“Lists and Tables of Peers of the Realm who have unlawfully concerned themselves in the Election of members to serve for the Commons in the Parliament which was then sitting (1820), with the Counties and Towns where the unlawful interference of Peers has operated, either by nomination or influence, with the number of members unlawfully returned.”
For instance, the Dukes of Bedford and Rutland respectively returned four representatives; the same number was in the nomination of the Earls of Ailesbury, St. Germans, Mount Edgecumbe, etc., while such powerful autocrats as the Earl of Lonsdale contrived to return eight nominees, as did the Earl of Darlington; six members were returned by the Duke of Norfolk and Earl Fitzwilliam respectively; while the Dukes of Devonshire, Newcastle, and Northumberland, the Marquises of Buckingham and Hertford, the Earl of Powis, and Baron Carrington each managed to return five seats. To the calculations given in his table, the petitioner added the Treasury patronage, then in the Earl of Liverpool’s control, giving eleven members; the Admiralty, under Viscount Melville’s patronage, imposing three members, the Ordnance (Duke of Wellington) one—adding again, according to the calculations given in Oldfield’s “Representative History” (vi. 289),—
“There are ninety wealthy Commoners who, for 102 vile sinks of corruption over which they tyrannize, further dishonour the House by forcing on it 137 members,” thus giving a total of no less than 353 members, who, as Cartwright represented to the House of Commons in his very remarkable Petition, [the Major writes] “to use the words of the royal proclamation of the 30th July, 1819,” were created such “in gross violation of the law, and to the palpable subversion of the constitution, being corruptly or tyrannically imposed on the Commons.”
“The pure and undefiled principles of the Constitution” were inculcated by Major Cartwright in his “Lectures on the British Constitution,” “Letters to Lord Mayor Wood,” “Letters to Clarkson on African and English Freedom,” “Resolutions and Proceedings of the Hampden Club,” “A Bill of Rights and Liberties; or, an Act for restoring the Civil Branch of the Constitution,” and the companion work, “A Bill of Free and Sure Defence, for restoring the Military Branch.” The major was brimming over with zeal, and had almost too good a case; unfortunately for the enforcement of his reforms, he was too early in the field.
The coming elections of 1820 were preceded by several caricatures. Those by George Cruikshank are the most meritorious, the artist’s work for this date being at its best. He was at that time employed by Humphrey, the print-publisher, of St. James’s Street, as a successor to James Gillray, an honour the artist regarded with pride to the close of his long career. On the 1st of January, John Cam Hobhouse, who was then canvassing Westminster, and was this year to be sent to parliament as the colleague of his friend, Sir Francis Burdett, was exhibited as “Little Hob in the Well,” under the title of “A Trifling Mistake—Corrected.” The diminutive statesman is exhibited in the place of his confinement, a prison-cell; he is gloomily contemplating two pictures on the wall, “St. Stephen’s Chapel versus Newgate.” A pile of manuscripts, blackened by the upsetting of an inkstand, and a mouse-trap assist the allusions. “The Trifling Mistake” is placarded on the wall in the indiscreet but pertinent utterances of the captive, which, if truly set forth, may account for his incarceration.
“What prevents the people from walking down to the House and pulling out the members by the ears, locking up their doors, and flinging the key into the Thames? Is it any majesty which lodges in the members of that assembly? Do we love them? Not at all; we have an instinctive horror and disgust at the abstract idea of a boroughmonger. Do we respect them? Not in the least. Do we regard them as endowed with any superior qualities? On the contrary, individually, there is scarcely a poorer creature than your mere member of Parliament, though in his corporate capacity the earth furnishes not so absolute a bully. Their true practical protectors, then—the real efficient anti-Reformers—are to be found at the Horse Guards and the Knightsbridge Barracks. As long as the House of Commons majorities are backed by the regimental muster-roll, so long may those who have got the tax-power keep it,—and hang those who resist.”
In the same month appeared another strong “anti-reform” caricature from the same source—though, as we see by a later work, the artist’s sympathies were at this time on the side of the reformers, while Radical publishers of an advanced type were his chief employers,—“The Root of King’s Evil—Lay the Axe to it,” January 14, 1820. A learned prelate, seated in his library, is considerably scared by the apparition of the red spectre, literally a root—possibly implying the tree of liberty—planted in “le bonnet rouge,” and wearing the cap of liberty. On a pike in one hand is the mitred head of a bishop, in the other is another pike surmounted by a battered crown, with the tricolour flag edged with crape, and inscribed “Blood, Reform, and Plunder,” with a list of the “reds” and reformers in juxtaposition—Watson, Thistlewood, Preston, Hooper, Waddington, Harrison, Hunt, Pearson, Wood, Waithman, Parkins, etc. In the second category are Cobbett, Carlile, Tom Paine, Burdett, Little Hob, Death, and the Devil,—no King, etc. The prelate is interrogating the spectral visitor: “In the name of Satan, what the Devil are you, and where were you hatched?” “In Hell, your worship. I’m a Radical. Give me leave to present you a list of my best friends.” “Burn’s Justice” stands open at “Treason,” and a huge volume of “Etymology” stands exposed at the definition of “Radical”—“Ex Radix is a root, and Calor is heat, anger, strife; q.d.—The root of all strife.”
A comprehensive view of the respective sections of Radicals and Reformers on the dissolution of Parliament, February 29, 1820, is afforded by one of G. Cruikshank’s most successful caricatures, which may be considered, in point of execution, as among the works most worthy of his reputation; it is entitled, “Coriolanus Addressing the Plebs,” February 29, 1820. The scene is the screen in front of Carlton House Palace, and His Majesty, the magnifico George IV., is flatteringly travestied as Coriolanus. The “cauliflower” wig and false whiskers affected by “the finest gentleman in Europe” detract from the consistency of the figure, otherwise attired in classic guise, and presenting a dignified appearance; for, wonderful to relate, Cruikshank has gone out of his way to compliment the king in more than one respect. The address, a felicitous quotation from Shakespeare, is antagonistic to the actual sentiments held by the artist at this stage of his career:—
“What would ye have, ye curs, that like not peace nor war? The one affrights you, the other makes you proud. He that trusts to you, where he should find you lions, finds you hares; where foxes, geese. Hang ye! trust ye!! With every minute you change a mind, and call him noble that was now your hate; him vile, that was your garland. What’s the matter, that in the several places of the city, you cry against the noble Senate, who (under the gods) keep you in awe, which else would feed upon one another?”
Hon. Douglas Kinnaird.