“A true Copy of a Letter sent to an inhabitant of Covent Garden, who thought himself at liberty (though a Tenant to the Duke of Bedford) to vote according to his own conscience; which having done, he received the following:—‘I hereby give you Notice, that you are to quit the house you rent of his Grace the Duke of Bedford, situate in Bedford Street, in the parish of St. Paul, Covent Garden, at Lady-Day next, or to pay his Grace Seventy-two pounds a year for the same from that time.
“‘RT. BUTCHER, Steward to His Grace.
“‘Nov. 29, 1749.
“‘To Mr. Matthew Creyghton.’“NOTE.—I acknowledge to have received the above letter by the hands of Mr. Becuda, one of his Grace’s stewards, and accept the notice therein. The rent I at present pay is thirty-six pounds per annum. I voted for and to my utmost have served Sir George Vandeput. Who would not?
“⁂ No rent due to his Grace.
“MATTHEW CREYGHTON,
“An insulted Elector of Westminster.“N.B.—The House to Let.”
The general election of 1747 furnished Hogarth with a suggestion which employed his attention anterior to his more ambitious election series. The House of Commons dissolved on the 18th of June, and the artist, taking time by the forelock, had his engraving “A Country Inn-yard at the Time of Election” ready for publication while the contests were occupying the public. As the print in question informs us, the cry of a “Babe of grace,” heard at the City election of 1701, was repeated in 1747. The subject of the stage-coach and inn-yard is generally familiar. It contains the figures of the fat woman of abnormal proportions being assisted into the coach by the efforts of her meagre husband; while the equally obese landlady, seen at the bar window, which she fills, is vigorously pulling the bell to summons the coach passengers. It is the background of the picture which illustrates the present subject. The sleek landlord, wearing an apron, and with a pair of snuffers pendent at his girdle, is presenting to an election agent a bill for the expenses incurred for the entertainment of his party; that the amount is excessive is conveyed by the expression of suspicion which pervades the features of the agent, who is preparing to settle the account; the landlord is evidently protesting as to his immaculate reputation, while a part of the Act against bribery on elections is projecting from his pocket. The galleries of the inn-yard are filled with spectators, who are favoured with a sight of the humours of an election procession—a posse of men carrying sticks and bearing an effigy of a more than life-size baby, with a child’s rattle and hornbook, or A.B.C. Behind the chair, in which this figure is seated, is carried a flag with the inscription, “No Old Baby.” Nichols and Stevens, in their “Notes to Hogarth” (1810) have explained that the “Old Baby” effigy and cry were resorted to by the antagonists of the Hon. John Child, whose family, by Act of Parliament, took the name of Tylney in 1735. This candidate stood member for the county of Essex in opposition to Sir Robert Abdy and Mr. Bramstone. At the election, a man was placed on a bulk, with a mock infant in his arms, who, as he whipped the babe in effigy, exclaimed, “What, you little Child, must you be a member?” The member in question was then Viscount Castlemaine, and afterwards Earl Tylney. At this disputed election, it appeared, from the register book of the parish where this candidate was born, that he was a “Child” in more than one respect, being but twenty years of age when returned for parliament.
CHAPTER V.
SATIRES ON THE PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS OF 1754.
A favourite figure with the satirists was to portray wily party manœuvrers as vermin-catchers, and those apostate representatives who were ready to sell themselves and their parliamentary trust were displayed as the spoils of their craft. A cartoon appeared at the time of these elections reflecting upon the tricks of administration. It will be seen that nearly all these early caricaturists seem disinterested, as their subjects oppose the dispensers of patronage. The engraving shows the Duke of Newcastle seated beside St. Stephen’s Chapel, and fishing for partisans among the late members, and, in anticipation, bidding for the adherence of the possible representatives in the coming parliament; this subject is entitled, “The Complete Vermin-Catcher of Great Britain; or, the Old Trap new baited.” The minister’s line is dropped through the chimney of St. Stephen’s, and is baited with Titles, Bribes, Places, Pensions, Secret Commissions, and patronage in Army, Navy, and Excise. The intriguing duke, who was a proficient in corrupting others, and spent a large fortune in electioneering wiles, is observing, “All Vermin may be caught, tho’ differently, suit but the Bait to their various appetites. But there’s a species will take no Bait; would I could scare them away; as they’re not Vermin, they will not answer my purpose.” The greedy place-hunters are swarming plentifully, and are offering to do any amount of dirty work, to “push for posts,” “Jews and no Jews,” being indifferent to everything but profit. The Pelhams, unscrupulous themselves, were past-masters of the art of finding venal tools. It is disclosed in the diary of Bubb Dodington (Lord Melcombe-Regis), the manager of the Leicester House intrigues, and himself an accomplished adept in dissimulation, how disreputably the Duke of Newcastle contrived to secure Bubb’s parliamentary influence (six seats) “for nothing!”
