suffrages (recorded for Luttrell) were preferable to the 1143 polled for Wilkes. The ministerial conduct on the case of Wilkes and upon the events arising therefrom, joined with their ill-advised manœuvres on behalf of their own chosen candidates, produced a marked effect on the constituencies elsewhere, and, as Horace Walpole writes to his friend, Sir H. Mann (March 23, 1769), towns began to break off from their allegiance to the administration in power, and sent instructions to their members to oppose the measures of the Court party. “As the session approached, Lord Chatham engaged with a new warmth in promoting petitions.” In opposition alike to the “Remonstrances,” and to those who questioned the policy of turning a deaf ear to the petitions of the nation--loyal to the throne, but earnestly set upon the reform of abuses and the extinction of “grievances,”--the ministers encouraged their adherents to secure addresses approving their acts, and praying the throne to disregard petitions for rights. The public prints satirized these servile expressions, manufactured to order, while the wits and caricaturists mercilessly exposed the _modus operandi_ of fabricating these illegitimate addresses. According to Horace Walpole, Calcraft and Sir John Mawbey “by zeal and activity obtained a petition from the county of Essex, though neither the High Sheriff, the members, nor any one gentleman of the county would attend the meeting.” It was the old story of the Essex petitions over again, as already set down in the group of “Election Ballads” under Charles II., when the same county made itself conspicuous in a similar fashion: “It was thought wise,” wrote Walpole, “to procure loyal addresses, and one was obtained from Essex, which being the great county for calves, obtained nothing but ridicule.” A pictorial version sets forth the situation (March 6, 1769) as “The Essex Procession from Chelmsford to St. James’s Market, for the good of the Common-Veal.” The engraving represents a street ending in the archway of St. James’s, towards which are progressing two carts, drawn by donkeys tandem-wise, and filled with bleating calves. The cart is driven by Rigby, the Duke of Bedford’s factotum, a supporter of the Court, much interested in the petitions presented to the king at this period: this political agent is travestied as an ass; he is crying, “Calves’ Heads à la daube! Who’ll buy my veal?” One of the victimized calves in the cart is bleating, “This is a Rig-by-Jove;” another exclaims, “How we expose ourselves!” The other charioteer is intended for C. Dingley, author of the “Saw-mill” experiment at Limehouse, and who was an influential projector of the new “City-road;” he was a creature of the Duke of Grafton, a prominent ally of the Court faction against Wilkes and the patriots, and was generally obnoxious to the more constitutionally minded of the citizens. Dingley is transformed into an ox, and he