The proper proclamations being made, and no other candidate appearing, the return was signed by the gentlemen present on the hustings. The election being entirely over, the gentlemen retired into the vestry-room, where the indenture was signed by them, and finally returned to the Crown Office. On the day following, Sir Robert Bernard was introduced into the House of Commons by the Hon. Henry Grenville and William Pulteney, and took his seat as member for Westminster. The Westminster returns being generally looked upon with interest by other constituencies, this election was held out as a proper example to every city in the kingdom, and to all the counties and towns, to choose their members with a spirit of freedom and without expense. It was resolved by the freeholders of Westminster, in advance-- “that if this election had been contested, it would not have cost Sir Robert Bernard a shilling, the electors being determined to support their free choice.” This particular return is a case in point, which goes to prove that the authors of corruption in electioneering matters were more guilty than those they corrupted. At the Covent Garden hustings--where, on previous occasions, the ministers had spent enormous sums, besides moving every power and art of intrigue to get their own nominees returned--the entire proceedings were one long scene of bribery, trickery, and illegality, brute-force, and disorder. On the occasion in question, 1770, the administration seems to have been slightly cowed by the results of their ill-advised manœuvres to impose placemen upon the county: the recent Middlesex proceedings were still a source of concern; the constitution had been violated--not with impunity,--and serious effects in the way of impeachment were by no means impossible: consequently, the people being left to the legitimate exercise of their liberties, the election passed off in the pacific, well-ordered, and regular manner described, freedom did not degenerate into licence, “no one was a penny the worse,” and the representative system in its purity of action was for once maintained in Westminster. CHAPTER IX. REMARKABLE ELECTIONS AND CONTROVERTED ELECTION PETITIONS, 1768 TO 1784.