The corrupt character of a large average of those sent to the Commons as representatives of the people was in perfect keeping with the no less greedy boroughmongers who found them seats and the mercenary voters, their constituents by presumption; what a man bought—and in those days almost everything political had its price and was purchasable—he held himself justified in selling when the chance occurred. A satirical rendering of the imperfections then supposed to affect the body of the senate appeared at the time of these elections of 1754, when, by wholesale bribery, the Administration was, at an enormous cost, doing its utmost to degrade the entire system of representation:—“Dissection of a Dead Member (of Parliament).” The subject is extended upon a table for autopsy, five surgeons have severally examined the different functions, and the results of their post-mortem inspection is thus stated:—
1st Doctor. The Brain is very foul and muddy, it has a Contusion, or, as it may be called, a soft place in it, locked in the stone kitchen by way of qualification.
2nd Doctor. Ay, ay, he knocked his head too hard against politics and bruisified his pericranium. He was bred a Foxhunter.
3rd Doctor. The Vena Cava of the Thorax makes a noise, and sounds as if one should say, “My country be damn’d,” and his intestines have got, I think, ’tis “Bribery,” wrote on them—not a drop of good blood in his heart.
4th Doctor. Bribery, the Auri Sacra fames of the ancients—ay ’twas a diet he was fond of, ’twas his Breakfast, Dinner, and Supper, and affected all the corpuscles of his corporeal system, it was his Insanible Membrum.
5th Doctor. There’s a most potent Fœtor exhales as if the whole body was corrupted—if the bones are touched it won’t make an Anatomy.
The elections of 1754 are rendered more interesting to later generations from the circumstance that the famous series of paintings by Hogarth, better known by the engravings as the “Four Plates of an Election,” owe their origin to the electoral contests which ensued on the parliamentary dissolution, April 8, 1754. Before that date the tendency of events was shadowed forth. For instance, Henry Pelham, a pupil of Walpole’s, who combined the offices of first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer, passed the Jews’ Naturalization Bill in June, 1753, chiefly by his own exertions; but reaping thereby an enlarged measure of unpopularity—sufficient to jeopardize his party and his future career, if not to extinguish the political prospects of the Pelhams beyond rehabilitation—this detrimental concession was recalled, and, in the face of a general election and its possible eventualities, the Bill was repealed. The hostile feeling provoked by the measure in question still remained, and although the principal agent on its introduction had himself departed, it exercised, as will be seen in the political satires, much influence over the elections of 1754, in the way of helping the return of fresh opposition candidates, and defeating ministerial nominees. Henry Pelham, the prominent figure of the administration, expired in the full tide of his unpopularity. That enmity—consequent upon his acts—followed him to the tomb is illustrated by a spirited caricature, published on his death, and disclosing the probable reception which awaited the late premier on the other side of the Styx. “His Arrival at his Country Retirement and Reception,” March 6, 1754 (the anniversary of Pelham’s decease). In this etching Henry Pelham is entering on his future state, introduced to the infernal regions by a demon chamberlain. The “salle des pas perdus,” is not so easy as anticipated; Pelham is observing to his conductor:—“It was much easier walking in the Treasury. I hope my successor finds it so.” The ghosts of departed statesmen are variously greeting the arrival of the latest addition to their class. His predecessor, Sir Robert Walpole, is welcoming a worthy pupil: “O, this is a child of my own bringing up. I found him a promising Genius for dirty work, I therefore did all I could to gain him the succession at my retirement hither, knowing that some of his black strokes would make me appear as fair as alabaster. He has done it in several respects, but chiefly in getting the Naturalization of the Jews passed,—have any of you great Genius’s done anything equal?” The spirit of Judge Jeffreys is declaring, “All my transactions in the West were but a joke to that great achievement.” The disembodied Cardinal Wolsey is observing, “Is that the choice spirit you have so often described? I made pretty large strides towards making the people swallow down what I thought proper—but this beats all my ‘Ego et Rex Meus’s’ out of doors!” A shade affirms, “We are all puny statesmen to him;” and the most astute politicians of history are voted beginners beside Pelham—“If you, old Machiavel, had known him in your days, he’d a’ lent you a lift.”
