is differently stated : “Mr. Philipson — Shojpham, his 

son Mi. Biistowe to come in by agreement with Mr. Stratton. - 1 To be 
paid £1000 to assist him, and to expend another 1000 by himself.” 
About Phillipson, see essay on Harwich, pp. 443-51. 



244 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


me) acquainted Mr. F[elham] it was very indifferent to him, 
whether he was in Parliament now, or on any future vacancy, 
that engagement is at an end ; tho’ there is an old claim of the 
Corporation for discharge of a debt of S00£. Mr. P. was to 
have seen the D. of Somerset, for his son, to join Mr. Trist. 

Worcester. Mr. P. feared this would cost 4 or 5000£ and advanced 
some money to Mr. Tra[cy] and his agent Mr. Lilly. 1 

[Marginal remark in John Roberts’s handwriting : * c Mr. P. 
seemed desirous to break off all engagements here, if he had known 
how to extricate himself.”] 2 

Honiton. Agreed to advance a certain sum in support of Mr. 
Yonge. 

[John Roberts : “ This measure was not agreable to Mr. P.”] 

Saltash. The candidates 3 were to be at the whole expence as 
settled with Mr. Clevland. 

Old Sarum. The sum uncertain, complained greatly of its 
being too excessive. 


1 In the paper of March 18, 1754, ibid. f. 98 : “ Mr. Tracey — has 
had 1000£ for his election, demands 3500 more — offers to desist for 
2000— to be chosen at another place, and if not chosen will return 
1000£.” Newcastle’s remark against it : “ will lay it before the King 

2 Several letters from Tracy to Pe)ham and Newcastle dealing with 
the Worcester election are preserved among the Newcastle Papers. 
The last (Add. MSS. 32734, f. 332), dated March 24, 1754, runs as 
follows : 

My Lord Duke, 

1 beg your immediate answer whether the £2500 will be paid, 
£1000 tomorrow, and the remaining £1500 when I go down ; if 
these terms are not agreed to, and you will be pleased to determine 
tonight whether you will or will not make them good, I shall trouble 
neither the King nor your Grace any further, nor shall I be with 
you on Thursday morning, but will stand the poll for Worcester 
unassisted by your Grace, and free, I thank God, from all obligations. 
Your Grace must be peremptory tonight, or you will see ine no 
more. 

P.S. Tomorrow I shall begin executing the plan necessary to 
secure my election, and will be put off no longer. 

Newcastle managed “ to extricate himself ” (about it see also Add. 
MSS. 32995, ff. 104 and 115) and Tracy was not elected ; but this 
was not the last Newcastle saw of him. 

3 Lord Duncannon and Admiral George Clinton. 




AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 245 


[John Roberts : “ A sum has been advanced..’ 5 1 ] 

Reading. Mr. D[odd] has already received £1000 and the 
engagement stands for 5 or 6001 more. 2 

Glocester. Mr. P. had agreed to be at some part of the 
expence, the quantum not known. 

[John Roberts : “ As far as I was informed, expressions were 
very loose and general here.”] 

Wallingford. Agreed to be at some part of the expence. 

[John Roberts : “ Some assistance has been given which is best 
known to a certain person.” 3 ] 

Lord Edgcumbe and Lord Falmouth were to have received 
largely out of the last money. 4 

Kent. 2000£ advanced on a bad security by Mr. Galfridus 
Mann to Mr. Fairfax which Mr. West has obliged himself 
to pay Mr. Mann, and Mr. Pelham has obliged himself to pay 
to Mr. West. 6 

[John Roberts : “ This sum was £2233 : 3 : 2.”] 

A few more engagements have to be added to the above. 
In a paper regarding arrangements made between Mr. 

1 £1000 (see Add. MSS. 32995, f. 120) ; but these were reimbursed 
by Lord Bath (see p. 538). 

2 In the paper of March 16, 1754 (ibid. f. 99) : “ Mr. Dodd — Reading 
— has received 1000£ — was promised 500£ more — and that it would not 
be lost for 3 or 400 more.” 

3 In the paper of March 16, 1754 (ibid. f. 97) : “ That Mr. Sewel was 
promised to have the expences for Wallingford born, after he had ex- 
pended 1000£ of his money — That in consequence of that promise 
he had received already 1200£ — and that more will be wanting — 
[remark opposite, presumably by Newcastle : ‘ NB. Mr. Roberts says 
some money has been already advanced — That I can give no answer 
till I have laid it before the King.’] And if Mr. Sewell did not succeed 
there, he should be brought in somewhere else, at a convenient time ” 
[remark against it : “ To that I can say nothing.”]. In the paper of 
March 21 (ibid. f. 112) Sewell is stated to have “ had already 1250£ ”, 
and the remark is added that he “ desires nothing further at present ; 
that he has now 300£ in cash, but will let me know, when further 
expence will be necessary ”. 

4 “ Last money ” presumably means the last payment made ittto 
the secret service fund. 

6 About the transactions concerning Kent, see essay on Fairfax, 
pp. 502-4. 



246 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


Pelham and Lord Dupplin in January 1754/ it is mentioned 
that “incidental expences of £170” at Camelf ord were “ to 
be defrayed by the Government ” ; that “ Mr. Pox told 
the Duke of Newcastle, that Sir Thomas Clavering had 
already paid £2000 [at Shaftesbury] and that Mr. Pelham 
had promised to pay what was wanting above that sum 
In the paper of March 21 1 2 it is noted that Mr. Hifcch.Yoiing 
at Steyning, “ was promised to have 1000£ given to defray 
his expences On July 18, 1754, John Roberts, in a 
letter concerning the Westminster election, explained to 
Newcastle that Sir John Crosse had declared he would not 
put .up more than £50G, 3 and, as this was obviously insuffi- 
cient, Pelham tried to find some one who would go the 
length of £2000, but having failed, accepted Sir John 
Crosse’s offer. Edward Cornwallis, the other candidate 
for Westminster, claimed to be let off all expense, and his 
reasons “ seem indeed to be well founded as Mr. Harctynge 
is elected at Eye in his room by Lord Cornwallis ”. 4 The 
opposition at Westminster was hopeless and was put up 
solely “ to occasion money to be spent 

I do not wonder, that, after the care your Grace has taken to keep 
down the expences and claims from every quarter, this large demand 
[£1800] should give you some uneasiness ; at the same time it will 
not escape your Grace’s judgment, how necessary it is that it should 
be satisfied. . . . 5 

Further, on March 25, 1755, the Duke of Marlborough 
reminded Newcastle o! the engagement with regard to 
the Oxfordshire election of 1754. 

. . . when Lord Macclesfield sett up Lord Parker to support the 
Whig cause, poor Mr. Pelham promiss’d with the King’s consent and 
knowledge, he should receive to support the necessary expences 


1 Add. MSS. 32995, fi. 63-5. 2 Ibid. f. 112. 

< 3 See al°o ibid. i. 98. 

4 Nicholas Hardinge was Joint Secretary to the Treasury, and Eye 

was a pocket-borough of Lord Cornwallis. 

6 Add. MSS. 32736, fi. 53-4. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 247 


four thousand, and afterwards three, in all seven thousand, of which 
Lord Macclesfield has I believe as yett receiv’d but two. . . J 

Let us now extract from John Roberts’s accounts the 
disbursements made on the general election of 1754 ; they 
can be easily distinguished, and an additional check is 
supplied by a paper compiled for Newcastle on the eve of 
the general election of 1761 and marked “ Disbursements 
for Parliament from March 21st, 1753 [obviously 1753/4] 
to September 19th, 1760 ”. 2 Where there is more than 
one payment, the sum total is given of the various entries 
referring to the constituency. 


Mr. Dodd for Reading 1 .... 1000 

Mr. Talbot for Ilchester 2 .... 1000 

Mr. Bayntun Roit for Chippenham 3 800 

Six William Yonge for Honiton 4 .... 500 

Mr. Clevland for Barnstaple 5 1000 

Mr. Thomas Leslie for Forfar Burghs 0 800 

Mr. Trist for Totnes 7 . . . . . 200 

Lord Macclesfield for Oxfordshire 8 . . . . 3000 

Mr. Hitch Young for Steyning 9 . . . .1000 

Mr. Whitworth for Minehead 10 ... 1000 

Mr. Martin for Camelford 11 . . . . .740 

'Mr. Sewell for Wallingford . . . . .780 

Lord Archer for Bramber 12 . , . . . 1000 

Lord Falmouth 13 ..... 1455 

Lord Edgcumbe and Mr. Andrews 14 . . .700 

The Duke of Argyle for Scotland .... 1000 
Sir Jacob Downing for Dunwich 15 . . . . 500 

Lord Ilchester for Shaftesbury 16 . . . 330 

Mr. Philipson for Mr. Bristowe for Shoreham . . 1000 

Alderman Porter for Evesham 17 . . . 1000 

Mr. Jenison 19 . . . . . . . 700 

Mr. Charlton for Newark 19 ..... 1000 

Col. Cornwallis and Sir John Crosse for Westminster 20 . 1800 


£22,305 

( For Footnotes l to 20 see following pages.) *' * 


4 Add. MSS. 32853, f. 460. 


2 Add. MSS. 32999, fi. 34-35. 



248 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

Adding the £4250 mentioned by James West and in the 
papers of March 1754 as having been paid out to Amyand, 


1 I include in this £100 paid to Dodd in January 1755, presumably 
for expenditure connected with his election petition. 

2 Ilchester was an expensive constituency managed by a local man, 
who was a merchant in Loudon, Thomas Lockyer, M.P. for Ilchester, 
1717-61. “ It was the genius, the ruling passion, of Thomas Lockyer, 
to make the utmost of whatever money came to his hands — so well 
known in the country, for heaping up and accumulating, as to acquire 
the name of Snowball — justly representing his character, and, it is 
presumed, his fate ” ; see The Case of Maria Perry (1789). 

John Talbot (1712-56), third son of Charles, 1st Lord Talbot, sat. 
for Brecon, 1734-54, and for Ilchester from 1754 till his death in 1756. 
The following note with regard to him appears in the paper of March 
15, 1754 (Add. MSS. 32995, f. 67) : “ Mr. Legge has acquainted the 
D. of N., that, as Mr. Talbot cannot come in where [he] is now chosen, 
he is desirous to represent some other borough.” From Roberts’s 
* notes of March 20, it appears that Talbot was expected to contribute 
another £1000 of his own to the purchase of the seat (ibid. f. 105). 

3 In the paper of March 21 (ibid. f. 114).- “Mr. Bayntun Rolt, 
Chippenham, says that the expence of the election will amount to 1500 
— that Ald“ Fludyer pays as much — that he Bayntun was offered 800£ 
[marginal remarks by Newcastle: “to receive the King’s order upon 
it ” “ 800 granted ”J and afterwards that there should be no difference 
— appeals to his conduct in his office for saving the King money ” 
[“ Surveyor-General of the Dutehy of Cornwall ”]. . . 

Chippenham was a borough rendered expensive by the competition 
of rich clothiers. Edward Bayntun Rolt (1710-1800), of Spye Park 
in the neighbourhood, was a squire, apparently of small means. 
He sat for Chippenham, 1737-80, and originally belonged to the 
Opposition — it was over his election • petition that Walpole was 
defeated in 1742 ; but in 1747, Bayntun Rolt received £800 from the 
Government towards his election expenses (see ibid. f. 120), and in 
1751 was appointed Surveyor-General of the Duchy of Cornwall. On 
the accession of George III he was one of the first to detach himself 
from ”Newcastle. 

4 Sir William Yonge, 4th Baronet, had sat for Honiton, 1714-54, 
but in 1754 moved to Tiverton. He was succeeded by his son George, 
for rvhose election this money was paid ; possibly Sir William Yonge, 
feeling that his death was near — he died in 1755 — preferred in 1754 
to have himself chosen for a cheaper constituency. About George 
Yonge and Honiton, see p. 202. 



