As bribery commissions were then constituted, the party in power generally managed to make disputed returns a means of strengthening their own majority, so that although the House took the pains to examine the several allegations, it was decided that the sitting members were duly elected.
On the respective counts it was found that there was no general determination as to the right of election in Westminster, but it seemed agreed that the suffrages were vested “in the inhabitants, householders, paying scot and lot;” that the king’s menial servants, not having proper houses of their own within the city of Westminster, were not entitled to vote—as they had done, on the pretence of being residents in the royal palaces of St. James and elsewhere. It was admitted that the following resolution, providing against the interposition of peers in elections for the Commons, had been renewed on the opening of the House, from session to session, since the Act was made, January 3, 1701:—
“Resolved that it is a high infringement of the liberties and privileges of the Commons of Great Britain for any lord of parliament or any lord-lieutenant of any county to concern themselves in the elections of members to serve for the Commons in parliament.”
The petitioners set forth that it would appear, by different allegations, that the rights of the election had been invaded in a manner highly alarming, so as to call for the interposition and censure of the House; but the report of the committee disposed of these objections by finding the petitioners were not able to prove any direct solicitation of the peers.
A similar objection was raised on the same general election as to the legal return of the sitting members for Worcester,—that a peer and lord of parliament had, by himself and his agents, interfered in the election by publicly canvassing and soliciting votes, and by using threats to intimidate freemen from voting for the petitioner, in violation of the privileges of the House and the freedom of election, and to the infringement of the rights of the Commons of Great Britain. Moreover, there was an allegation of bribery, and that conducted on a wholesale scale. The mayor, aldermen, and justices of the city, the town-clerk and many of the common council had sworn in, for several days before and during the election, many freemen (some hundreds) to be constables, under a promise that they would vote for the candidates chosen by the persons so influencing them, “for which they were to have certain rewards in money;” and that this money was afterwards paid to them out of the funds of the city, or by the two sitting members.
In transparent cases of bribery, when the committee of the “whole House” serving on these “controverted elections” decided to retain and confirm the sitting members, there seems to have been a convenient formula much resorted to in silencing those petitions brought on the grounds of corruption; for instance, after the general elections of 1774,—
“An objection was taken to the petitioners examining any witness as to the payment, till they should first bring proof of the agency. It was argued that the circumstances which would establish both points were so complicated that they could not be separated;”
ergo, all evidence on the points to be proved was technically excluded, and the petition was stultified.
It seems, also, to have been not unusual for high sheriffs to return themselves; for instance, in the controverted election case for Abingdon, Berks, March, 1774-5. The petitioner set forth that the member returned was then high sheriff for the county of Berks; his counsel arguing, “that by an express clause in the writ of election the choice of sheriffs is prohibited; and that this clause has made part of the writ for three centuries.” It was admitted that Sir Edward Coke, sheriff of Buckinghamshire, had been returned for Norfolk in the second year of Charles I., and that he sat till the dissolution of that parliament; but his right was questioned, and in the “Journals and Debates” he is invariably described as a member de facto. It was contended in reply, on the other side, that the sheriff was justified in his return, the wording of the writ not being taken literally, in any case such as “knights girt with a sword;” that Mr. Child, being sheriff of Warwickshire, was chosen and returned for Wells, in the county of Somerset; he was petitioned against, but was declared duly elected. It was also stated, on behalf of the controverted sitting member, that—
“since the statute of the 23rd Henry VI., the sheriff is in no respect the returning officer for boroughs; he is obliged to accept the return sent him, with his precept, and is merely the conduit-pipe to convey it to the clerk of the crown.”