The last Westminster election, wherein Sam House engaged, was in 1784, when on voting, and being asked his trade by the poll-clerk, he answered, “I am a publican and republican.” This memorable contest is described by the well-known colonel Hanger. He says:—
“The year I came to England the contested election for Westminster, (Fox, Hood, and Wray, candidates,) took place. The walking travellers, Spillard and Stewart; the Abyssinian Bruce, who feasted on steaks cut from the rump of a living ox; and various others, who, in their extensive travels, encountered wild beasts, serpents, and crocodiles; breakfasted and toasted muffins on the mouth of a Volcano; whom hunger compelled to banquet with joy on the leavings of a lion or tiger, or on the carcase of a dead alligator; who boast of smoking the pipe of peace with the little carpenter, and the mad dog; on having lived on terms of the strictest intimacy with the Cherokees, the Chickasaws, the Chuctaws, and with all the aws and ees of that immense continent, who from the more temperate shore of the Mississippi, have extended their course to the burning soil of India, and to the banks of the Ganges; from the frozen ocean to the banks of the more genial Po;—may boast their experience of the world, and their knowledge of human life: but no one, in my opinion, has seen real life, or can know it, unless he has taken an active part in a contested election for Westminster!
“In no school can a man be taught a better lesson of human life;—there can he view human nature in her basest attire; riot, murder, and drunkenness, are the order of the day, and bribery and perjury walk hand in hand:—for men who had no pretensions to vote, were to be found in the garden in as great plenty as turnips, and at a very moderate rate were induced to poll.
“A gentleman, to make himself of any considerable use to either party, must possess a number of engaging, familiar, and condescending qualities; he must help a porter up with his load, shake hands with a fisherman, pull his hat off to an oyster wench, kiss a ballad-singer, and be familiar with a beggar. If, in addition to these amiable qualities, he is a tolerable good boxer, can play a good stick, and in the evening drink a pailful of all sorts of liquors, in going the rounds to solicit voters at their various clubs, then, indeed, he is a most highly finished useful agent. In all the above accomplishments and sciences, except drinking, which I never was fond of, I have the vanity to believe that I arrived nearer to perfection than any of my rivals. I should be ungrateful, indeed, if I did not testify my thanks to those gallant troops of high rank and distinguished fame—the knights of the strap, and the black diamond knights, (the Irish chairmen and coal heavers,) who displayed such bravery and attachment to our cause.”[223]
This was the cause to which Sam House was attached; and, perhaps, there was not greater difference between the scenes described by Hanger, and those at Garrett, than between the same scenes, and more recent ones, on similar occasions in the same city.
What has hitherto been related concerning the Garrett election, in 1781, is in consequence of the editor having had recourse to the remarkable drawings from whence the present engravings have been made. From that circumstance he was strongly induced to inquire concerning it, and, as a faithful historian, he has recorded only what he is able to authenticate. A few facts relating to the elections between that period and a much later one, are so blended as to defy positive appropriation to particular dates, from want of accurate recollection in the persons relating them; they are, therefore, annexed, as general traits of the usual mode of conducting these burlesques.
At one of the Garrett elections, after 1781, there was a sir Christopher Dash’em started as candidate. “Old John Jones” says he was a waterman, that his real name was Christopher Beachham, (perhaps Beauchamp,) that he was a fellow of “exceeding humour” and ready wit, and, as an instance of it, that being carried before a magistrate for cutting fences and posts, the justice was informed that the delinquent was no other than the celebrated sir Christopher Dash’em.—“Oh,” said the justice, “you are sir Christopher Dash’em, are you?”—“It’s what they please to style me,” observed sir Christopher.—“Oh! oh!” remarked the magistrate, “I have heard of your character a long while ago.”—“Then,” said sir Christopher, “I’ll be greatly obliged to your worship to tell me where it is, for I lost it a long while ago.”
Sir Solomon Hiram, another Garrett candidate, was a shrewd, clever carpenter, of Battersea, named Thomas Solomon. It was his constant saying, that he “never bowed to wooden images,” by which he meant rank without talent. He succeeded in his election. The motto on his carriages was “Gin gratis! Porter for nothing!”