AT THE ACCESSION OP GEORGE III 249 


Dodd, Tracy, and Sewell, previous to Henry Pelham’s 
death, a total expenditure of only £26,555 is obtained for 


5 This money was paid for the use of George Arnyand but appears 
against the name of John Clevland, Secretary to the Admiralty, who, 
having personal connexions with Barnstaple, acted there for the Govern- 
ment. His son, John Clevland junior, sat for Barnstaple, 1766-1802. 
George ’ Amyand (1720-66) was a London merchant-banker and a 
Director of the East India Company, and is said to have left at his 
death a fortune of “ clear 160,0001. stg. and perhaps more ” (see Hist. 
MSS. Comm., Tenth Report, Part I. p. 401). He surely did not 
recjuire financial help — but why not take it, if obtainable ? For 
the accounts of the Barnstaple election of 1754 see Add. MSS. 32995, 
2. 106-7. 

8 This total is made up of £300 given to him on April 1, 1754, and 
a further £500 added on April 15, 1756, in reply to his pathetic appeal 
to Newcastle : “ . . . if your Grace don’t do for me, I shall be undone. 
. . . my creditors wont have no longer patience with me . . .” 
(March 30, Add. MSS. 32864, f. 97 ; he wrote another letter of the 
same character on April 8, 1756, ibid. f. 182). 

7 See accounts under April 2, 1754 ; also Add. MSS. 32995, f. 180. 

8 This includes the £1000 paid through the Duke of Marlborough in 
July 1754. For the Oxfordshire election of 1754 see Dickins and 
Stanton, An Eighteenth-Century Correspondence ; W. Wing, The Great 
Oxfordshire Election, 1754 ; and James Townsend, The Oxfordshire 
Dashwoods. 

0 Died in 1759. He was a Groom of the Bedchamber. 

10 About Whitworth see pp. 508-15. 

11 This includes £570 paid to him on December 6, 1754, in response 
to the undated paper, Add. MSS. 32737, f. 237. About Camelford see 
pp. 416-18. Originally only the “ incidental expences of £170 ” were to 
have been “ defrayed by the Government ” ; see J. Roberts’s paper 
of March 15, 1754 (Add. MSS. 32995, f. 63), and payment made on 
April 5, 1754, p. 520. 

12 This seat was bought from Lord Archer for Lord Malpas (about him 
see p. 533, footnote (1)), to make him desist from opposing Lord Milton 
at Dorchester ; see Add. MSS. 32734, 2. 19, 69, 361-3 ; Add. MSS. 
32735, 2. 34 and 52-6. Lord Archer wrote to John Roberts on 
April 8, 1754, that his agent was going down to Steyning and Bramber 
and that he “ has always carried the cash with him, which' he proposes 
to do now, having a guard come up from those two places to escort 
him. I therefore desire the £1500 which must be in cash, may be paid 
this evening or early to-morrow morning . . (Add. MSS. 32734, f. 64.) 



250 THE STRUCTURE OE POLITICS 

the general election of 1754. It was specially mentioned 
at the end of Roberts’s paper of March 15, 1754, that he 

13 Payment made for John Fuller at Tregony; see Add. MSS. 
32995, ft. 64, 70, 188, 199. 

14 This was for Grampound ; see p. 129. In a paper dated April 9, 
1754 {ibid. f. 205) the sum of £2000 is named as paid out to Lord 
Edgcumbe for Cornish elections ; but part of this was returned* by the 
candidates. 

15 In Roberta's paper of March 15, 1754 {ibid. f. 67) : “ Dunwich 
... Sir Jacob Downing [to be one Member] and offers the other 
Member to the D. of N. for £1000.” The seat was bought for 
Boame Jenyns, a friend of Lord Hardwjcke’s family, on bis being 
shifted from Cambridgeshire in order to accommodate both Lord 
Royston and Lord Granby in the county. 

18 On behalf of Sit Thomas Clavering ; see p. 246, and also Add. 
MSS. 32995, f. 126. 

17 This payment was made on May 8, 1754 ; at the end of March, 
Porter was prepared for a compromise with his opponents, who offered 
to buy him off with £1200 — he claimed by then to have spent £1750 ; 
he left the matter to Newcastle to decide, and it was stated afterwards 
that the compromise was broken off by the Duke’s command ; see 
Add. MSS. 32734, f. 305, 32735, f. 201, and 32995, f. 104. See, 
however, paper of March 21, 1754 (Add. MSS. 32995, f. 114) — 
it appears that Porter stood on James West’s interest, and the remark 
is added : “ Mr. Ald u Porter desires not to give up” ; see also ff. 195 
and 203. 

18 This is the only entry in the list about which I feel doubtful — 
there is so positive evidence of its having been made for election 
purposes. But Ralph Jenison, M.P. for Northumberland, 1723-41, 
and for Newport (Isle of Wight), 1749-58, did not hold a private 
pension in 1754, whilst any extra-payments, which he received as 
Master of the Buckhounds, appear in the ordinary Civil List accounts. 
Moreover, his letter to Henry Pelham, dated February 18, 1754, in 
which he asks what to do about certain demands from Newport, seems 
to suggest that this payment was for his election ; see pp. 160-1. 

18 Job Staunton Charlton was Newcastle’s estate agent in Notting- 
hamshire, and in this election Newcastle was really financing his own 
borough interest. The opponent was a merchant, Thomas Delaval, 
a brother tc -John Hussey Delaval, subsequently 1st Lord Delaval, and 
Sir Francis Blake Delaval ; he was no Tory, merely an intruder, and was 
supported by Dr. Wilson, a Newark clergyman, who at other times 
worked for Newcastle but who had a personal quarrel with Charlton. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 251 

and Lord Dupplin were to peruse Pelham’s letters relating 
to elections “ and extract from them whatever- can be 
found therein ”. 1 With the help of such information 
further lists were compiled, and it seems hardly probable 
that any considerable sums paid out by Henry Pelham for 
the general election remained unknown to them or would 
not, in the further course of the election business, have 
been brought to the notice of Newcastle ; nor does the 
sum of £35,000 for secret service in 1753 suggest any 
marked expenditure dining that year on the forthcoming 
, general election. If, therefore, we bring the £26,555 up to 
£30,000, we are not likely to under-estimate the total. 
But what was £30,000 ? The Tories alone are known to 
have spent on the Oxfordshire election of 1 7 54, £20,068 : 1 : 2, 2 
and the Whigs probably not less ; 3 the sums employed in 
one single constituency thus exceeded the total of the 

About this election see Add. MSS. 32733, fl. 204, 206, 253, 569, 598, 
and 621 ; Add. MSS. 32734, ff. 102, 104, 109, 111, 371-5, and 389-91 ; 
Add. MSS. 32735, ff. 42, 470, and 575. On March 27, 1754, Charlton 
sent Newcastle a paper (Add. MSS. 32734, f. 375) showing that there 
were 537 good votes at Newark, that he. and his fellow-candidate, 
John Manners, had 307 certain votes each, and each had already spent 
about £650, and “ if no money be given ”, the further expense for each 
would amount to another £350. 

“ If money be given, will be added to the above expence to preserve 
our majority— if To per man to T2D, 'bad TM) 

if £10 per man be given, then 150 is supposed must be pur- 
chased, the one half is £750.” 

Charlton and Manners won the election, and on June 15, 1754, Charlton 
reported to Newcastle that the “ election charges . . . daily increase 
by fresh demands, they are come up to almost 1700 ” (Add. MSS. 
32735, f. 470). See also Lord Dupplin’s paper about Newark, Add. 
MSS. 32995, f. 128. 

20 For a detailed account of the expenditure on this election, amount- 
ing to a total of £2281 : 1 : 6, see Add. MSS. 32995, ff. 174-5 ; £500 
was borne by Sir John Crosse. The heaviest items were tavern biffs 

1 Ibid. f. 67. 

2 See James Townsend, The Oxfordshire Dashwoods (1922), p. 28. 

3 See, e.g., paper of March 25, 1754 (Add. MSS. 32995, ff., 126-36). 



252 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

Government expenditure in the whole of Great Britain. 
To give another example of expensive elections — at Bristol, 
according to Dean Tucker, £60,000 were spent on the two 
contests of 1754 and 17 55. 1 

Barring the lump payment of £1000 to the Duke of 
Argyle for Scotland, the above-stated expenditure of .secret 
service money at the general election of 1754 was made 
on behalf of 24 candidates ; and of the money so speut, 
almost one-third was practically of no avail. The Whig 
candidates were defeated in Oxfordshire and were only 
seated on petition by a party vote in the House of 
Commons ; John Dodd lost his election at Reading by 
one vote ; Tracy was given up and lost his seat at Wor- 
cester ; and the Government candidates were defeated 
at Wallingford by Richard Neville Aid worth, a Bedford 
Whig, and John Hervey, a Welsh judge. 2 

1 Sec his letter to Lord Hardwicke, January 3, 1761 ; Add. MSS. 

35596, f. 207. Other evidence seems to confirm this statement ; thus, 
the Duke of Newcastle wrote to the King on April 6, 1751, that 
Mr. Nugent and Mr. Hanbury, “ the great Quaker ”, had informed 
him of an express “ from the Whigs at Bristol, who had directed 
Mr. Hanbury to engage to indemnifie Mr. Nugent against all expences 
of bis election ... to the sum of £10,000 . . ; “ one single man, 

a considerable Quaker in Bristol, has subscribed £500 ” (Add. MSS. 
32735, ff. 48-9). 

2 The case of Hervey supplies a curiouB illustration of the politics 
of that time. Hervey was a favourite of Lord Hardwicke, and wrote 
to him on January 10, 1754: 

... I declared to Mr. Aid worth that in case I was returned for 
Wallingford I should vote in Parliament on the side of the Adminis- 
tration. , , . Indeed . . . it would have prejudiced my interest, if 
I h$d publicly declared my attachment to the Ministry, but it was 
so understood, which made some not so zealous in my interest as 
otherwise they would have been (Add. MSS. 35592, if. 6-7). 

And^again on January 20 : 

This morning I saw Mr. Pelham. We talked over the affair of 
Wallingford and I made him all the assurances I could, and sincerely, 
of my steady attachment to the Administration. He said he was 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 253 

In short, the ideas about the importance of secret 
service money in elections, certainly in so far as the general 
election of 1754 was concerned, are greatly exaggerated. 
George II loved ts always ... to have as great majorities 
as possible ” in Parliament, 1 and Newcastle’s anxious 
nature never allowed him to feel even comparatively safe, 
unless he paid everybody and for everything. In reality, 
by 1754 there was no real opposition left, the number of 
“ Whigs ” was growing continually, and the difficulty of 
Administration was merely “ to find pasture enough for 
the beasts that they must feed ”. 2 Had all the elections 
financed from secret sendee funds gone in favour of full- 
fledged Tories (in reality there were not ten Tories among 
the “ opposition ” candidates), and had there been 24 more 
of them in a House in which, on Newcastle’s own findings, 
the Government majority was 21 3, 3 some places or pen- 
sions might have been saved, but the Government would 
have suffered no harm. 

The fact deserves attention that practically none of 
the regular Government boroughs appears in the list of 
special disbursements made at the general election — they 
had to be nursed year by year and mainly by other means 
than secret service money. Neither Harwich nor Orford 


perswaded it was so, but that I was so unhappily linked he must 
oppose me. At parting he called to me in this manner, Hcaiken, 
Hervey, we’l fight it out in the countrey, and be good friends in 
town (Add. MSS. 35592, f. 23). 

The election was fought out “ in the countrey ”, and Hervey was one 
of the “ opponents " whom secret service money did not succeed in 
keeping out of the House. — For some of the reasons of the Govern- 
ment defeat at Wallingford, see letter from Robert Nedham t9 Mrs. 
Hucks, January 9, 1755 (Add. MSS. 32852, f. 128). 

