Cornish Characters and Strange Events

by S. Baring-Gould

But this was not fair, for there was certainly hospitality shown at Trewithen. Polwhele says: "Not a week before his death, I passed a delightful day with the hospitable baronet. To draw around him the few literary characters of his neighbourhood was his peculiar pleasure; and at Trewithen the clergy in particular had always a hearty welcome."

He purchased the manor of S. Ives in or about 1807, the fair at Mitchell, in Enoder, commanding the election to that borough, and the four fairs at Grampound giving him control there also over elections.

A good many of the Cornish boroughs had been so constituted in the reign of Edward VI by the Protector Somerset, that he might get his own creatures into Parliament. Such were Camelford, Mitchell, Newport, Saltash, West Looe, Bossiney, Grampound, and Penryn. Queen Mary raised S. Ives into a borough in 1550, and Elizabeth created six more to serve her own political purposes, S. Germans, S. Mawes, Tregony, East Looe, Fowey, and Callington.

Mitchell is a mere hamlet, and in 1660 the franchise was solemnly transferred from the inhabitants at large to nominees of the lord of the manor. In 1689 it was determined that the right of election lay in the lords of the borough, who were liable to be chosen portreeve thereof, and the householders of the same not receiving alms. But the borough in the latter years of its existence became a battleground of many combatants, and as the right of voting was, until 1701, left in great ambiguity by successive election committees, the result of the contest could never be predicted. In 1701, the right of election for this distracted borough was again changed. This time it was vested in the portreeve and lord of the manor and the inhabitants paying scot and lot. In 1784, Hawkins and Howell were elected members, and sat in Parliament for Mitchell for twelve years, till 1796, and Sir Christopher became by purchase the sole owner of the borough; and after Howell had ceased to represent Mitchell, he continued as its representative to 1806, when he surrendered his seat to Arthur Wellesley, subsequently Duke of Wellington. The electors by this time had been reduced to five. In the eleven years, 1807-18, there were nine elections at Mitchell, not owing to feuds, but retirement of members. No event of importance occurred after 1818 to 1832, except the extraordinary and significant revelation that at the contested election of 1831, when Hawkins (Sir Christopher's nephew) got two votes, Kenyon five, and Best three. Five voters to return two members. In 1833 those five electors found their borough disfranchised, a fate it richly deserved.

Penryn had been raised into the position of a borough returning two members of Parliament, in 1553.

Mr. Courtney says of 1774: "About this period the borough of Penryn began to be notorious through the county for the readiness of its voters to barter their rights for pecuniary considerations. The franchise was on such an extended basis that almost every householder, though many of these were labourers, indigent and ignorant, was an elector." In 1807 there were, however, but 140; in 1819 they had risen to 328. Each got a "breakfast" and £24 for his vote.

In 1780, Sir Francis Bassett gave a feast to the whole borough; he continued his patronage till 1807, as Lord de Dunstanville. In 1802 Swann and Milford contested a vacant seat in the borough, and Dunstanville to secure the second seat had to resort to putting faggot-voters on the poor-rates, the night before the election. Petition being made against the election, it ended in a compromise, and Swann received £10,000 besides expenses. Lord de Dunstanville, disgusted at the expense and the weakening of his influence, abandoned the borough. Swann thereupon gave a "breakfast" to his supporters; a "breakfast" was synonymous with a bribe of £24. Penryn was concerned at the retirement of its lordly patron, and founded a club in 1805 for electors, such as would most conduce to the pecuniary welfare of the voters. When the election of 1806 was imminent and the former patron had withdrawn, a deputation of the members was sent to Trewithen to that notorious election-monger, Sir Kit, to tender to him the goodwill of the constituency. "The details of the negotiations conducted at this interview," says Mr. Courtney, "became the subject of subsequent investigation; but it was admitted that the voters stopped there for four hours and dined at the baronet's table, which on this occasion, no doubt, was more freely supplied than according to local gossip was the custom on ordinary days. The deputation informed Sir Christopher that Mr. Swann—the Black Swan as he was called by his enemies—who had been nursing the borough since 1802, must obtain one of the seats, but that the other was at his disposal. These two worthy politicians, Hawkins and Swann, thereupon coalesced, drink and food were freely supplied; two voters, one for each candidate, went round and gave each elector a one-pound note to drink their health with, and the result was that on the 1st November, 1806, the poll showed a large majority for Swann and Hawkins over Mr. Trevanion and his colleague William Wingfield." A petition followed, and the evidence was of such a compromising character that Mr. Serjeant Lens abandoned the case on behalf of Hawkins. The evidence produced was that the deputation of voters, headed by a clergyman, which had gone to Trewithen to offer him the borough, had associated with Sir Kit to sell their votes and interest for twenty-four guineas apiece paid to themselves, and for ten guineas to be handed to each of the overseers, and that the offer was duly accepted. An address to the King for the prosecution of Sir Christopher Hawkins and eighteen members of the committee was carried to the House of Commons. The trial took place at Bodmin on the 19th August, 1808, when Cobbett attended in person to watch the trial and report proceedings in his Political Register. The questions in dispute centred on the terms of the agreement; the chief witness swore that the documents signed by Hawkins stipulated that twenty-four guineas should be given to each of the leaders of the party, ten guineas apiece to the two overseers and twenty shillings to each of the voters. But this evidence was unsupported, no other of the committee could be induced or intimidated into admitting that this had been the agreement; no one in Penryn desired to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs, and the defendant was acquitted, "to dabble in borough-mongering for the rest of his life."

At the election of 1807, Sir Christopher had no place in Parliament, but Swann sat again for Penryn.

In 1812 Hawkins wooed the borough in vain, in opposition to Philip Gell. The Black Swan was the other member elected, but great indignation was roused against him when it was found that he had left his bills unpaid for treating and breakfasting his adherents.

Then a committee approached Sir Manasseh Lopes, but he declined to buy the votes at the price of £2000.