Westminster

by Walter Besant

So ended the fiercest contest and the longest of which any history remains. It is also, to repeat what has been already advanced, the only election of which there has been preserved so complete a record. Page after page, in the volume from which I have quoted, is filled with paragraphs cut from the papers of the day, in which the most astonishing ingenuity is devoted to the invention of new libels, the distortion of old speeches, and the perversion of facts. We have seen that against Sir Cecil Wray absolutely nothing of the least importance could be alleged, because it was absurd to suppose that he was to be Fox’s henchman for life. Fox had certainly introduced Wray to the Westminster electors, and that was the only service he had rendered him. Against Fox himself very little of importance could be alleged, because, even if he was a prodigal, a gambler, and of doubtful virtue, the average Briton has always loved a sportsman, and has never—at least, not until quite recently—thought that a man’s gifts and powers as a statesman depended upon his private morals. All the abuse, all the libels, all the monstrous lies hurled about on either side were absolutely useless. I do not believe that they influenced a single elector. Were the gentlemen who played so beautifully with the marrowbones and cleavers influenced? Were the Liberty Boys of Newport Market influenced? Were the residents of Peter Street, Orchard Street, the Almonry influenced? They were not voters. The voting qualification of 1784 was the burgage holding, the tenant who paid scot and lot, and the potwaller. Did the presence of the sailors assist the Court party? Did the valiant chairmen prove of any real help to Fox? I think not. All these things amused the mob; none of these things moved the elector. The one thing that damaged Fox was his late coalition with Lord North, the man most heartily and thoroughly detested in all the length and breadth of the country—the man universally regarded as the chief cause of the national disasters and humiliations. And I think that what hurt Sir Cecil Wray most was the marching of the three hundred guards in a body to vote as they were ordered, and the interference of the Court in commanding every person connected with the household to vote against Fox. And for my own part, had I been able to vote at that election, Fox should have had a plumper from me if only to win one of the Duchess’s smiles; and if any other reason were wanting, I should have voted for Fox because of all the men of that most disagreeable period, Fox, to my mind, with all his faults, stands out as the bravest, the most genial, and the most patriotic.

CHAPTER X.
THE STREETS AND THE PEOPLE.

After the Palace and the Monastery, the City of Refuge, the Sign of the Red Pale, and the Borough at Election-time, we turn to the City streets and the people.

Now, if we include that part of the City lying west and north of Charing Cross and Pall Mall, the part which has been built and occupied since the seventeenth century, we are face to face with nothing less than the history of the British aristocracy during the last two centuries. This history has never been written; it is a work which cannot even be touched upon in these pages: to consider any part of it in a single chapter would be absurd. It belongs, like the history of the House of Commons, to the City of Westminster, because most of its events took place, and most of the people concerned lived, within the limits of that City. Also, like the House of Commons, the quarter where the aristocracy have had their town houses for two hundred years belongs to the national history, and must be treated independently of the City.

The British aristocracy was never so much a Caste apart as during the hundred and fifty years ending about the middle of this century. Their younger sons had quite abandoned the ancient practice of entering the City and going into trade; every kind of money-making, except the collection of rents from land, had become unworthy of a gentleman. No one could buy

GRIFFINS FROM THE ROOF OF HENRY VII.’S CHAPEL.

or sell and continue to call himself a gentleman. There was a noble Caste and a trading Caste, quite separate and apart. The noble Caste possessed everything worth having; the whole of the land was theirs; all the great offices of state, all the lesser offices worth having, were theirs; the commands in the army and navy were theirs—not only the command of armies and fleets, but also of regiments and men-o’-war; the rich preferments of the Church—the deaneries, canonries, and bishoprics—were theirs; the House of Commons belonged to them (even the popular or radical members belonged to the Caste; in the election which was treated in the last chapter, Fox, the Friend of Liberty, the chosen of the Independent Electors, belonged to the Caste as much as his opponents, Lord Hood and Sir Cecil Wray). Everything was theirs, except the right to trade; they must not trade. To be a banker was to be in trade; the richest merchant was a tradesman as much as the grocer who sold sugar and treacle.

The materials for this history are abundant; there are memoirs, letters, biographies, autobiographies, recollections, in profusion. The life of the Caste during this period of a hundred and fifty years can be fully written. The historian, if we were able to exercise the art of selection, would present a series of highly dramatic chapters; there would be found in them love, jealousy, and intrigue; there would be ambition and cabal; there would be back-stairs interest; there would be Court gossip, and scandal, and whisperings; there would be gaming, racing, coursing, prize-fighting, drinking; there would be young Mohocks and old profligates; there would be ruined rakes and splendid adventurers—in a word, there would be the whole life of pleasure, and the whole life of ambition. It would be, worthily treated, a noble work.