1 See letter from the Duke of Newcastle to the Duke of Devonshire, 
January 17, 1756 ; Add. MSS. 32862, f. 122. 

2 Lord Chesterfield to S. Dayrolles, November 16, 1 7 53. 

3 See his “ Memds. for the King ”, May 20, 1754 ; Add. MSS. 
32735, f. 298. 


254 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

is mentioned, nor Queensborough, nor any of the Admiralty 
boroughs or of the Cinque Ports ; nor of the numerous west 
country boroughs in which the Government arranged the 
purchase of seats for its supporters, cash being provided 
by the candidates, and patronage and favours by the 
Government ; nor of the still more numerous boroughs 
in which the interest of patrons and candidates required 
the countenance of Administration, giving it therefore an 
influence in the choice of representatives. The price of 
this system of indirect subsidies was enormous, but in- 
calculable, for it is obviously impossible to estimate how 
much of the salary paid to a placeman represented re- 
muneration for work done, and how much of it was a politi- 
cal sinecure ; or how much the public interest suffered by 
men being preferred for political reasons, where personal 
qualifications and merit should have decided. 

To this indirect expenditure the annual payments 
made from secret service funds in some boroughs under 
Government management, or under patrons favoured 
by the Government, formed only an insignificant addition : 
there was a yearly bounty of £100 at Harwich ; at Orford 
£200 for the rent of houses to provide the necessary quali- 
fication for out-voters in the interest of the Government, 
and £100 for other expenses ; £200 a year were spent on 
Obehanrpton and a year were paid to Mr. Manty, the 
manager at Taunton ; £120 a year were paid for two years 
by Clevland to ^n unnamed clergyman in connexion with 
an election, apparently at Saltash ; £100 were paid by 
Gashry to Lady Trelawny ; 1 £550 a year were given for 

1 The character of this payment is not quite clear. In a raemo- 
randirm of April 26, 1755 (Add. MSS. 32996, f. 91), the entry appears : 
“ Mr. Gashry. Cornish borough. Sir John Trelawney, £200.’’ No 
such payment was made at the time, and Sir John Trelawny died 
in 1756 (about him see p. 399). In November 1756, just before 
Newcastle resigned, the entry occurs : v< Mr. Gashry has advanced 
Lady Trelawney £100 ” (Add. MSS. 32997, f. 68 ; also ff. 70 and 74), 
and the money was repaid to him on November 6, 1756. I suppose 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 255 


Cambridge, through Lord Montfort, Lord Dupplin, or 
C. S. Cadogan 1 — presumably because Newcastle, as Chan- 
cellor of Cambridge University, took a peculiar interest 
even in the town. Beginning with July 1756, a subsidy of 
£600 a year was paid to Thomas Holmes for nursing five 
seats in three Isle of Wight boroughs (Newport, Newton, 
Yarmouth). Thomas Pitt, the elder prodigal brother of 
William Pitt, had a regular pension of £1000 p.a., for 
having ceded to the Government the patronage of two 
seats at Old Sarum and one at Okehampton, and what- 
ever interest he possessed at Grampound, but as his 
pension was on the Irish Establishment, it does not 
enter into these accounts. From 1757 onwards, £100 
were paid to Mr. Fane in support of his family interest 
at Lyme Regis, and were much appreciated by him — 
he wrote to Newcastle on May 29, 1762, three days after 
the Duke had resigned the Treasury : 

Mr. Henry Fane presents his most respectful compliments to 
His Grace the Duke of Newcastle, with many thanks for the 75 h 
for his freinds at Lyme. As he is not well versed in the political 
system of this country, he cannot tell what to say on the late 
changes he hears of amongst the Great ; but wishes his Lyme 
friends may meet with so good a paymaster as his Grace has been 
to them. 3 

The. total of disbursements made on elections and 
the nursing of boroughs from secret service funds during 
Newcastle’s first term at the Treasury, March 1754 to 
November 1756, was as follows : 


the payment was connected with the Trelawny interest at Looe, and I 
therefore include it here. * 

1 Thomas, 2nd Lord Montfort, sat for Cambridge 1754-55, when he 
succeeded to the peerage, Lord Dupplin from 1741 till he succeeded 
his father as Lord Kinnoull in 1758, and C. S. Cadogan, 1749-54 
and 1755-76. 

2 Add. MSS. 32939, f. 93. The £75 covered three quarters till 
Lady Day. 



256 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


On the general election of 1754 1 
On seven by-elections 2 . 

On the nursing of constituencies 3 


£22,305 0 0 
8,901 11 0 
5,010 0 0 


£36,216 11 0 


1 The payments made in the lifetime of Henry Pelham are not 
included. 

2 £2000 were spent on the by-election at Bristol in February 1756, 
which the Whig lost by 71 votes on a poll of almost 5000. £4675 
were spent at Taunton, where Robert Webb, a local man who had sat 
for it 1747-54, withdrew, foreseeing that the expense would amount 
to £5000, and the leading Dissenters turned to Newcastle for a candidate 
“ most agreable to His Majesty and likily readily to go thro’ with the 
necessary expcnce ” (Add. MSS. 32736, f . 25). £173 were spent on 
Radnorshire (see pp. 315-16), £500 on Dodd’s election at Reading, £100 
were actually spent at Old Sarum, and £1000 had to be reimbursed on 
this occasion to Sir William Irby under a complicated arrangement, 
£313 : 11s. at Hindon (“If no help is to be had in a venal borough, 
venal boroughs must go to your enemies ’’, wrote Henry Fox, at that 
time Secretary of State, to Newcastle on January 11, 1756; see Add. 
MSS. 32862, ff. 79-80, and also ff. 61-3 and ff. 81-2), and £140 at Totnes. 

3 Harwich, £300 ; Orford, £800 ; Isle of Wight boroughs, £600 ; 
Cambridge Town, £1650 ; Okehampton, £380 ; Mr. Manly of Taunton, 
£140; Mr. Bryer of Weymouth, £200; Clevland’s clergyman, £240; 
Lady Trelawny, £100; Thomas Rivett, £600. The case of Manly is 
quite clear — he acted as Newcastle’s election agent at Taunton. Less 
clear is that of Bryer of Weymouth. Various Members had friends 
for whom they managed to obtain pensions from the secret service 
funds, but this does not constitute evidence of their having been 
election agents for their patrons (thus, e.g., there is nothing to show 
that Mr. Cooke, “ Mr. Gybbon’s friend ”, either lived at Rye or ever 
acted for him). Similarly, there are a number of local people in receipt 

secret service pensions about which I have no evidence that they 
were given with a view to cultivating the Parliamentary interest (Mr. 
Till of Chichester, Dr. Thorpe of Hastings, Dr. Hepburn of Lynn, etc.). 
But*-where a man obtained a secret service pension through a Member 
representing the borough in. which he was resident, the presumption 
is that it was for election services. Bryer’s pension was obtained for 
him through Wei bore Ellis, Member for Weymouth (similarly, after 
1757, the pension of Mr. Ramy of Yarmouth was obtained for him by 
the “ Spanish ” Charles Townshend, Member for the borough). Both 
these are included in expenditure on nursing constituencies, though 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 257 


A total of £115,365 : Is. of secret service money was 
spent through John Roberts during the two and a half 
years March 1754 to November 1756 ; although this period 
includes the best part of a general election, only something 
over 30 per cent of the money was used for elections and 
the nursing of boroughs. 

The expenditure on by-elections, the nursing of bor- 
oughs etc., during the time from Newcastle’s return to the 
Treasury in July 1757, to the death of George II on October 
25, 1760, was naturally even less ; adding the arrears paid 
off under George III, it amounted to £14,747 : 10s. out of a 
‘total of about £127,000 spent for this period. There were 
the payments to boroughs under regular Government 
management (Harwich, Orford, Cambridge, and Okehamp- 
ton) and subsidies for the management of the Isle of Wight 
boroughs, of Lyme, Taunton, Derby, Yarmouth, Retford, 
Weymouth and Rye, making a total of £9847 : 10s. Mr. 
Duckett 1 was paid £1500 (a pension of £500 p.a.) for 
vacating his seat at Caine when Pitt required one for 
Dr. Hay. Thomas Pitt extorted £1000 from the Treasury 
over Lord Pulteney’s re-election at Old Sarum, in December 
1759, 2 £300 were spent in law charges at Rye, £300 on 
a by-election at Camelford, 3 £500 were given to Colonel 
Leslie fox Perth Burghs, and £300 to Mr. Baikie for the 
Orkneys with a view to the approaching general election of. 
1761. Lastly, £500 were paid on July 25, 1760, “to the 


there is no positive evidence such as is available in the case of Mr 
Davis of Rye and Mr. White’s friend at Retford (see footnote on p. 554, 
August-September, 1759). Lastly, there is Thomas Rivett, the Duke 
of Devonshire’s chief friend and manager ” at Derby, who, at ^ by- 
olcetion in 1748, had himself returned for the town against the Duke’s 
candidate, but stood down in 1754, and received a pension of £300 p.a., 
which by November 1756 accounted for £600. 

1 See my article on “ Thomas Duckett and Daniel Bull.'Members'for 
Caine”, in the Wiltshire Archaeol. Magazine, vol. xliv., June 1928. 

2 See Add. MSS. 32899, fi. 19, 53, and 325-6. 

3 See p. 422. 

VOL. I S 



258 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

Earl of Lincoln, as High Steward of Westminster, for the 
expences of the Deputy Steward and Court of Burgesses in 
order to secure the election without any further expence ”, 
and another £500 on January 12, 1762, to cover his expenses 
up to Christmas 1760 1 (besides £625 on May 25, 1762, to 
cover them up to Lady Day of that year). 

Deducting the seven and a half months of the Devon- 
shir e-Pitt Administration in 1756-57, from the death of 
Henry Pelham to that of George II, Newcastle was nearly 
six years at the head of the Treasury. During that period 
in round figures, £243,000 were spent in “ secret sendee ” 
from his office, and £51,000 of it, i.e. slightly more than 
one-fifth, were used for elections and expenditure directly 
connected with them. 

A month after the accession of George III the new 
Court, to advertise its virtue, announced that none of the 
“ Iving’s money ” would be employed in the forthcoming 
general election ; the Duke of Newcastle broke out into his 
usual language of lamentation ; a few writers of letters 
and memoirs made malicious remarks on the subject; 
and materials are available for an historical legend. To 
give but one typical example — Mr. Hunt writes in his 
History of England , 1760-1801 : 2 

The court spread the idea that it was for purity of election ; it 
was known that Newcastle’s hands were tied, and it was expected 
that no money would be issued from the treasury. Nothing was 
less true. Corruption was rampant and the treasury issued large 
sums. 

Neither statement is correct. It was Newcastle who 
managed the general election of 1761, and, barring a few 
pa) T ments made in advance in the lifetime of George II, no 
money for it was issued from the Treasury ; none was 
available for secret service between October 25, 1760, and 

1 This payment, though part of the arrears, is entered in the “ new 

book ”. 8 P. 19. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEOKGE III 259 


March 19, 1761— at least there is no entry in the Civil List 
accounts which could cover payments of that character, 
nor any disbursements in Newcastle's books ; nor, after 
the secret service fund had been set to work once more, 
are there any entries, other than those connected with the 
regular nursing of certain constituencies, which might bear 
retrospectively on that general election. As for those who 
glibly assert that Lord Bute “ secretly made full use of the 
coffers ” of the Treasury. 1 they had better explain how he 
managed it, through whom, and on what warrant. 

