Arrayed in matchless beauty, Devon’s fair,
In Fox’s favour takes a zealous part:
But, oh! where’er the pilferer comes, beware—
She supplicates a vote and steals a heart.
All the ladies were not on the side of Fox. Lady Buckinghamshire came into the field for Hood and Wray. Unfortunately she was inferior to the Duchess in personal charms, and the friends of Fox, one regrets to say, had the bad taste to call her Madame Blubber. They made at least one song about her, of which one can quote the first two stanzas:
A certain lady I won’t name
Must take an active part, sir,
To show that Devon’s beauteous dame
Should not engage each heart, sir.
She canvassed all—both great and small,
And thundered at each door, sir;
She rummaged every shop and stall,
The Duchess was still before, sir.
Sam Marrowbones had shut his shop,
And just had lit his pipe, sir,
When in the lady needs must pop,
Exceeding plump and ripe, sir.
“Gad zounds!” said he, “how late you be!
For votes you come to bore me,—
But let us feel, are you beef or veal?
The Duchess has been before ye.”
On Thursday, April 1, the polling began. The hustings were put up in Covent Garden, and at 11 A.M. the candidates appeared before an enormous mob. Fox’s address was drowned in clamors and shouts and curses, and by the delectable music of marrowbones and cleavers. The show of hands was declared in favor of Hood and Wray: a poll was demanded, and was opened immediately.
The polling went on, day after day, for more than six weeks. It was not until Monday, May 17, that it was finally closed. During the whole of that time Westminster was the scene of continual fighting, feasting, and drinking. Lord Hood, about whose return there seems to have been no doubt from the beginning, thought it necessary to protect his voters by a body of sailors brought from Wapping. These gallant fellows were stationed in front of the hustings, displaying the King’s colors, and actually commanded by naval officers. It seems incredible that such a thing should have been tolerated. But it was a hundred years ago. The sailors assaulted and knocked down the voters on the other side. When complaints were made, Hood’s Committee refused to send them away.
On Saturday, April 3, a body of Guards, nearly three hundred strong, were marched to Covent Garden under orders to vote for Hood and Wray.
On April 5 the sailors met their match, for the chairmen, all stout and sturdy Irishmen, came down to Covent Garden in a body, and after a battle with cudgels and chair-poles in the fine old eighteenth-century fashion,—a form of fight which gave every possible advantage to the valiant, and every opportunity for personal distinction,—they drove the sailors
