A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering in the Old Days: Showing the State of Political Parties and Party Warfare at the Hustings and in the House of Commons from the Stuarts to Queen VictoriaGrego, Joseph
History
A History of Parliamentary Elections and Electioneering in the Old Days: Showing the State of Political Parties and Party Warfare at the Hustings and in the House of Commons from the Stuarts to Queen Victoria
Grego, Joseph
Great Britain -- Politics and government; Great Britain. Parliament -- Election
The contest had been an expensive one; it was declared that Proctor
and his party had been canvassing for six months; and, as an instance
of the cost attending the election of a knight of the shire, it is
set down as worthy of remark that the ribbons for hats alone, _i.e._
“favours,” to distinguish Glynn’s friends, cost four hundred pounds;
the outlay of the Court candidate must have been excessively heavy.
“The populace in general, and the people of Brentford in
particular, were very desirous to chair Mr. Serjeant Glynn
after the sheriffs had declared his election; but he very
politely entreated them to decline it, which, after much
solicitation, they complied with.”
In the letter of acknowledgment addressed to his supporters in the
county of Middlesex, the serjeant declares--
“As my private advantage and honour were by no means the
motives of your exertions in my behalf, so neither shall
they be the objects of my actions. I consider the choice
you have made of me for your representative as the most
authentic declaration of your abhorrence of those arbitrary
and oppressive measures which have too long disgraced the
administration of these kingdoms, and which, if pursued, cannot
fail to destroy our most excellent constitution.
“I hope that your example will lead other counties also to
assert their independence, and that the sacred flame of
liberty, which always ascends, will reach at length the higher
orders of this nation, and warm them likewise to a disdain of
offering or accepting the wages of corruption.”
John Horne Tooke was only second to the successful candidate in the
eulogiums showered on his name and conduct at this emergency. A
portrait of “the parson of Brentford” was published, representing him
in his clerical guise, at full length, seated in his study at a table,
with his right arm resting on his “Treatise on Enclosing Commons,
addressed to Sir Jno. Gibbins,” an essay which brought him an unusually
handsome acknowledgment; in his other hand is a reference to his
late correspondence with the defeated ministerial candidate--a paper
inscribed, “Mobs made after the Court Fashion, by B. Proctor, Milliner
of Brentford.”
Parson Horne wears a singular wig, with the sides in what has been
described as a “cornuted”[52] roll,--as peculiar as that affected by
his friend Wilkes, to whom he bears a further resemblance from the
obliquity of his eyes, his right eye having been blind, and fixed in
its orbit.
The “Parson of Brentford” appears in the _Oxford Magazine_; it is
evident that Horne’s parliamentary aspirations were talked of at this
time, for opposite to the portrait is printed an “Extempore,--on the
report that a certain Clergyman has a view on a seat in the House of
Commons.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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