But in reality, the money expended by the Government 
in general elections constituted only a small addition to 
official patronage, and to the vast sums spent openly year 
after year on voters and Members, through offices, sine- 
cures, and contracts, which were employed for advancing 
the Parliamentary “ interest This, of course, every one 
knew at the time ; “ those powers of office and influence 
arising from thence ”, wrote Newcastle to Hardwicke on 
December 7, 1760, “ which my good friend Mr. Pitt says 
will be sufficient to carry a Parliament with some perhaps 
immaterial alterations, without giving one farthing of the 
King’s money ”. 2 And John Douglas, D.D. (subsequently 
Bishop of Salisbury), the political scribe of Lord Bath, 
thus argued the matter in his Seasonable Hints from an 
Honest Man on the present important crisis of a new Reign 
and a new Parliament : 

I am very sensible, that there are many well-meaning persons 
who seem to think, that without corruption, there might be danger 
apprehended from democratical encroachments on prerogative. — 
But . . . when we consider, in how many boroughs the Govern- 
ment has the voters at its command ; when we consider the vast 
body of persons employed in. the collection of the revenue in every 
part of the kingdom ; the inconceivable number of placemen, and 
candidates for places in the customs, in the excise, jn the post 


1 See, e.g., the Earl of Ilchester, Henry Fox, First Lord Holland, 

vol. ii. p. 129. 2 Add. MSS. 32915, f. 334. . 



260 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


office, in the dock yards, in the ordnance, in the salt office, in the 
stamps, in the navy and victualing offices, and in a variety of other 
departments ; when we consider again the extensive influence of 
the money corporations, subscription jobbers, and contractors ; 
the endless dependence created by the obligations conferred on the 
bulk of the gentlemen’s families throughout the kingdom, who have 
relatives preferred, or waiting to be preferred, in our navy, and 
numerous standing army ; when, I say, we consider how wide, how 
binding a dependence on the crown is created by the above enumer- 
ated particulars, no lover of monarchy need fear any bad conse- 
quences from shutting up the Exchequer at elections ; especially 
when to the endless means the crown has of influencing the votes 
of the electors, we add the vast number of employments, which the 
fashion of the times makes the elected desirous of, and for the 
obtaining which, they must depend upon the crown. 1 

Newcastle at times suspected in the refusal of secret 
service money a wish on the part of Pitt for a radical 
Parliament — “ as like the Common Council of London as 
possible ” — and a scheme oi Bute’s to swamp it with 
Tories, as had been done in 1710 ; but even he, in calmer 
moments, put the matter on much narrower ground. In 
his " Heads for my Conference with my Lord Bute ”, 
dated December 14, 1760, he wrote : 

The expence of several places I know already will be so very 
great, that it will be difficult to find private persons, able to be at it ; 
and therefore we shall not have great choice. 2 

And again in a letter to Lord Mansfield, dated December 
26: 

The thing that embarrasses me most is the choice of the Parlia- 
ment. The expence is become very great (in many places 3000£ is the 
price or near it) that it will be very difficult to get private persons 
to support it ; and yet that must be done. But it will fling the 
boroughs into East Indians, West Indians, citizens and brokers, 
who are not very reputable, and yet very troublesome Members. 3 


1 Pp. 37-8. 2 Add. MSS. 32916, f. 56. 

3 Ibid. fi. 337-8. — Later on, George III showed a similar dislike 

for these -types of Members ; in a letter of August 24, 17T4, he gave 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 261 


In other words, secret service money was required to 
enable some country gentlemen to fight elections in expen- 
sive boroughs ; otherwise, the Government had to adopt 
candidates with longer purses of their own. 

What was the result ? Of the 24 candidates subsidised 
in 1754, eight were re-elected for the same constituencies, 
without financial help, 1 four were transferred by arrange- 
ment to other constituencies, 2 four were dead, 3 four did 
not stand for Parliament again ; 4 Thomas Leslie (who had 
received £500 before George IPs death) was defeated ; 
Sir Thomas Clavering, by his own choice, changed his 
constituency, but lost his seat; 5 Sewell who, in 1754, had 
been defeated at Wallingford, now met with the same fate 
at Exeter ; and possibly Sir George Yonge at Honiton did 
not stand because of the threatened expense— though 
even this is doubtful. There was neither an inrush of 
East Indians or West Indians, of citizens or brokers. In 
fact, the only West Indian who came in for any of these 
seats in 1761 was Sir John Gibbons at Wallingford, where 
the Government money had availed nothing in 1754. 
And the number of merchants in these seats diminished 
by one. 6 Nor, as is shown in the essay on “ The General 
Election of 1761 ”, was any such change noticeable in 


it as a reason in favour of an early dissolution of Parliament, that 
“ it will fill the House with more gentlemen of landed property, as the 
nabobs, planters, and other volunteers are not ready for the battle ” 
(see Donne, Correspondence of George 111 with Lord North, vol. i. p. 201). 

LDodd, Bayntun-Rolt, Amyand, Trist, S. Martin, Fanshawe, M. 
Burrell, and E. Cornwallis. 

2 Lord Parker, Whitworth, Lord Malpas, and Jenyns. 

3 Talbot, H. Young, Porter, and Jeiuson. 

4 John Fuller, R. Bristowe, Charlton, and Sir John Crosse. 

5 Sir Thomas Clavering resigned his seat at Shaftesbury in December 
1760, to contest Co. Durham, but was defeated both in 1760 and 1761. 

6 The place of Robert Bristowe at Shoreham was taken by Lord 
Middleton and of Alderman. Porter at Evesham by John Rushout, jun. ; 
but at Steyning a merchant took the place of Hitch Young. 



262 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

the general complexion of the House of Commons. 
William Pitt and John Douglas were right. The means 
for influencing elections were sufficient without the use of 
secret service money. And whatever cause Newcastle 
had for lamentation, he raised it on a wrong occasion — 
as was his habit. 

When payments from secret service funds wore re- 
sumed in March 1761, the usual expenditure on the 
nursing of constituencies was continued and payments 
were made as from October 1760 ; the sum thus spent up 
to Newcastle’s resignation on May 26, 1762, amounted to 
£4592 : 10s. 1 in a total of £48,981 : 9 : 2f. Rounding off 
the figures, Newcastle, as First Lord of the Treasury, spent 
£291,000 on secret service, and £55,500 of it went for 
constituencies and elections. 

Pensions in the House op Commons 

Cognate to expenditure on constituencies and elections 
was that on pensions to Members of Parliament. These 
were nothing more than a small supplement to the eigh- 
teenth-century type of “ payment of Members ”, and that 
system itself, in the absence of organised parties, bore a 
character very different from that given to it when it is 
/ua'gnd as (the lYgiH oi raYus punfeutfy aisea ftr tiYe <rg\j. 

According to eighteenth-century theory, the executive, 
which had to carry on the business of the natfon, consisted 
of the King and his Ministers ; and the task of the legis- 
lature was to advise the King and to control his “ ser- 
vants The proper attitude for right-minded Members 
was -one of considered support to the Government in the 
due performance of its task. What other grounds could 
there be for a systematic, “ formed opposition ” than dis- 

1 Isle of Wight £900, Cambridge £825, Okehampton £300, Orford 
£350, Harwich £150, the Orkneys £300, Lyme £125, Taunton £105, 
Westminster £625, Retford £62 : 10s., Yarmouth £300, Derby £450, 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 263 

loyalty to the established order ( e.g . Jacobitism) or a selfish, 
factious conspiracy of politicians to force their way into 
offices higher than they could obtain by loyal co-operation 
with their Sovereign and his Ministers ? But if it was 
proper for the well-affected Member to co-operate with the 
Government, so long as his conscience did not force him 
to give a contrary vote, attendance on the business of the 
nation was work worthy of its hire, and the unavoidable 
expenditure in securing a seat deserved sympathetic con- 
sideration. “ I have ever apprehended it to be reason- 
able ”, wrote in 1757 a Whig who after seventeen years in 
Parliament held neither place nor pension, “ that those 
who dedicate their time and fortune to the service of the 
Government should be entitled to a share of the rewards 
that are in its disposal. ...” 1 Nor did such a “ share ” 
necessarily deprive them of their independence — it is well 
known that about 1750 even Cabinet Ministers could speak* 
and vote against Government measures ; the one and only 
thing which place or office precluded was what was any- 
how considered reprehensible, a “ formed opposition ”, 
Even in 1764, after the heat of Parliamentary contests 
had risen very high, George Grenville still argued, in the 
case of H. S. Conway, that he meant to leave every Member, 
whether in civil or military employment, free to vote 
according to his conscience, and that it was only at a 
systematic opposition that he drew the line. At the pre- 
sent day a Member may accept from his party organisation 
payment of expenses incurred in his constituency ; when j 
faced by financial disaster, some have applied, not unsuc- 
cessfully, to their Whips ; but a Member must not change 
sides from patently interested motives ; and he must, as 
a rule, vote with his party — discordant votes at the behest 
of a tender conscience have to be extremely rare or other- 
wise prove him unfit to be a party Member, whioh is 
practically the only type now in existence. The party 
1 J. Garth to Newcastle, Sept. 10, 1757 ; Add. MSS. 32873, i. 558. 



264 THE STRUCTURE OF R0L1TICS 

intervenes between the individual Member and the State, 
and also between the Member and his constituency ; it 
has created new loyalties, a new morality, and a new 
type of mental and moral dishonesty. 

“ Every set of men are honest ” was, according to 
Shelburne, the doctrine of Henry Fox; “ it’s only neces- 
sary to define their sense of it to know where to look for 
it. . . This is even more true of various generations ; 
each age opens to men certain permissible ways for pur- 
suing their own interest in politics, and provided they keep 
within these limits they are deemed “ honest To quote' 
Henry Fox again — this time his own letter to Shelburne 
(December 29, 1761) : 

A man who follows his own interest, if he makes no undue 
sacrifices, either private or public, to the worship of it, is not dis- 
honest or even dirty. I wish your Lordship . . . would not be so 
free of thinking or calling them such. Whoever goes on with what 
I have left off — ambition — must wish for such supporters, and it 
would be an additional curse of that cursed trade to have a constant 
bad opinion of one’s most useful friends and most assiduous attend- 
ants . 1 

The peculiarity of our own time is that the individual 
Member can best pursue his interest l>y strictly adhering 
to his party, and that this is the only way in which he is 
entitled to pursue it. But about 1750 there were no 
parties in our sensa of the term, certainly no party organi- 
sations, and His Majesty’s Government and the State as 
such were in theory the party which embraced all well- 
affected Members. To adhere to them in spite of changes 
of Ministers did not necessarily mean changing sides, and 
to accept rewards from them was not necessarily synony- 
mous with being bribed. Considering the matter from 
the other end, eighteenth-century Administrations, not 
being able to control individual Members through a party 

1 Lord Fitzmaurice, The Life of William, Earl of Shelburne, vol. i. 

p. 101. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 265 


machine and a party-trained electorate, had to bind their 
following by posts of honour, places of profit, contracts 
and pensions ; in these, Ministers had to find the attracting 
and constraining force to satisfy the self-interest, to tame 
the exuberance, and restrain the consciences, of individual 
Members, which otherwise would have produced a condi- 
tion of permanent instability and uncertainty. After a 
Parliamentary experience of almost forty years, Soame 
Jenyns, when writing on Parliamentary reform in 1784, 
declared that an independent Parliament consisting of 
Members “ unawed and uninfluenced, and guided only by 
the dictates of their own judgment and conscience ”, 
never existed and never could exist. 

