When the mob had cleared the hustings, they went into the town of Brentford, and attacked the Castle Inn, which was one of the candidate’s houses of entertainment, and did considerable damage to it. The inhabitants of the town, observing this mischief, and beginning to fear their own houses would next be destroyed,—
“a general indignation took place: they sallied forth, attacked the rioters with great spirit, and drove them out of the town; and some of the voters vented their rage upon one or two of the houses opened for the other candidate. A number of persons with Proctor’s cockades in their hats assembled about ‘The Angel Inn’ at Islington in a riotous manner, armed with bludgeons.”
These well-paid hirelings were the worse for their potations, and, with the ringleader, were taken into custody.
It seems to have been a generally recognized stratagem imported into election tactics, where, as in war, nothing was considered “unfair,” to get freeholders locked up on some fictitious pretence, such as false writs, actions, summonses, or impounded as witnesses at trials, etc.; where the principal never appeared, and the hearing never came on, while the victims “to error” were detained in durance until after the poll was finished. On the occasion under consideration, it appeared that a number of freeholders were particularly summoned as jurymen, to prevent their voting for the popular candidate; this manœuvre was defeated, as concerned the Old Bailey, where the lord mayor, Turner, behaved in a truly patriotic manner.
“When the jury was called, his Lordship asked them, upon their honour, if any of them were freeholders of Middlesex; it appeared that about eighteen of them were so (specially called in order that their votes might be lost), on which his Lordship immediately dismissed them, that they might not be hindered from discharging their duty at Brentford.”
“Richard Dingham maketh oath that ‘the morning after the meeting of Sir William Beauchamp Proctor, at St. Giles’s, he saw four link-lighters named Welch, Hinton, Brady, and Quinn, disputing about some money they had received from Sir William, and they said that they had signed an agreement to go down, with several others, to Brentford on the day of Election to head a mob, and to put an end to the said Election, when they should receive orders, etc.’”
In the interval, and during the progress of the election, several men were committed to prison, including a chairman recognized as having acted as a leader, who was known as the “Infant,” being, in fact, a Hercules over six feet high; the true facts of the case came out upon examination, and, before the close of the poll, four affidavits were published in the papers, the tenour of which went to prove criminal complicity.
“Atkinson Bush maketh oath that he was at Brentford on the day of the election, and seeing a large body of men with labels in their hats, whereon was written, ‘Proctor and Liberty,’ this deponent asked them whether they were all voters for Proctor? upon which they declared they had no votes, but had in their hands what was as good, and showed him their bludgeons; and being asked who they supposed would get the election, they replied Proctor, swearing, if Glynn got the advantage, ‘By G——, we will have his blood!”
Broughton, the notorious pugilist, happened to find congenial occupation, having been selected as a temporary generalissimo of the forces, with special recruiting powers as to the enlistment of his desperadoes.
“William Wheeler, Joyce, Davis, and other chairmen made oath that they, with about forty of their order, were engaged by Broughton, on the promise of a guinea a day each, for the like purpose of putting an end to the election when the signal should be given, and, according to the account of the deponents, all the parties mentioned appeared at Brentford.”
On the next day (December 14), the poll for the election of a knight of the shire for the county of Middlesex was peacefully concluded in the presence of the sheriffs and the justices of the peace of the county, attended by the constables to suppress any further demonstrations. At the close, the numbers stood, for Serjeant Glynn, 1542; Sir W. B. Proctor, 1278. It was said, “that the number polled on this occasion exceeded by forty-two the greatest number ever known to poll at any previous election.”