The illuminations, at night, eclipsed all previous occasions, Smirk, the Royal Academician, painting a transparency for the Bank of England, very large, and very allegorical. M. Otto’s house, in Portman Square, was particularly beautiful, and kept the square full of gazers all the night through. There were several accidents during the day, one of which was somewhat singular. One of the outside ornaments of St. Mary le Strand, then called the New Church, fell down, killing one man on the spot, and seriously damaging three others.
The day of General Thanksgiving was very sober, comparatively. Both Houses of Parliament attended Divine service, as did the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, who went in state to St. Paul’s. Most of the churches were well filled, and flags flew, and bells rung, all day.
In July came a General Election, which evoked a lawless saturnalia throughout the length and breadth of the land. An election in our own times—before the ballot brought peace—was bad enough, but then the duration of the polling was nothing like it was in the days of which I write. The County polling lasted fourteen days; Boroughs, seven days.
The Morning Herald, July 14, 1802, thus speaks of the Middlesex election: “During the business of polling, the populace amused themselves in varieties of whimsicalities, one of which was the exhibition of a man on the shoulders of another, handcuffed and heavily ironed, while a third was employed in flogging him with a tremendous cat-o’-nine-tails, and the man who received the punishment, by his contortions of countenance, seemed to experience all the misery which such a mode of punishment inflicts. The shops were all shut in Brentford, and the road leading to London was lined on each side with crowds of idle spectators. It is impossible for any but those who have witnessed a Middlesex election to conceive the picture it exhibits; it is one continual scene of riot, disorder, and tumult.”
And, whilst on the subject of Politics, although they have no proper place in this history, as it deals more especially with the social aspect of this portion of the Century, yet it is interesting to be acquainted with the living aspect of some of the politicians of the time, and, thanks to Gillray, they are forthcoming in two of his pictures I have here given.
This is founded on a serio-comic incident which occurred in a debate on Supply, on March 4, 1802.[16] “The report of the Committee of Supply, to whom the Army estimates were referred, being brought up, Mr. Robson proceeded to point out various heads of expenditure, which, he said, were highly improper, such as the barracks, the expenses of corn and hay for the horses of the cavalry, the coals and candles for the men, the expenses of which he contended to be enormous. The sum charged for beer to the troops at the Isle of Wight, he said, was also beyond his comprehension. He maintained that this mode of voting expenditure, by months, was dangerous; the sum, coming thus by driblets, did not strike the imagination in the same manner as they would do, if the whole service of the year came before the public at once, and that the more particularly, as money was raised by Exchequer bills, to be hereafter provided for, instead of bringing out at once the budget of taxes for the year. He alleged that those things were most alarming, and the country was beginning to feel the effects of them. Gentlemen might fence themselves round with majorities; but the time would come when there must be an account given of the public money. The finances of the country were in so desperate a situation, that Government was unable to discharge its bills; for a fact had come within his knowledge, of a bill, accepted by Government, having been dishonoured. (A general exclamation of hear! hear!)
SKETCH OF THE INTERIOR OF ST. STEPHEN’S AS IT NOW STANDS.
“Mr. Robson, however, stuck to it as a fact, saying that ‘it was true that a banker, a member of that House, did take an acceptance to a public office—the sum was small. The answer at that public office was “that they had not money to pay it.“‘ On being pressed to name the office, he said it was the Sick and Hurt Office.