Take away self-interest, and all these will have no star to steer 
by ... ; a Minister . . . must be possessed of some attractive 
influence, to enable him to draw together these discordant particles, 
and unite them in a firm and solid majority, without which he can 
pursue no measures of public utility with steadiness or success. 
An independent House of Commons is no part of the English con- 
stitution. . . 4 

A numerous assembly uninfluenced is as much a creature of 
imagination, as a griffin or a dragon. . . . Parliaments have ever 
been influenced, and by that means our constitution has so long 
subsisted ; but the end and nature of that influence is perpetually 
misrepresented and misunderstood. They are seldom, very seldom, 
bribed to injure their country, because it is seldom the interest of 
Ministers to injure it ; but the great source of corruption is, that 
they will not serve it for nothing. Men get into Parliament in 
pursuit of power, honors, and preferments, and until they obtain 
them, determine to obstruct all business, and to distress Government; 
but happily for their coimtry, they are no sooner gratified, than they 
are equally zealous to promote the one, and support the other.^ 2 

What was the approximate number of Members in the 
House of Commons thus rendered zealous by employments 
under the Government ? It is very difficult to form- an 

1 Thoughts on a Parliamentary Reform (1784), pp. 20-21. 

2 Ibid. pp. 22-4. 



266 THE STRUCTURE OR POLITICS 

estimate, infinitely more so tlian appears to writers who , 
hawk about a figure because it was once named by a con- 
temporary. There is a list in the Newcastle Papers of 
“Employments in the House of Commons " 1 compiled, 
when the Rockingham Government was about to be 
formed, and dated July 2, 1765. It contains 163 names, 
and the selection, which is not invariably convincing, 
illustrates the inherent difficulties of making it. The 
Governor of the Bank of England is named as if that had 
been an official post, but nothing is said about Government 
contractors ; even the Speaker of the House of Commons 
appears in it, whilst others holding regular places of profit 
are forgotten. It was hard to remember everybody, and 
still harder to know where to draw the line ; it would be 
difficult to say how to class those who had their places for 
life, and were therefore independent of the Government in 
power, but who often held another smaller place during 
pleasure ; etc. 2 In short, the figure of 163 in 1765 should 
not be made into an Apocalyptic name for the Beast of 
Parliamentary corruption ; it is given here merely as an 
approximate estimate whereby to measure the relative 
importance, or rather unimportance, of the secret service 
pensions in the House of Commons. 

The number of Members in receipt of these was 
between 1754 and 1760 fourteen or fifteen, 3 and at the time 

1 Add. MSS. 32967, ff. 200-203. 

2 A computation which I have made for June 1761 yields a figure 
of about 170 as the total of “ placemen ” ; this includes all Members 
holding civil appointments of any description — in tlie Government or 
Civil Service, the Diplomatic Service or Judiciary, posts at Court or in 
the household of other members of the Royal family, or mere sinecures ; 
further, colonels of regiments, governors 'of castles, etc. It does not 
include the Speaker, the Governor of the Bank, Lord Lieutenants of 
counties, or .officers in the Army and Navy holding nothing besides 
their commands ; nor does it include contractors. 

3 The “ List of Members of Parliament who received private 
pensions with the arrears due to Michaelmas last, 1760” (Add. MSS. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 267 


of Newcastle’s resignation, in May 1762, there were six- 
teen. 1 The total number of sitting Members of the House 
who received pensions or gratuities from secret service 
funds at any time whilst Newcastle acted under George II 
was twenty -nine, and the total paid to them (including 
arrears) was £49,550. When payments were resumed in 
March 1761 the pensions were continued as from October 
1760, and a total of twenty-one Members of Parliament 
received pensions from Newcastle under George III. All 
but five were men whose names had appeared in the secret 
.service books under George II, and of the other five, 
three, if not four, were given their pensions at Newcastle’s 
recommendation. 2 The sum received by them for the 


33040, f. 23), contains eighteen names ; but it includes Lord Holmes 
because of the payment of £600 p.a. “ for the Isle of Wight ”, which 
cannot he treated as a private pension and is in this essay included 
in expenditure on constituencies ; and the Chairman of Committees, 
whose pension of £500 p.a. is here counted among salaries ; lastly, 
there is the name of Jeffreys with a justified query against it — so far 
he had no regular pension and had merely received a gratuity of £500 
in 1758. 

1 In the “ General List of Persons who receive Additional Salaries 

and Pensions privately ”, dated May 18, 1762 (Add. MSS. 33040, 
ff. 358-60), the Members of Parliament are grouped together, and 
eighteen names are given. The payment to Lord Holmes is no longer 
placed among pensions to Members, but the Chairman of Committees 
appears among them ; moreover, Lord Malpas is included, though 
there is no record of his having received any payment from secret 
service funds later than April 21, 1761, and Dougall Campbell, who had 
none under George III, not even the arrear of £200 due to him at 
Michaelmas 1760. This leaves only fifteen names, to which, however, 
that of Richard Bull must be added ; he had been in receipt of a pension 
since November 1761. * 

2 The one doubtful case is that of Richard Bull of Ongar, M.P., the 
friend and nominee of Humphrey Morice, M.P., who had been offered 
a pension by Newcastle in March 1761 but refused it boih on its .own 
merits and because of an alleged “ disgrace ” put on Morice by New- 
castle. In October 1761 he was instructed by Morice to inform New- 
castle that he had desired the Ring to nominate to a vacancy which 



268 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

period October 1760 till May 1762 was £15,025, making a 
total of £64,575 for the years of Newcastle’s term at 
the Treasury and an average of £8600 p.a. In fact, the 
pay roll of Members of Parliament as it stood in April 
1756 ( excluding the Chairman of Committees) was £6700 
a year; in October 1760, £7900, and in May 1762, 
£9800/ sums much smaller than the current talk about 
secret service pensions and “ bribes ” would make one 
expect. If to these £64,575 another £4000 are added, 
representing pensions obtained by Members and con- 
tinued to them after they had ceased to sit in Parliament, 2 
we obtain a round total of £68,500. 

On the opposite page are the names of all the men 
who were given by Newcastle pensions and gratuities from 
secret service funds whilst in the House of Commons, the 
rate at which they were paid, the period during which 
they drew their pensions, and the sum total received by 
them (for biographical notes about them see footnotes to 
the “ Secret Service Accounts ” at the end of Volume II.). 

A more motley crowd than the thirty-five Members 
named in this list can hardly be imagined, and the variety 
in type is only equalled by the variety of reasons for which 
these pensions were given. Two general principles can, 
however, be laid down with regard to them : that as a rule 
They .were govern in lien nf and that There was .mare 

jobbery and charity about them than bribery. 

was expected at his borough of Newport (Cornwall), and would not 
accept the directions of Newcastle (see secret service accounts under 
November 18, 1761). Considering, however, Newcastle’s nature, one 
cannot feel certain that even then it was not he who suggested once 
moreUo the King that Bull should be given a pension. 

J The marked increase was due to a pension of £2000 p.a. given by 
George III to James Stuart-Mackenzie, M.P., the brother of Lord Bute. 

L This sum consists of £2100, paid to Sir Duncan Campbell, It. Neale, 
and J. Carmichael, after they had ceased to sit in Parliament in 1754, 
and £1900 paid to J. Mordaunt, J. Pelham, and E, Colebrooke, 
subsequent to 1761, 




AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 269 



Period during 
which 
Received. 3 

Annual 

Pension. 

Total 

Received, 

Thomas Medlycott 

1754^62 

£ 

600 

£ 

4700 

George Mackay 4 

1754-56 

300 

900 

Colonel John Mordaunfc ** 

1754-61 

800 

5400 

S. Jenyns 6 . 

1754-55 

600 

1200 

Sir C-.Powlett 7 . 

1754 

1000 

1000 

Colonel James Pelham 8 

1754-61 

500 

4125 

Sir William Middleton, Bart. 

1754-55 

800 

1600 

Sir Francis Poole 9 

1754-62 

300 

2475 

Brereton Salusbury 10 . 

1754-55 

500 

1000 

• G. Harrison 

1754-55 

500 

1000 

Walter Carey 11 . 

1754-55 

200 

300 

A. Acourt 12 

1754-62 

500 

4625 

John Buller 13 

1755-56 

200 

400 

Dougall Campbell 

1755-60 

400 

2000 

Thomas Fane 14 . 

1755 

200 

200 

Charles Whitworth 

1755-60 

400 

(From 1758, £ 200 ) 

1900 

James Vere 15 

1756-59 

400 

1200 

George Brudenell 

1756-62 

500 

3625 

.Robert Colvile . 

1756-58 

300 

600 

Lord Malpas 

1756-60 

600 

3000 

Robert Colebrooke 16 . 

1756-61 

600 

3000 

John 0111 ey 

1758-62 

400 

2000 

Thomas Watson 

1758-62 

800 

3400 

Ralph Jenison 17 . 

1758 

1800 

1350 

’John Dodd 

1758-62 

500 

2500 

Robert Fairfax 18 

1759-62 

500 

2000 

Lord Parker 

1760-62 

600 

1650 

A. T. Keck 

1760-62 

600 

1350 

John Jeffreys 19 . 

1761-62 

500 

1250 

Richard Cavendish 

1761-62 

800 

800 

Sir Thomas Hales 

1761-62 

600 

600 

Henry Finch 20 . 

IT6I 

900 

225 

Richard Bull 

1761-62 

600 

600 

James Stuart Mackenzie 

1761-62 

2000 

2000 

James Brudenell 

1761-62 

600 

600 


(For Footnotes 5 to 20 see following pages.) 


3 It must, however, be remembered that payments received between 
November 1756 and July 1757 are not included, amjl there is no 
certainty that all these pensions were continued during that break in 
Newcastle’s tenure of office. 

4 Appointed in 1756 Master of the Mint in Scotland. 




270 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


Secret service pensions were on the whole unpopular 
with Members of Parliament, except with those in the 
worst financial distress, and were treated in most cases as 
a merely temporary arrangement pending something better. 
They presented neither the security nor the chances of 
advancement inherent in office, and certainly conferred no 
honour on their holders. When in 1757, on a rearrange- 
ment of offices necessitated by the Coalition, Ralph Jenison 
gave up the Mastership of the Buckhounds, which he had 


5 He did not stand at the general election of 1761, but his pension 
was continued. He must not be confused with his cousin General 
Sir John Mordaunt, M.P., who commanded the expedition against 
die French coast in 1757. 

Appointed in 1755 Commissioner for Trade and Plantations, 
which office he retained till 1780. 

7 His father succeeded in 1754 to the dukedom of Bolton, and Lord 
Winchester, as he now was, was appointed Lieutenant of the Tower of 
London ; on this appointment the pension was discontinued. 

8 He did not stand again at the general election of 1761 and died 
the same year ; £250 received by him for that last half-year, when he 
was no longer in Parliament, are not included in the sum. 

9 An extra £200 was given him in November 1756. 

10 He died on March 9, 1756. 

11 His name in the accounts appears merely as “ Mr. Carey ” ; I sup- 
pose him to have been Walter Carey, M.P. for Helston, 1722-27, and 
for Dartmouth, 1727-57 (when he died), but there is no evidence 
to prove his identity except that the name does not occur after 1757 ; 
on the other hand, it does not occur any more even in 1756. In the 
list of “ The Names ... of all the Lords and Members of the House 
of Commons in the old Book from the 9th of July 1755 to the 7t4i of 
July 1756 inclusive . . (Add. MSS. 32997, f. 64) Carey’s name is not 
mentioned ; but then the last payment to him was on July 9, 1755 
(see ]•. 531). 

12 He seems to have been so indifferent to the money that sometimes 
for two years he did not trouble to draw it. 

13 John Buller was Government manager for the borough of East 
and West Looe in Cornwall, and this money was paid him to make up 
his salary as Comptroller of the Mint to £500 per annum, but the 
payment was not continued after 1756. See pp. 399-400. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 271 

, held for twenty years, and was offered as compensation 
a secret service pension of £1500, he replied by asking that 
£1000 of it be placed on the Irish Establishment, as secret 
service pensions depended upon the life of the King. 1 
Also Medlycott begged in 1755 to be “ settled upon the 
Irish Establishment "\ 2 Richard Bull, the friend and 
nominee of Humphrey Morice, M.P., instructed by him 
“ to accept of nothing from the Duke, except what will 
give me an honourable reason for saying I am contented ”, 


14 He was given the pension on his brother Francis relinquishing a 
Commissionership of the Board of Trade, in December 1755. He 
waived it in 1758. See accounts under November 2, 1756, and July 
1, 1758. 

