The feats of the Whartons, Walpoles, Marlboroughs, Pelhams, and Graftons, in the direction of lavishing large sums for the corruption of the electorate, were dwarfed into insignificance by the fortunes staked upon a single contest later on: thus the disbursements over a contested election at Lincoln would be twelve thousand per candidate; and, we are told, “occasionally, after a hard fight at such places as Colchester, all the defeated men appeared in the _Gazette_.” It is stated that the two great county contests for Hampshire, in 1790 and 1806, cost the ministerial candidates twenty-five thousand apiece on each occasion, while their opponent’s expenses were proportionately large. The contest, still remembered by Northampton worthies as the “Spendthrift Election,” in which three earls fought for the borough election in favour of their respective nominees in 1768, is a startling instance of the lengths to which electioneering Peers were tempted to proceed in “scot and lot times.” The opponents were the Earls of Halifax, Northampton, and Spencer, and the respective nominees they pitted against each other in this all but ruinous “tourney” were Sir George Osborne, Sir George Bridges Rodney, and the Hon. Thomas Howe. The candidates were of small account in the conflict; their patrons bore the brunt of the battle. The canvassing commenced long before the polling; this was extended over fourteen days--a phenomenal circumstance in the days when elections were often settled and returns made before ten o’clock on the morning of the polling day. According to the poll-book, the legitimate number of electors, some 930, was exceeded by 288, but confusion of persons is accounted for by the promiscuous hospitalities of three noble mansions being at the mercies of the crowd for weeks: at the famous historical seats of Horton, Castle Ashby, and Althorp, the orgies pictured in Hogarth’s “Election Dinner”--“filled with the tipsified humours” of what Bubb Dodington fitly called, “venal wretches”--were indefinitely prolonged. “The Scot and Lot,”--woolcombers, weavers, shoemakers, labourers, pedlars, militia-men, and victuallers held “high revel,” prolonged without intercession from night till morning, and _vice versâ_, in the ancestral halls, of which, including the well-stocked wine-cellars, they were in a body “made free.” Therein lodged the perdition of Horton; for, after they had drained dry the goodly stock of matured port, Lord Halifax had to place before them his choicest claret, whereon, with one accord, filled with vinous fastidiousness, the “rabble rout” deserted to a man, declaring, “they would never vote for a man who gave them sour port,” and went over in a body to Castle Ashby. Each of the candidates claimed more votes than could be legally registered in his favour. Howe, the unsuccessful candidate, whose “potwallers” and “occasional voters” were likewise challenged, petitioned; and the “controverted election” came before the House of Commons.