In the elections which were held in April, 1754, the Court seems to have experienced less opposition than might have been expected; for although the spirit of the antagonistic “Leicester House party” had been damped by the death of the Prince of Wales, which occurred unexpectedly in March, 1751, it now showed signs of reviving.
The contest for the City of London gave rise to several interesting caricatures. The humours of canvassing are displayed in “The Liveryman’s Levée” (April, 1754), which represents an elector, a self-sufficient tailor, with his vulgar wife. The pair are receiving the obsequious bows of five of the candidates, who, in 1754, put up for the City of London. The absence of Sir John Barnard, the celebrated city patriot, is professionally marked by a suit hanging on the wall,—“A Plain Suit of Broadcloth for Sir John Steady.” The liveryman is insolently resenting the independence of the favourite candidate: “Where’s Sir John? I think he is greatly wanting in his duty. Does he imagine that a man of my figure is to be trifled with? Don’t he know that we expect to be waited on?” There are other allusions to the recommendations for and objections against the respective candidates.
As the dissolution of parliament approached, satirical views of the situation became numerous, and there appeared various well-executed caricatures upon the subject of the city election. In “The City Up and Down; or, the Candidates Pois’d,” the candidates were represented perched upon suspended boxes, part of a huge revolving machine. Sir John Barnard, Slingsby Bethel, and William Beckford are occupying the upper seats; they had represented the city in the last parliament, and, as there were no objections against their names, their re-election was considered secure. In a side box is Sir Richard Glyn, who was defeated; in another, somewhat lower, is Sir Robert Ladbrooke, a new candidate, who was successful; below these is a fourth box, in which are Sir Crisp Gascoyne and Sir William Calvert; the latter, though one of the former representatives, secured the fewest votes in 1754. The reason for this falling-off in favour is explained by the caricature; Calvert is surrounded by Jews, who are assuring him:—“You have all our interest, for your zealous support of our Bill!”—“Confound your Bill; now I have no hope left,” replies Sir William, whose exertions on behalf of this measure lost him his seat. Barnard is declaring, “I am, strictly speaking, neither a friend to the Jews nor their enemy; excepting when they aim at having equal Rights and Privileges with my fellow-citizens and countrymen.” While the inflexible Beckford, who later was Lord Chatham’s “mouth-piece in the Commons,” asserts, “It becomes a Man of Character to keep good Company.” Ladbrooke, who was a distiller, is declaring he “should like to be in good company too,” but “fears it will be with the two kings”—“The King of the Jews” being Calvert the brewer, and Gascoyne, “King of the Gipsies.” There are allusions to the occupations of the candidates; the voters are declaring, “If the gin-merchant [Ladbrooke] gets in, gin will be cheaper.” Other electors refer to Gascoyne and Calvert as “two very good beer-makers.” On the opposite side of the river is shown Sampson Gideon, a prominent financier of his day, and afterwards knighted,—he is conducted by Satan, and his hat is filled with gold for purposes of bribery; he is eager to tamper with the balance of the boxes in the “great Up and Down machine;”—“If I was over I would turn the poise, though it cost me the profits of the last Lottery.” Gideon was a strenuous supporter of those who voted for the Jews’ Naturalization Bill, and, before the repeal of that measure, held hopes of getting into parliament. He is frequently alluded to in the electioneering squibs of the time. That he had substantial reasons for interesting himself in behalf of those in power appears from the “Report of the Committee appointed to investigate the Lottery of 1753,” where it is stated that “Sampson Gideon became proprietor of more than six thousand tickets, which he sold at a premium.” Preference allotments, being highly profitable, were useful as administrative patronage.