highest bidder_; but some of their number, including Hugh Roberts, the returning officer impeached in the petition, expressed themselves offended at such a declaration, and declared that they were afraid of the consequences, for the society was nothing but _a heap of bribery_, and withdrew from the body; but two months later, one of these ex-members returning to a meeting of the society, was treated with harsh expressions, and was told he came among them as a spy. The society, however, continued to meet, their gatherings being more frequent near election time. It was said that, on the death of Sir Samuel Cornish, when a vacancy occurred, a committee was appointed to treat for the seat with the incoming candidate, the members of the said committee themselves being careful to abstain from voting, though they were there on the day of election; three days before the polling, the society was reported to be dissolved, in order to escape the odium of proceedings on petition, but that the meetings had been resumed since. In the face of this evidence, Mr. Purling’s counsel acquainted the court “that he could not carry his case further than by the witnesses examined, and could not impeach Mr. Rumbold’s election or affect his votes.” Although this closed the petitioning case, it was resolved that a further inquiry ought to be made into the transactions of the society, and a bill was ordered “to incapacitate certain persons from voting at elections,” together with an address to the king to order the attorney-general to “prosecute certain persons for an illegal and corrupt conspiracy in relation to the late election for Shoreham.” The bill was carried, printed, copies served on the offenders, passed through the House, agreed to by the Lords, and received the royal assent. The returning officer was ordered into the custody of the serjeant-at-arms; he was finally brought to the bar of the House to be reprimanded and discharged. New Shoreham appears later under the patronage of the Duke of Norfolk and Earl of Egremont; the suffrage in 1771, after the extraordinary federation described in the foregoing, was extended to forty-shilling freeholders, “in the rape of Bramber,” in which Shoreham is situated. R. B. Sheridan, the brilliant but unstable genius,[59] sat for Stafford from 1780, until that ill-considered attempt to represent the city of Westminster in the place of his deceased friend, the great Charles James Fox, which completed his financial ruin. “Sherry” was notorious for looseness in his accounts, and it is curious to find one of the few circumstantial statements of election outlays calculated upon this unbusinesslike representative’s borough expenses for the first parliament in which he represented Stafford--always a moderate place, as prices ruled,--Sheridan being brought in chiefly by the influence of the shoemakers, an extensive body there. R. B. SHERIDAN, ESQ., EXPENSES AT THE BOROUGH OF STAFFORD, FOR ELECTION, ANNO 1784.