of “bailiwicks”--Supineness of the Commons and ministerial influence--Corrupt bargains ignored by the House--Illegal interference of peers and lords of parliament in elections; Westminster election, 1774--“Money, meat, drink, entertainment or provision”--The partiality of persons in power manifested at “election bribery commissions”--The “king’s menial servants disqualified”--“Direct solicitation of the peers”--Worcester, 1774, wholesale swearing-in of electors as special constables--Convenient formula for defeating evidence of bribery before the House--High-Sheriffs returning themselves, Abingdon, 1774--The instance of Sir Edward Coke--“The sheriff in no respect the returning officer for boroughs”--The election made void by the sheriff returning himself--Morpeth, 1774--An election determined by main force--The candidate forcibly returning “himself and friend”--A “bribing” candidate preferred to a “main-force” candidate--Petersfield, Hants--The Shaftesbury “Punch,”--Pantomimic method of distributing bribes--The mysterious “Glenbucket”--Sudbury, 1780--A wager on the result of a controverted petition--A mayor insisting upon carrying on an election all night--The Shaftesbury “Punch” outdone by the Shoreham “Christian Society”--A well-organized scheme for “burgessing business”--The “Society” a “heap of bribery”--Stafford, 1780; The price paid by R. B. Sheridan for his seat--Tom Sheridan a candidate for Stafford, on his father’s retirement, 1806--The successful candidate for Stafford presented with a new hat at the hustings, by a subscription of his constituents--“A Mob-Reformer,” 1780--The first entry into public life of William Pitt--“The spirit of the country in 1780”--Pitt seated for Appleby, one of Sir James Lowther’s pocket-boroughs--Pitt’s early political friends: the Duke of Rutland and Lord Euston--Pitt’s letter to his mother, Lady Chatham, on his coming election--No necessity to visit constituencies--Choice of seats offered to the young premier, 1784--Nominated for the City of London--Invited to stand for Bath, represented by his late father Earl Chatham--Pitt returned for the University of Cambridge, 1784, which he represented till his death--The dissolution delayed by the theft of the Great Seal from the Chancellor’s residence, 1784--Pitt’s letter to Wilberforce on the coming elections--Pitt “a hardened electioneerer”--The war carried into the great Whig strongholds--The subscription to forward Wilberforce’s return for Yorkshire--Earl Stanhope on “Fox’s Martyrs”--Fox’s courage under adversity--Wilkes returned as the ministerial representative for Middlesex--Wilkes’s “address to the electors”--“The Back-stairs Scoured”--“The boldest of bilks”--“Reconciliation of the Two Kings of Brentford,” 1784--“The New Coalition,” 1784--Charles James Fox’s first