entry into public life--Returned for Midhurst, 1769--His first speech on the Wilkes case--Wilkes at a levée: he denounces to the king his friend Glynn as a “Wilkite”--Canvass of Pitt’s friends--The poet Cowper’s description of Pitt’s cousin, the Hon. W. W. Grenville, seeking for suffrages--The amenities of canvassing in the old days: saluting the ladies and maids--A most loving, kissing, kind-hearted gentleman--W. W. Grenville and John Aubrey returned for Buckinghamshire, 1784 226 CHAPTER X. The Great Westminster election of 1784--Wilkes’s famous election contest for Middlesex dwarfed by comparison-State of political excitement--Relations of parties in the Commons--Fox’s India Bill--“Carlo Khan”--Downfall of the Coalition Ministry--Pitt made premier by the will of the king--“Back-stair influence,” and Court intrigues--“The royal finger”--Hostility of the East India Company against Fox--An administration called to power with a working minority--Defeated on division--Vote of want of confidence--The House dissolved--The great election campaign--“The storm conjured up”--The popular aversion to the late Coalition Ministers shown at the hustings--“The royal prerogative exerted against the palladium of the people”--Horace Walpole on the situation--The Whig losses all over England--Fox’s contest for Westminster--A forty days’ poll--The metropolis in a state of ebullition--Party cries--The streets a scene of combat--The rival mobs--The Guards--Hood’s sailors; their violent partisanship and reckless attacks--The “honest mob”--Fox’s narrow escape--The Irish chairmen beat the sailor-mob--A series of pitched battles--Partial behaviour of the special constables--Their interference and violence--Flood of ballads and political squibs--Rowlandson’s caricatures on the contest--The odium revived against the late Coalition Ministry; turned to political account by the Court party--“The Coalition Wedding: the Fox and the Badger quarter their Arms”--“Britannia aroused; or, the Coalition Monsters destroyed”--Pitt’s election manœuvres; his bidding for the favour of the citizens--Pitt presented with the freedom of the city--“Master Billy’s Procession to Grocers’ Hall”--The king threatens to retire to Hanover in the event of a defeat--Ministerial wiles--Bids of place and pension--Extensive “ratting”--“The Apostate Jack Robinson, the Political Rat-catcher. N.B. Rats taken alive!”--“The Rival Candidates: Fox, Hood, and Wray”--Rival canvassers--“Honest Sam House, the Patriotic publican”--The hustings, Covent Garden--The “prerogative standard”--“Major Cartwright, the Drum-Major of Sedition”--“The Hanoverian Horse and the British Lion”--“Fox, the Incurable”--Fair canvassers--The ladies of the Whig aristocracy a bevy of