“The Laws against Bribery provision may make,
Yet means will be found both to give and to take;
While charms are in flattery, and power in gold,
Men will be corrupted and Liberty sold.
When a candidate interest is making for votes,
How cringing he seems to the arrantest sots!
‘Dear Sir, how d’ye do? I am joyful to see ye!
How fares your good spouse? and how goes the world wi’ ye?
Can I serve you in anything? Faith, Sir, I’ll do’t
If you’ll be so kind as to give me your vote.
Pray do me the honour an evening to pass
In smoking a pipe and in taking a glass!’
Away to the tavern they quickly retire,
The ploughman’s ‘Hail-fellow-well-met’ with the Squire;
Of his company proud, he ‘huzzas’ and he drinks,
And himself a great man of importance he thinks:
He struts with the gold newly put in his breeches,
And dreams of vast favours and mountains of riches.
But as soon as the day of Election is over,
His woeful mistake he begins to discover;
The Squire is a Member—the rustic who chose him
Is now quite neglected—he no longer knows him.
Then Britons! betray not a sordid vile spirit
Contemn gilded baits, and elect men of merit.”
THE KENTISH ELECTION, 1734.
A realistic version of the hustings appeared under the title of “The Kentish Election, 1734.” The locality of the gathering here represented is probably Maidstone in Kent. A large open space on the outskirts of the town is the scene of action. The candidates and their numerous supporters are raised above the multitude, and standing on the hustings. Round this erection is a great crowd of electors, many of whom are on horseback.
In the foreground, a mounted clergyman is at the head of a procession of his flock, all wearing favours in their hats, and professing themselves supporters of the “Protestant Interest,” i.e. Whigs; two of them carry staves and books; the “gauges” in their hands seem to indicate that they are gaugers or excisemen, i.e. placemen: it must be noted that the chief grievance against Walpole and his administration at this time was the attempt to tax tobacco and wines. The Opposition party-cry is “No Excise,” with the names of “Vane and Dering,” the successful candidates, in whose honour, with that of the “Country Interest,” i.e. Tories, which they had pledged themselves to promote, the followers of their party wear sprigs of oak in their hats—a memorial of the Restoration of the Stuarts. The party-cry of their antagonists is for “King and Country,” and “Middlesex and Oxenden.” Sir George Oxenden had voted for the Government and in favour of the Excise Bill; he sat for Maidstone before the dissolution, April, 1734. The Earl of Middlesex was not a member of the former Parliament. These gentlemen finally threw up the poll, the victory of their opponents being assured, May 16, 1734. Of the successful candidates, Viscount Vane and Sir Edward Dering, the former had voted against the Excise Bill, and the latter was absent on the division. Something in the way of influencing suffrages seems to have been done on a large scale by Viscount Vane. Two hogsheads of French brandy were sent down to his seat in Kent (according to the Daily Post), together with sixty dozen of knives and forks, in preparation for the entertainment his lordship offered the freeholders. The Grub Street Journal devotes some attention to the treats with which the successful candidates regaled their constituents at an early stage of their canvass, and these hospitalities were returned in kind.
“At a meeting lately at the Swan Tavern in Cornhill, of about 100 substantial worthy citizens of London, freeholders of the County of Kent, the Right Hon. the Lord Vane and Sir Edw. Dering, Bart., candidates in the Country Interest, were entertained in an elegant manner by the freeholders,” etc. It is further stated that “these candidates were met at about two miles from Westerham, in Kent, by 300 freeholders on horseback, and dined at the George Inn, where healths were drunk to the glorious 205”—this being the number of members whose votes placed the Government in a minority upon the Excise Bill. Nor was wanting what later statesmen have termed “the fine old English Institution” of parading the Minister in effigy.
“The populace, to show their zeal on this occasion, dressed up a figure of a certain Excise gentleman (Sir Robert Walpole to wit) with blue paper round his shoulders (intended for the riband of the Garter, always alluded to with spite by the prime minister’s adversaries), a pipe in his mouth (Tobacco Bill), and several Florence flasks about his neck (referring to the proposed duty on wines), then mounted him upon a mule, and led him round the town in procession.” (The Grub Street Journal.)
On the same authority (No. 230), under date Wednesday, May 23, 1734, is announced the sudden demise of the leading candidate: “On Monday, about five in the afternoon, the Right Hon. the Lord Visc. Vane dropt down dead of an apoplexy, just as he was taking leave of a gentleman, at his seat at Fairlawn in Kent” (Daily Post).
An early design upon bribery at elections is attributed to Hogarth. This plate was produced during the canvass in 1734, just twenty years before the commencement of the famous “Election” series by the same artist. The print is a small etching, and represents Sir Robert Fagg, an old baronet, seated on horseback, holding a purse in one hand, and offering a bribe of money to a young woman who is standing by his horse’s head; on her arm is a basket of eggs; she is laughing at the canvasser. Sir Robert Fagg was member for Steyning, Sussex. Concerning the baronet it is written, in “The Art of Politicks”—
“Leave you of mighty Interest to brag,
And poll two voices like Sir Robert Fagg.”