15 Identification confirmed by Add. MSS. 32997, f. 237. 

19 He was defeated at the general election of 1761, but the pension 
was continued to him till he was appointed Minister to the Swiss 
Cantons ; during that time he received another £450, not included above. 

17 He died before the year was out. 

18 At first these payments were treated as “ gratuities ”, but sub- 
sequently were converted into a pension. About him see pp. 502-8. 

19 This includes a gratuity of £500 in 1758 ; about him see pp. 489-94. 

20 He died after one quarter only had been paid. 

• 1 Add. MSS. 32872, S. 55-7. 

2 See p. 495. In view of these requests it might be supposed that 
pensions on the Irish Establishment were used extensively for bribing 
Members of the British Parliament. A ” List of Pensioners on the 
Irish Establishment laid before the Irish House of Commons, pursuant 
to their order of November 3, 1769 ” was published in The London 
Museum in 1770 (pp. 17-27). It contains the names of four men only 
who at any time sat in the British Parliament ; and all four were 
given their pensions for life, and for work done. A pension of £800 'a 
year was given to John Roberts on June 3, 1754, i.e., after the death 
of Henry Pelham, whose private secretary he had been for twenty 
years (moreover at that time Roberts was not yet in Parliament,) ; a 
pension of £2000 p.a. was given to Sir Thomas Robinson (sub- 
sequently Lord Grantham) in 1755, on his relinquishing the Secretary- 
ship of State to Henry Fox ; in 1758, £500 p.a. to J. S. Charlton, 
who had been for years Chairman of Committees in tie Hough of 
Commons ; and in March 1760, after the victory in Quiberon Bay, 
Admiral Sir Edward Hawke was given a pension of £2000 a year. 



272 THE STRUCTURE OE POLITICS 

when offered a secret service pension by Newcastle, refused # 
it : “ Now, my Lord, your kind offer to me, being of an 
uncertain duration, and of rather too private a nature, I 
cannot consistent with my own and my friend’s honor, 
accept it.” 1 * Charles Whitworth, who had for years 
solicited employment, when given a secret service pension 
of £400 p.a., did not desist from his endeavours to secure 
office, and Newcastle, when the Deputy-Governorship of 
Tilbury was secured for him, thought that he would accept 
a place of half the value of his pension as a sufficient 
equivalent. 3 John Buller silently dropped his pension in 
1756, and merely used this fact subsequently to reinforce 
his claim to office. Thomas Fane, who was given a pension 
of £200 on his brother relinquishing a place at the Board of 
Trade, drew it once, and then gave it up for half the sum 
to be paid to his brother Henry as a subsidy for their 
family borough of Lyme Regis. At least eighteen out of 
the thirty-five pensions can be proved to have been 
given either as compensation for places relinquished 
(Salisbury, Jenison, Offley, Fane, Cavendish, and Finch), 
or to make up the value of a place to a certain sum 
(Pelham, Buller, Jeffreys, and Whitworth after 1758), 
or until their holders could be provided for in office 
(Mackay, Jenyns, Colebrooke, Keck, Hales, JamevS 
Brudenell, BuH, Stuart-Maekenzie, and Whitworth until 
1758). 

Nor were most of the recipients of secret service 
pensions men who would otherwise have gone into opposi- 
tion. Colonel Pelham and Sir Francis Poole were cousins 
of Newcastle’s, returned by his influence, and their pensions 
were sheer family jobbery on his part ; and when he 

1 Letter dated March 17, 1761, Add. MSB. 32920, f. 308 ; see p. 571, 

under November 18, 1761. 

% See “ State of Private Pensions ”, drawn up early in 1758 (Add. 
MSS. 33039, f. 77). To those under “ Decrease ” is added Whitworth’s 
pension of £400, though with a query before his name. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 273 

.resigned in November 1756, to them alone their pensions 
for the current year were paid before they were due. 
Whitworth was by marriage distantly connected with the 
Pelham family. Jeffreys, Offley, Dodd, and George Brud- 
enell belonged to the intimate circle of Lord Lincoln, 
Newcastle's nephew and heir, and son-in-law to Henry 
Pelham. Soame Jenyns was a protege of the Hardwicke 
family and Robert Colcbrooke was a brother of J ames and 
George Colebrooke, both Members of Parliament, and big 
merchants bound by numerous interests and contracts to 
the Treasury and Newcastle. Keck was recommended 
both for Parliament and his pension by the Duke of Marl- 
borough, and received it because “ His Majesty was very 
glad of an opportunity to oblige your Grace”, 1 but the 
Duke’s attitude certainly was not determined by that 
pension ; Richard Cavendish was given his pension because 
the Duke of Devonshire asked it as a favour to himself, 
and no one can suppose that without it the Cavendishes 
would have gone into opposition to Newcastle ; nor was 
there any need for George III and Bute to bribe his 
brother, James Stuart-Mackenzie. Nor were Medlycott, 
Jeffreys, or Fairfax of the stuff of which oppositions 
are made. 2 

The charitable character of the secret service pensions 
is .further shown by the Sack that in many case® they were 
continued after their recipients had withdrawn from 
Parliament or had failed to secure re-election. In 1760 
the death of the king, from whose “ bounty ” these pensions 
had been given, and the break in payments for almost half 
a year, would have offered a particularly good opportunity 
for stopping them to those who did not even stand “for 
Parliament at the forthcoming general election. None 
the less, they were continued both to Colonel Mordaunt 
(whose pension was even raised by £400 p.a.) and Jantes 

1 See p. 559. 

8 About them see essay on “ Parliamentary Beggars ”, pp, 489-515. 

VOL. I * T 



274 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


Pelham, and also to Robert Colebrooke, who lost his 
seat. But while offices, places, and even pensions, when 
publicly avowed, had to bear some proportion to the 
rank, standing, and merit of their holders (for whatever 
was given in excess to any man was certain to be made 
into a precedent, a claim, or a grievance by all his equals), 
secret service pensions could be readjusted to needs. Two 
entries in Newcastle's “ Memorandums for the King ” 
about a pension for Sir Thomas Hales, Vice- Warden of the 
Cinque Ports and Clerk of the Green Cloth, well illustrate 
this principle. 

March II, 2761. 

Sir Thomas Hales. Two sons and four daughters. Hopes to 
have £800 per ann. amongst them till 
some thing may fall to provide for some of 
them. 1 

March 19, 1761. 

Pension for Sir Thomas Hales’s children. 
£600 for his son. 2 

Even more clearly apparent than in the case of pensions 
to Members of Parliament, was their benevolent character 
of a bounty given by the King to men of rank in distress, 
with regard to pensions “ in the Lords ”, which have to 
be analysed next. 

The Aristocratic Dole 

Here is a list of peers who received secret service 
pensions from Newcastle, indicating the years during 
which they drew these pensions, their annual rate, and the 
total received ; the list includes at the end a few Scottish 
and Irish peers but does not include those who received 
their pensions as “ additional salaries For biographical 
notes See again footnotes to the “ Accounts 


1 Add. MSS. 32920, ff. 102-3. 


Ibid. f. 315. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 275 



Period during 
which 
Received. 1 

Annual 

Pension. 

Total 

Received. 

The Earl of Warrington 

1754-58 

£ 

1.500 

£ 

6,000 

The Earl of Radnor 

1754-56 

800 

2,000 

The Earl of Peterborough 

1754-62 

400 

3,100 

The Earl of Warwick . 

1754-62 2 

500 

4,500 

The Earl of Tankerville 

1756-62 

800 

4,700 

Viscount Saye and Sele 

1754-62 

600 

4,200 

Lord Raymond 

1754-56 

800 

2,400 

Lord Dudley 

1754-56 

600 

1,800 

Lord Willoughby of Parham 3 

1755-62 

400 

2,800 

■Lord Montfort 

1758-62 

800 

4,200 

Lord Dclamer 

1761-62 

800 

800 

The Earl of Kinnoull 4 . 

1754-58 

800 

3,200 

The Earl of Home 

1754-58 

200 

800 

The Earl of Leven 

1754 

500 

500 

Lord Morton's Lords 5 . 

1754-62 

250 

(after 1759 £150) 

1,700 

The Earl of Cork 

1756-62 

800 

4,400 

Lord Dunmore (?) 6 

1754-55 

100 

200 

47,300 


1 It must be remembered that payments made between November 
1756 and July 1757 are not included in these accounts. 

. 2 He died in 1758, but the pension was continued at the same rate 
to his widow and to his daughter, Lady Charlotte Rich, and is here 
included. 

3 He held, besides, a pension of £200 a year “ payable per Pay- 
master ”. See Add. "MSS. 33044, f. 9. 

4 He had, besides, a hereditary pension of £1000 p.a. which 
had been granted to the 4th Earl and his heirs by Charles II on 
the surrender of their “ fee ” of Barbadoes and the Carribee 
Islands. 

5 Lords Rutherfurd (£150), Kirkcudbright, and Borthwick (£50 

each) ; Lord Rutherfurd died in 1759, but one-third of his pension was 
continued to his widow. m 

6 The identification is uncertain — the name as marked at first and 
subsequently scribbled over, looks like “ Dromore ”, but there was no 
Lord Dromore at the time, whilst “ Dunmore ” is not free of difficulties 
either. The second payment of £100, on July 30, 1755* was to* the 
recipient's executors, whereas William, 3rd Earl of Dunmore* did not 
die till December 1, 1756. 

VOL. I 


2 





276 


THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 


Who were these earls and lords in receipt of secret # 
service pensions ? Were they broad-acred noblemen who 
through their tenants could sway county elections, or 
owners of rotten boroughs who from the Upper House 
packed the Commons ? Not in the least ; in most cases 
they were men who had inherited the titles of their ancestors 
without their estates, and possessed little land and no 
boroughs. John (Robartes), 4th and last Earl of Radnor 
of that creation, had succeeded his cousin in the title, 
whilst most of the estates and the Parliamentary influence 
in Cornwall went to a nephew of the 3rd Earl, George 
Hunt, M.P. for Bodmin. Edward (Rich), 8th and last 
Earl of Warwick, did not receive with his title any of the 
family estates. The similar case of Lord Saye and Sele 
has been mentioned before. 1 Ferdinando, 11th and last 
Lord Dudley, succeeded his uncle in that title, while the 
barony of Ward and the castle and lands of Dudley 
devolved on the Ward family. Lord Cork succeeded his 
distant cousin Richard, 4th Earl of Cork and 3rd Earl of 
Burlington, in his Irish honours, whilst the barony of 
Clifford and “ the large estates of the Clifford and Boyle 
families ” descended to his cousin’s daughter, Charlotte, 
Duchess of Devonshire. Thomas, 2nd Lord Montfort, 
inherited his estate “ in a very ruinous condition ”, and 
“ incumbered with debts to the amount of above £30, 000”. 2 
Lord Delamer was the lieir to a barony and to the poverty 
of the Earl of Warrington. The Earl of Kinnoull was so 
poor that when his son, Lord Dupplin, married Miss Ernie, 
the heiress to Whetham in Wiltshire, “ with £3000 p.a.”, 3 
this was considered a sad mesalliance for her ; 4 but 
Dupplin was Newcastle’s close friend and faithful drudge, 

1 See pp. 221-3. 2 Add. MSS. 32864, f. 524. 

3 Gentleman’ s Magazine, 1741, p. 331. 

^ It is described as such in a letter from her cousin, Miss Frances 

Ernie, to Mrs. Legh of Cavelej', in Cheshire, in the possession of 
Mr. Roger Ernie Money-Eyrie, of Whetham, Wilts. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 277 

and this may have helped his father to the pension. As 
for “ Lord Morton’s Lords ”, the one thing besides the 
pension which they had in common was that so far none 
of them had been able to establish his claim to the title, 
to say nothing of estates ; William Maclellan, Lord Kirk- 
cudbright, “ was in poor circumstances, and followed the 
occupation of a glover in Edinburgh ” ; 1 Henry, Lord 
Borthwick, claimed a dignity which some of his pre- 
decessors had refrained from assuming, considering that 
“ a title without a suitable fortune was not eligible ” ; 2 
while the position of George Durie, Lord Rutherfurd, can 
be gauged by the letter he wrote to Newcastle on October 
12, 1757 : “I have for these three years past payed a 
himdred pounds yearly to my creditors in London which 
put it out of my power to doe any thing to purpose for my 
creditors in Scotland with whom I’m just now teased out» 
of my life. ...” 3 In short, most of the men in this list 
can be described as noblemen living on the dole or on old 
age pensions ; for these w r ere not invented by modern 
Radicals, only their wide application is a sign of democracy 
and a concomitant of universal suffrage. 

