The two horsemen galloping in advance of their competitors represent Lord Wenman and Sir James Dashwood, the “True Blue” candidates, who gained the head of the poll, and were returned as “sitting members,” but were afterwards, “on a controverted election petition,” displaced to make room for Lord Parker and Sir Edward Turner, the representatives of the ruling party, who had been supported from the first with the entire government interest, and by a decision of the House of Commons were ultimately seated.
In the engraved version of this spirited competition, Lord Wenman is made to remark, “They are not far behind us, Sir James;” to which Dashwood responds, “Too far, my lord, to get up with us.” That every exertion was made is illustrated by the driver of the post-chaise which contains the ministerial nominees; the Duke of Marlborough, as postillion, is declaring “his jades, i.e. the voters, begin to kick”—the elections for Oxfordshire having been in the control of the Marlborough family at former elections; and, in fact, the same influence was so preponderating, that no opposition after the election of 1754, now in question, was offered in the county until 1826,—another Sir G. Dashwood was unsuccessful in the Whig interest in 1830. Sir Edward Turner and Lord Parker are in the ministerial post-chaise; the duke is proposing to throw over one of his nominees—“Sir Edward, you had better get out;” his colleague, however, is resisting this desertion—“You won’t leave me single, Sir Edward?” The latter is trying to spur their postillion forwards: “Push hard, my Lord Duke, or we shan’t get in.” Two Whig notabilities are riding at a distance; one is observing, “Sir James [Dashwood] and my Lord [Wenman] have got ground on ’em;” his neighbour is confidently replying, “Ay, and they’ll keep it, my boys.”
Last comes the great man of the administration, driving his phaeton and six. He bids a mounted messenger to “ride forward, and tell my Lord Duke I would have been with him, but my horses took fright at a funeral, and won’t pull together;” the Duke of Newcastle is the person represented, and the circumstance to which he attributes the restiveness of his six-in-hand was the death, just before the dissolution of parliament, of his brother Henry Pelham, a man of superior abilities to the duke, who had filled the same offices with a better hold on his team.
“OXFORD.
“From London into Oxford Town,
See all the world is hurrying down,
Dashwood and Wenman for a crown.
Doodle, Doodle, Do.
“The Duke of Newcastle in his Fly
Cannot get up to his grace; for why?
The Funeral! Ah! men will die.
“Sir Edward in the chaise you see;
‘Get out, Sir Edward!’ ‘O, no!’ says he;
‘What,’ cries my Lord, ‘must I single be?’
“‘My jades begin to kick,’ says his Grace;
‘Sir, you had better leave the place,
And never look them in the face.’”
The elections in Oxfordshire were marked by a more animated conflict than elsewhere; the Jacobite faction was still strong there, although the comparatively recent fate of those who had declared for the Pretender served to keep these sympathies within discreet limits. The contest was strongly marked by incidents which have survived in the four famous election pictures painted by William Hogarth, the unequalled originals of which, still in fine condition, are now somewhat lost to the public in Sir John Soane’s Museum,[44] but of which the engravings are most familiar. Hogarth sold the series to his friend David Garrick for the modest price of 200 guineas; at the sale of Mrs. Garrick’s effects, in 1823, they were secured by Sir John Soane for the corresponding moderate sum of £1732 10s. The “Election Entertainment” was exhibited at Spring Gardens in 1761. These characteristic satires seem to apply to electioneering episodes in general, not only of the eighteenth century, but until within the present; a recapitulation of the principal allusions, however, will show that these pictures are composed of studies for the most part drawn from life, and founded on the actualities of the 1754 contest in Oxfordshire. The “Election Entertainment,” the first of these plates, is so well known that it was felt unnecessary to reproduce any of its incidents. This scene might he taken as a generalistic view of the electioneering hospitality and “open house,” one of the first steps towards conciliating support, but that the three “party-cries” distinctive of this particular struggle are all pictorially perpetuated. The scene embodies gluttony, turbulence, and false patriotism, but bribery and violent intimidation prevail above all. The mayor, who occupies the seat of honour, has succumbed to a surfeit of oysters, and a phlebotomist of the barber tribe is endeavouring to blood his arm and cool his head at one time. A ministerial-looking personage is treated with coarse familiarity, while a youthful aspirant for popular favour is submitting to tipsified indignities at the hands of his temporary associates. Nichols, who mentions certain assurances he received from Hogarth as to the fact that, with one exception, none of the figures were intended for portraits, affects to recognize the handsome candidate.[45] This modish gentleman has been treating the fair sex to gloves, buff or orange favours, and other gear, from the pack of a pedlar of the Hebrew persuasion, who is also dealing in notes of hand; he holds one for £20 from the candidate, signed “R. Pention” (Pension being the word). While the Court party is regaling the Buffs, or Old Interest, at the leading tavern, their opponents, the Blues, are making an out-of-door demonstration; so that a view of the humours of both sides is simultaneously afforded. The New Interest procession is composed of “bludgeon-men,” bearing an effigy of the Duke of Newcastle, with the colours of the Old Interest, and a placard round his neck, “No Jews,” in allusion to the unpopular Act introduced by the Pelhams (1752) to permit the naturalization of foreign Jews. Another cry, inscribed on a blue standard, is “Liberty and Prosperity,” while a huge blue flag bears the inscription, “Increase and multiply in spite of old ——,”[46] in reference to the recent Act for the regulation of marriages, which had encountered much opposition and given offence to the multitude. An animated exchange of missiles between the political antagonists is proceeding through the window; those within are standing a siege from showers of bricks, to which they are replying with a volley of fluids and furniture showered on the heads of the passing patriots; while a rival detachment of Old Interest hirelings, displaying their orange cockades, being armed with oak cudgels, and headed by a partisan with a drawn sword, is sallying forth to make a diversion on the besiegers. A champion Orange bludgeon-man, seated on the floor in the foreground, has evidently returned from a raid on the foe, in which he has had his head broken, but he has succeeded in carrying off one of the obnoxious blue standards. A butcher, with a “Pro Patria” favour twisted round his head, is pouring gin upon the bruiser’s cracked cranium, which he has first plastered with a “Your vote and interest” card; the doughty champion is reviving his spirits with the same stimulant; his foot is trampling upon the spoils of victory, the broken staff and the flag inscribed, “Give us our eleven days,”—another whimsical popular party cry, explained by the alteration in the style, introduced in the session 1751, to correct the calendar according to the Georgian computation, then adopted by most European nations. To equalize the number of days, so that the new year should in future begin on the 1st of January, eleven intermediate days were for that occasion passed over between the 2nd and 14th of September, 1752, so that the day succeeding the 2nd of that month would be reckoned as the 14th—an alteration which provoked discontent, and, in spite of its obvious convenience, was denounced as a Popish innovation.
“In seventeen hundred and fifty-three,
The style was changed to P—p—ry [Popery],
But that it is lik’d, we don’t all agree;
Which nobody can deny.