Below the design are the lines—
“O, put it to the public voice
To make a free and worthy choice;
Excluding such as would in shame
The Commonwealth. Let whom we name
Have Wisdom, Foresight, Fortitude,
Be more with Faith than Place endu’d,
Whatever great one it offend;
And from the embraced Truth not bend.
These neither practised force, nor forms,
Nor did they leave the helm in storms;
These men were truly Magistrates;
And such they are make happy states.”
Towards the close, the state of the poll stood thus:—
| Sir Charles Wager, 3686. |
| Lord Sundon, 3533. |
| Admiral Vernon, 3290. |
| Charles Edwin, 3161. |
At this stage of the proceedings, when the independent candidates claimed to have many votes in reserve, while the ministers had exhausted every subterfuge and all their resources, Lord Sundon very injudiciously appealed to an armed intervention, forcibly closed the poll, and ordered a body of grenadiers to surround the hustings, and prevent any further voting; while the high bailiff countenanced these high-handed illegalities, and made his return accordingly. This proceeding ruined the chances of the Government in this contest of 1741: a petition was presented against the return of Wager and Sundon, and, although Walpole fought with all his influence, the subject was made a party question; in the new session, a warm contest arose in the Commons, which reassembled June 25, 1741, and the return of the sitting members was decided against by a majority of four, the numbers told being 220 to 216. The circumstance of “the election being declared void,” is alluded to in a letter from Horace Walpole to Sir H. Mann, December 10, 1741: “Mr. Pulteney presented an immense piece of parchment, which he said he could but just lift; and was the Westminster Petition, and is to be heard next Tuesday, when we shall all have our brains knocked out by the mob.” A new election ensued; Charles Edwin and Lord Perceval were returned without opposition. Vernon had been chosen for several places, and had already taken his seat for Ipswich. The admiral was regarded by the populace as a hero of the first water, whose victories, though for the honour of his country, were thorns in the side of the Administration, the members of which were accused of taking bribes from the enemy. The bards compared Vernon to Cincinnatus:—
“Let Rome no more with ostentation show
Her so long-fam’d dictator from the plough;
Great Britain, rival of the Roman name,
In arts, in elegance, in martial fame,
Can, from the plough, her Cincinnatus fellow,
And show a Vernon storming Porto Bello.”
The admiral is further alluded to in another engraving produced upon this same election—“The Funeral of Independency,” where the mourning procession is passing a tavern with the loyal sign of the Crown and Anchor. Among other episodes is a man on a donkey, who is galloping “post to Ipswich 10s. 6d.”—in allusion to Vernon’s return for that place; while another man is apostrophizing the rider, “Thou art as tedious as the law.”
The sequel of the memorable Westminster election of 1741 is pictured in “The Triumph of Justice” (Dec. 1741), an engraving of a satirical character, in which the late events, the triumph of opposition headed by the Prince of Wales, and the discomfiture of the Administration, are figured in allegorical guise. Walpole’s earthly career is assumed to be finished by the defeat in the Commons, who voted by a majority of four against the election of that minister’s placemen; and he is hurried to the tomb. A sarcophagus is displayed whereon a Satyr, with hour-glass and scythe, usurps the post of symbolical Time; on the base of the monument is inscribed “Hic Jacet;” in front is a medallion of the statesmen supposed to be departed, with the legend:—“Padera Robertas Ord: Perisci—tidis Eques;” the supporting “weepers” are the disqualified members,—they bear a band inscribed “Our Hopes are gone, the Election’s lost.” Sir Charles Wager, as representing the admiralty, is leaning on a broken anchor. Lord Sundon has beside him a coin, two keys, a loaf, some mice (one of which is caught in a trap), in allusion to the treasury “loaves and fishes,” parasites, etc. On the ground, across the reverse of Walpole’s medallion, which bears the legend “Regit dictus Animos,” are a sceptre and three bludgeons, “Boroughs” and “Bruisers,” both used for electioneering purposes, to which a plate marked “Covent Garden” further alludes.
Above the clouds, and surrounded by an angelic host, is seated the Prince of Wales, the deus ex machina of Walpole’s defeat; his sceptre is a bludgeon, and he is pointing to an orator, who is presumably denouncing “the king’s party,” whose power is broken. Beside the heir apparent is a female divinity, balancing the scales of justice above the figure of Edwin. At the prince’s feet is seen “the glorious 220,” the number of votes recorded by the opposition, disqualifying Wager and Sundon, and in favour of a new election for Westminster. The British crown, decorated with palms and laurels, caps the design; which is inscribed, on a riband beneath, “To the Independent Electors of Westminster.” A further allegorical engraving, appropriately due to Jo. Mynde, exhibits and commemorates the final stage in this contest, where the Court was defeated and the opposition scored a complete triumph; this version, which consists of a design and a petition, engraved on the same plate, is entitled, “The Banner of Liberty, displayed in the Petition of the Inhabitants of Westminster, with the Coat of Arms of the Glorious two hundred and twenty-two who voted in favour of the Petitioners.” The emblematical design displays the tutelary guardian of Westminster, a female figure, seated on the ground in deep dejection; her hand is resting on the armorial shield of Charles Edwin, which is placed before that of Lord Perceval (Earl of Egmont); the arms of Westminster are engraved on a stone, and the shield of Admiral Vernon also appears. The goddess of Liberty has arrived on the scene, she has summarily put “Slavery” to flight, and while she is assisting the guardian of the liberties of Westminster to rise, the muskets of the soldiery are trampled under foot, in allusion to the bold and impolitic step of ordering grenadiers to close the poll, resorted to at the previous election by Lord Sundon, to the damage of his patron Walpole. In the Commons it was suggested to indict the soldiers who had the temerity to interfere with “the rights of election.”