AT HACKNEY MEETING—FOX, BYNG, AND MAINWARING. BY JAMES GILLRAY.
“I daresay,” he observed, “if the High Priest of the Spanish Inquisition was to come among us to introduce his system of inquisition here, he would call it an act for the better support and protection of religion; but we have understandings, and are not to be deceived in this way.”
Mainwaring stated in the House that the meeting had been most respectably attended, and that the requisition had been signed by three dukes, one marquis, two earls, and several freeholders.
As we have seen, in describing the elections of 1784, the results of which ended for a while all the prospects of the Whigs, William Pitt was called to office in the face of an unmanageable opposition, and almost in contravention of the voice of parliament; the youthful premier’s bold resort to dissolution, with his energetic election tactics, disembarrassed him of the troublesome majority, and placed at his disposal a perfectly docile House. The progress of our relations with France, and many unpopular and stringent measures, like the Seditions Bill, had revived antagonism, and every fresh legislation which encroached on the rights of the people weakened the Government influence. Pitt, anticipating the struggle, boldly resorted to his old policy, and the intention of dissolving parliament was announced in the speech from the throne. Gillray, whose admirable caricatures illustrate the leading political events from 1782 to 1810, has epitomized the situation as “The Dissolution, or the Alchymist Procuring an Ætherial Representation,” May 21, 1796. Pitt is seated on the model of his new barracks; the transmutation is carried out from the premier’s recipe, “Antidotus Republica;” Treasury coals, i.e. golden pieces, feed the furnace; the breeze is raised by the Crown as a bellows; the old House of Commons, seen in the alembic, shows a few tenants, such as Fox and Sheridan, left on the opposition benches, but all is rapidly dissolving into a new chamber, where the alchemist is enthroned as “Perpetual Dictator,” “Magna Charta” and “Parliamentary Rights” become his foot-stools, and adulation of the most slavish order is offered up by the members of the newly constituted and subservient Commons.
Maidstone, for which Benjamin D’Israeli took his seat in 1837, has been the scene of many severe and exceptionally costly contests. At the general election, 1796, the defeated candidate, Christopher Hull, is reported to have polled the greatest number of single votes ever tendered for that constituency, he having expended three thousand pounds in about seven hours. This heavy outlay proved fruitless, as Mr. Hull stood last on the list; but attempting to make a merit of this liberal use of money, the reputation of which he hoped might serve for a future occasion, the incipient “electioneerer” was assured by his friends “he must start on fresh grounds, as the present would be considered as nothing more than electioneering experience.”
THE DISSOLUTION; OR, THE ALCHYMIST PRODUCING AN ÆTHERIAL REPRESENTATION. WILLIAM PITT DISSOLVING THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 1796. BY JAMES GILLRAY.
[Page 300.