The theory of the “ State paupers ” is probably as old 
as the State itself ; it is that those who form the political 
nation have, when in need, a claim to public support to 
k/e 'grcun kfuum -as tkren une, 'wrtkrtftrt Voss xA Tank t a vtiaasu 
rights. Tacitus wrote of the Germanic warriors, that they 
expected to be supported by their leader ; and in France, 
during the “ Guerre du Bien Public ”, in 1466, the Due 
de Nemours demanded from Louis XI that he should 
have justice done to the people and relieve them, and 
besides, that he should entertain the nobles “ et leur dinner 
grosses pensions ”. 4 The same principle still prevailed in 
eighteenth-century England and was fully stated by Lord 

1 See Douglas-Paul, Scots Peerage. 2 Ibid*. 

3 Add. MSS. 32875, f. 64. 

4 Laviase, Histoire de France , vol. iv. part ii. p. 3^. 



280 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

makes a total of £3000) to the aristocratic dole, we find 
that a round £50,000 was spent on it by Newcastle from 
secret service funds. 


Payments for Services 

A curious feature of the secret service list is what may 
be called service pensions or “ additional salaries In 
the first place, there is in Roberts’s accounts a quarterly 
blank with £1050 against it. In the alphabetical register 
of secret sendee pensions drawn up in April 1756 1 this ' 
blank appears under the letter “ N ”, with a yearly total 
of £4200 marked against it. In another computation of 
“ the total annual amount of private pensions ” 2 the 
same sum appears against a discreet “ N.B.”, but in 
Newcastle’s accounts, 1757-62, the matter is stated every 
time in plain, though apologetic terms : “ Retain’d to 
myself by Your Majesty’s special command — one quarter, 
£1050”. The origin of this additional salary paid to 
Newcastle whilst at the head of the Treasury is fully 
shown in a paper which, judging by internal evidence, 
must have been drawn up in 1760 or early in 1761 to’ 
explain the matter to George III ; 3 the pension was given 
to Newcastle to make up for the financial loss which he 
mfewi. krj dp ui Shate iwi kta 

Treasury, and, seeing that Newcastle anyhow spent vast 
sums of his own money on what he considered the service 
of the King, this supplementary salary cannot be ■viewed 
in an invidious light. 

1 Add. MSS. 33038, fi. 497-8. 2 Add. MSS. 33040, f. 31. 

3 In Newcastle’s “Memorandums lor my Lord Hardwicke”, Decem- 
ber 23, 1760 (Add. MSS. 32999, f. 133) appears the following 
entry : 

“-To consider in. what manner I should acquaint the King with my 
£4200 a yfear. To look out the paper from whence Mr. Jones made the 

average.” 



AT THE ACCESSION OF OEOR&E III 281 

Comparison between the profits arising from the offices of Secretary 
of State and First Commiss r of the Treasury. 1 
At a medium, for seven ordinary years, (vizt. from 1717 to 
1753 inclusive) the clear profits of the office of Secretary 
of State, appear to have amounted to £5780 

The neat income of the office of First Commissioner of the 
Treasury, in the year 1754, with the Land Tax at 2s. in 
the pound, appears to have been .... 1480 

The private addition to the Duke of Newcastle was . 4200 

£5680 

N.B. — The two last sums added together, do not make the neat 
income so much as it was, at a medium, for seven ordinary years, in 
the Secretary of State’s office, by one hundred pounds pr. an. : — and 
the Land Tax, being now, and having been for several years, four 
shillings in the pound, makes a further deduction of £120 pr. an., 
which, if added to the abovementioned £100 pr. an., would make 
the deficiency 220£ pr. an. 

N.B. — The year of an accession to the Crown, has always encreas'd# 
the profits of a Secretary of State very considerably. The present 
year will do so in a more than ordinary manner, on account of the 
extraordinary number of military commissions. 

To this paper is appended another drawn up by James 
West and explaining the way in which the income of the 
First Lord of the Treasury was calculated . 2 

Net income of the Office of First Commiss r of the Treasury, 
July 2, 1754. 

The Salary, as first Commissioner of the Treasury . £1600 0 0 
New-Years-Gifts, as a Lord of the Treasury . . 40 19 0 

£1640 19 b 

. Deduction of 6[d] pr. £ . . . £40 

Land Tax at 2s. pr. £ . . 120 

£160 0 0 

£1480*19 0 

As the Land Tax encreases, the net income is less — J. West. 

1 Add. MSS. 33039, ff. 309-10. The paper ia in H. V. Jones’s 

handwriting. * • 

2 Ibid. f. 311. The document is marked “ Copy ”, aucf is also in 
Jones's hand. 



. 282 ‘ THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

Newcastle’s additional salary, which, was paid for all . 
his time at the Treasury, barring one month prior to his 
resignation in November 1756, makes in his secret service 
accounts a total of £30,538 : 19 : 2f. 

Similarly, an additional salary of £1500 p.a. was paid 
1 to Lord Halifax, President of the Board of Trade, 1748-61. 

“ A great deal was done at different times to gain and soothe 
my Lord Halifax ”, wrote the 2nd Lord Hardwicke in a note 
on a draft of a letter from his father to Newcastle. 1 The 
pension was obviously a douceur of this kind, but it started 
before Newcastle came to the Treasury, and the circum- 
stances in which it originated are not known to me. It 
stopped on Halifax going as Lord Lieutenant to Ireland — 
the entry on May 7, 1761, is marked “ This is to be the last 
payment ” ; and Halifax’s additional salary stands for a 
total of £10,125 in Newcastle’s secret service accounts. 
Whatever view one may take of Halifax as a politician, he 
did good and honest work at the Board of Trade, and there 
was more justification for this payment than for nine out 
of ten openly avowed pensions ; but it was presumably 
given in that form in ordeT not to make it a precedent 
for his successors or provoke similar demands from his 
colleagues. 

Two other well-earned pensions were, that of £400 p.a., 
paid, with a short interval in 1755, to Sir John Fielding, 
the magistrate who made London a safe place for decent 
people to live in ; and £200 p.a. to Thomas Lane, Chairman 
of the Quarter Sessions of Middlesex. Both had pre- 
sumably to be secret, not to offend some proprieties or 
conventions. The total paid to them by Newcastle, 
1754,62, was £3950. 

Another pension which, although paid to a Member of 
Parliament, must be treated as a salary, for it was given 
to the office^independent of its holder, was £500 paid every 


1 Add. MSS. 35417, f. 80. 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 283 


year about Lady Day to the Chairman of Committees in 
the House of Commons. As such, J. S. Charlton received 
from Newcastle, 1754-61 (both years included but not the 
spring of 1757, when Newcastle was not in office) £3500, 
and his successor, Alderman Marsh Dickenson, £500 ; 
together, £4000. 

Lastly, there were two pensions classified by Newcastle 
as “ additional salaries ”, £400 p.a. to Lord Ilchester and 
£1000 p.a, to Baron von Munchhausen. It is not clear 
what real work was ever done by Ilchester, Joint Comp- 

« ler of the Army Accounts, 1747-1776, and his pension 
ts more like part of the spoils which his brother, Henry 
Fox, the most rapacious of eighteenth-century statesmen, 
succeeded in obtaining for his family at the expense of 
the King and the nation. It may also have been a re- 
taining fee for his borough interest at Shaftesbury — then* 
is an entry about it in connexion with the general election 
of 1754. 1 Still, as it is of such a mixed character, I follow 
Newcastle’s classification and include it among the salaries 
— it makes a total of £3300 during Newcastle’s tenure of 
office. As for Munchhausen, he was a Hanoverian, and 
the work he did was for the Electorate rather than for 
Great Britain ; I therefore include his pension among the 
Icing’s gifts and payments to Germans. 

The additional salaries to Newcastle, Halifax, Ilchester, 
the magistrates, and the Chairman of Committees, make a 
total of almost £52,000. 

, At the other end of the scale stand the salaries paid 
out to the canaille, to hired journalists and pamphleteers, 
and to secret agents and spies. William Guthrie, James 
Ralph, and David Mallet, whose lives and worlds are 
recorded in the Dictionary of National Biography, are in the 
first category, the “ propaganda department ” ; their hire 
during Newcastle’s term of office amounted tg a 'joint 

1 Memorandum of March 25, 1754 ; Add. MSS. 3299^, f. 126. 



284 THE STRUCTURE OE POLITICS 

£4000. 1 The anti- Jacobite spies were John Gordon of 
Sempill, an old driveller who remained active throughout 
the period and had a half-illiterate “ transcriber ” paid to 
copy his nonsense ; Alexander “ Pickle ” (1754-55), one of 
the most prominent dealers in Jacobite romances ; Allan 
Macdonald, another spy, on “ the Highland service ” ; and 
possibly also Eitzgerald, whose funeral was paid for with 
secret service money in March 1755. Their joint takings 
were £1940 : 10s. Next come the foreign agents : Springer, 
“ the Swedish merchant who has suffer'd so much ” — he 
had acted as British agent, had been imprisoned a few 
years by the French party in Sweden, in 1756 found a 
refuge in England, and was given a pension of £100 p.a. ; 
it makes a total of £600 in Newcastle's accounts. Mr. 
Tyrrel, " the French officer who was employed in matters 
rtf secrecy by Colonel Lawrence in Nova Scotia ”, had a 
pension of £200, 2 and received a total of £1050. Thierry 
(misspelled Querre), the French pilot who directed the 
British attack against Rochefort in 1757, received during 
the following four years £750. £100 were issued on 

April 13, 1759, “ to the person who sends the intelligence 
to the Duke of Devonshire ”, and £50, in 1759-60, “ to' 
Mr. Reiche, for the French commissary who gave intelli- 
gence to Prince Ferdinand Thus £2550 can be traced 
as spent on foreign agents. 

1 Guthrie had £200 p.a, (about him see footnote in the secret 
service accounts under June 20, 1754) ; Ralph had £300 p.a. (see under 
October 24, 1754) ; Mallet had no regular pension but was given £300 
for his attack on Admiral Byng (see under November 9, 1756). 

2 In “ An Account of Payments made by Lord North ”, submitted 
to Geosge III by John Robinson on the fall of the North Government 
in 1782, tkere still appears, under the heading of “ Payments for 
Intelligence and for Secret Service ”, the entry : “ Mr. Tyrell £200 ” 
(see Add. MSS.^ 37836, f. 139). 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III 285 


The Friends of Friends, and Others 

If Members of the two Houses could expect, when in 
need, to be supported from the “ bounty ” of the King, next 
came their friends for whom they themselves could not 
provide, or found it more convenient, if possible, to pro- 
vide a^the expense of the State. 

JpB Duke of Hamilton had a poor cousin, James 
Hamilton, 1 and asked Henry Pelham to give him a consul- 
ship in the Mediterranean, or a place in the Customs or the 
■Excise ; Pelham promised to do so, and in the meantime, 
as an earnest of his goodwill, gave him an annuity of 
£200 from secret service funds. When Pelham died, the 
Duke of Hamilton, in his letter of condolence to New- 
castle, asked that the pension be continued — “ this is all 
the young gentleman has at present to subsist upon 
The “ young gentleman ” occasionally raised again the 
question of a place, but meantime subsisted on this 
“ retaining fee ”, which was still paid when Newcastle 
left the Treasury in 1762, and in his secret service 
accounts is responsible for a total of £1400. 

Thomas Burrowes was esquire-beadle to the University 
of Cambridge, of which the Duke of Newcastle was the 
Chancellor. This, of course, was a sufficient reason for 
Burrowes to be given a pension of £100 a year from secret 
service money ; it makes a total of £800 during Newcastle's 
term at the Treasury. 

“ Count ” Hewett was a protege of the Duke of Port- 
land, G. L. Scott had been tutor to the Prince of Wales, 
Mr. Allen was a nephew of Speaker Onslow, Mr. Cooke^was 
a friend of Gybbon, the oldest Member in Parliam^jit, Mr. 
Langford w^as son-in-law to Thomas Sergison, Newcastle’s 
nominee for the borough of Lewes, etc., etc., and so they 
were all in receipt of pensions from secret service funds. 

1 See accounts under April 26, 1754. 



286 THE STRUCTURE iDF POLITICS 

The persons of these distant pends to the Government 
are so unimportant that in many cases their names never 
appear— one merely reads about “ Lord Rockingham’s two 
friends ”, “Sir Jacob Downing's man ”, or “ Mr. W. 
Leveson- Gower’s friend Moreover, there is a regular 

Speaker’s List ” of £360 a year, a compliment to the 
distinguished Speaker Onslow, continued to him even after 
he had retired from the Chair and the House. 1 

Further, there were some special cases calling for sym- 
pathy and help, e.g. of those who had been deprived of 
their jobs, sinecures, and their livelihood through the loss, 
of Minorca. Mr. Charles Hamilton, ninth son of the 6th 
Earl of Abercorn, had been Receiver-General of the island, 
and as a compensation for his loss was given a secret 
service pension of £1200 p.a. 2 Dr. Molesworth, sixth son 
9 of the 1st Viscount Molesworth, had been made in 1735 
“ physician to [the garrison of] Minorca, by the late 
Queen ”, and was now “ starving ” ; he was therefore 
given a pension of £200 per annum. 3 Henry Poole, the 
son of Sir Francis Poole, Bart., M.P., by his wife, Frances, 
nee Pelham, had been Deputy-Paymaster and the family 

1 The list is of a perfectly harmless and non-political character ; 
this, e.g., was its composition in 1754 (Add. MSS. 33038, f. 354) : 


StirABse&S&GijTBGfsx- 


. £m 



Mrs. Goode 


. 100 

0 

0 

Mr. Glover 


. 20 

0 

0 

Mrs. Forbes 


. 25 

0 

0 

Mr. Hill . 


17 

10 

0 

Mr. Wattleton . 

^ * 

17 

10 

0 

Mr. Camber 


17 

10 

0 

Mrs. Denyer 


. 17 

10 

0 

Mrs. Benbrick . 


. 15 

0 

0 

Mrs. Hay man 


10 

0 

0 

Mrs. Smith 


10 

0 

0 

Catherine Martin 


. 10 

0 

0 



£360 

0 

0 


2 See accounts under August 5, 1757. 

8 See accounts under December 21, 1758. 



AT THE ACCESSION OP GEORGE III 287 

, were “ starving by the loss of their place in Minorca ” — he 
was given £500 p.a. 1 

Lastly, one finds in the secret service accounts gifts and 
pensions of which the payment from that money would 
seem incomprehensible had it really been treated as a 
fund for political corruption, and not primarily as the* 
King’s private money which he could use according to his 
pleasure and without the knowledge of Tom, clerk in the 
Treasury, Dick, M.P., and Harry, candidate for anything 
which others have succeeded in obtaining. There was a 
. “ Lutheran clergyman ”, and subsequently his widow, in 
receipt of £20 p.a., and Mr. Capel Hanbury, M.P. for Mon- 
mouthshire, was paid every year £100 for the dissenting 
ministers of his county. Colonel Clavering, “ who brought 
the news from Guadeloupe ”, was given by the King’s 
order £500, and Major Wedderburn the same for bringing 
the account of the battle of Fillinghausen ; Colonel Fitzroy 
and Captain Ligonier, £500 each, as aides-de-camp to Prince 
Ferdinand ; Garstin, “ the messenger ”, £50 for bringing 
the news of a victory of the King of Prussia. Sir Francis 
Eyles Stiles, Commissioner of the Victualling Board, 
received £300 by the King’s order “ to enable him to go 
abroad for the benefit of his health.” Finally, there are 
two mysterious ladies in receipt of pensions, a Mrs. Krahe 
and a Mrs. Cannon, who, on further investigation, turn 
out to have been, the first, ‘ an old servant of the late 
Queen Caroline ”, and the other, “ midwife to the royal 
family 

The total of secret service money thus spent on 
distant friends, humble relations, and what might be 
called inmates of the casual wards, amounted during 
Newcastle’s term at the Treasury to a total o^ almost 
£40, 000. 2 

1 See secret service accounts under December 19, 1758. > * 

2 The following case, though it did not enter into the secret 
service budget, may serve as an illustration of the degree which 



288 TJtPk structure of politics 

The Hanoverians 

“ I replied only, it is Your Majesty’s own money ; you 


“ providing ” at the expense of the State assumed in the eighteenth 
• century. 

John Twells, “ the Duke of Newcastle’s domestic apothecary ”, held 
a sinecure in the Customs — he was Accountant of Petty Receipts, and 
had in “ net sailary and allowances ” £531 : 18 : 6 p.a. (see Add. MSS. 
38334, f. 211). In the massacre of the Pelhamite innocents, which Bute 
and Fox perpetrated about the New Year of 1763, Twells was marked 
down for dismissal. His merits and sufferings are best related in the 
words of his own patrons. 

The Duke of Newcastle to Lord Hardwicke : 

Claremont. Jan ry 5th, 1763 [Add. MSS. 32946, f. 67], 

. . . these barbarous men intend to turn out poor Mr. T wells, of a 
place I gave him . . ., in consideration of seventeen years constant 
attendance upon the Dutchess of Newcastle in all her illnesses ; and 
who is perfectly well acquainted with them, and apprized of all, that 
Sir Edward Wilmot, and Dr. Shawdid, whenever she had them. . . . 

The Duchess of Newcastle to Lord Halifax (at that time Secretary of 
State) : 

Claremont. Jan. the 5th, 1763 [Add. MSS. 32946, f. 70]. 

Mr. Twells, is a physical person, and was in a very good way, but 
left his proffession singly to attend mo, when I had a very tedious 
illness ; and as my state of health has been more uncertain, ever 
since that time, than it was before, he has been constantly with me. 
Yr. Lordship will easyly see how incumbent it was upon me, to get 
something done, for a person so very necessary to me, and who had 
given up ev’ry other prospect in life, upon my account. 

Lord Halifax to the Duchess of Newcastle : 

Bushey Park. Sunday night. Jan 17 9th, 1763. [Ibid. f.. 81] 
... I lost no time after the receipt of your Grace’s letter, but found 
strong reason to think it a desperate one. . . . 

Meantime “ the unheard-of cruelties ” which Newcastle received 
from Bui^ brought his blood into an “ extreme bad state ”, and on 
January 12 it was the Duchess who had to write to Lord Hardwicke 
about Mr. Twells {ibid. ff. 95-7). She informed him that the Duke 
had ‘‘already order’d an annuity, equal to the value of Mr. Twells’s 
employment to be settled on him for his life ”, and inquired in her 
own and the Duke’s name what Hardwicke would think of their apply- 



AT THE ACCESSION OF GEOE&E III 289 

may do with it what you please.” 1 This was the mid- 
eighteenth century view about the Civil List money in 
general ; and secret service money was in an even more 
special sense the King’s own “ private account George 
II had his Hanoverian friends ; they were not popular in 
England ; still, when Lords and Members of Parliament 
could billet friends on the “ King’s bounty ”, surely the 
Elector of Hanover was fully justified in providing for 
some of his own men from that source. Thus Philip 
Adolph, Baron von Munchhausen, Hanoverian resident in 
•England, had a secret service pension of £1000 a year 
which was continued to him even under George III 2 ; and 
George Schutz, son of George II’s great favourite, Augustus 
Schutz, had £400 a year. Their two pensions together 
made a total of almost £12,000 under Newcastle. In 
December 1757, £2000 were given to the Hereditary Prince 
of Wolfenbiittel, and various presents, similar to thosS 

ing to Bute to save the poor man. Hardwicke, in his letter of January 
13, advised them not to do so (ibid. ff. 100-101) but added : 

. . . this last instant of Mr. Twells is not only the most cruel, but 
the most ungentlemanlike and lowest of all ; — in case it shall take 
• place, which I can hardly force myself to believe. For this reason 
I hope that any other provision, which my Lord Duke shall make 
for Mr. Twclls, will be penn’d conditionally and eventually in case 
his present place shall be taken from him, and no other of a proper 
value given to him. 

In 1765 the advent of the Rockinghams restored “ truly constitu- 
tional government ” to this poor harassed country, and Mr. Twells to 
his place in the Customs. 

" • 

1 See Newcastle about his interview with the King, p. 224. Such 
was the old theory ; for the more modern view, see George Grenville’s 
speech in Parliament on February 28, 1769 : “ . . . the civil li^t is the 
money of the public ” (Cavendish, Debates, vol. i. p. 273). 

2 This was probably obtained through Lord Bute ; the following 
entry occurs in the “ Register of Correspondence of the Earl of Bute ” 
(Add MSS. 36796, f. 61): December 16, 1760. “Muncfihauseiuto the 
Earl of Bute. Thanks for assurances of friendship, and fftr his kind 
representations to the King on his behalf.” 




290 THE STRUCTURE OF POLITICS 

mentioned before to English officers, were made to Germans 
who brought the news of victories, acted as aides-de-camp 
to the King of Prussia or Prince Ferdinand, etc. In 1758' 
£1500 were spent on a sword, and in 1759 another £1500 
ona“ George ”, for Prince Ferdinand ; and under date of 
February 12, 1756, appears a douceur of £500 to Michel, 
the Prussian Minister in London. 

The payments from secret service funds to Germans 
during Newcastle's term of office make about £21,000. 

Summary and Conclusions 

The total of secret service money spent by Newcastle 
from the Treasury during his two terms of office March 
1754-November 1756 and July 1757-May 1762 amounted 
to £290,848 : 17 : 2j, or in round figures, £291,000. Of 
this, £55,500 were spent on elections and constituencies, 
and £68,500 in pensions to Members of Parliament — thus 
£124,000, i.e. almost 43 per cent, were spent on the House 
of Commons ; £50,000 were doled out to the aristocracy, 
£56,000 went in additional salaries and to secret agents, 
£40,000 to friends of friends to the Government, and 
£21,000 to Germans. The vast engine of Parliamentary’ 
corruption called “ secret service money ”, when measured, 
hasproved surprisingly small in size, a mere supplement 
to places and other open favours ; and on further inquiry 
it is found that there was more jobbery, stupidity, and 
human charity about it than bribery. “For the wicked 
are more naive than we think ; and so are we ourselves.” 
But the Duke of Newcastle was not even wicked, nor were 
Sir Robert Walpole and Henry Pelham, George III and 
Lord ^orth. 


END OF VOL. i 


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