The spirit of the country in 1784 rose still higher; the independent freeholders of Yorkshire boldly confronted the great Houses, and insisted on returning, in conjunction with the heir of Duncombe Park, a banker’s son, of few years and of scarcely tried abilities, though destined to a high place in his country’s annals--Mr. Wilberforce. With the help of the country gentlemen, they raised the vast sum of £18,662 for the expense of the election (twenty-one years later this “vast sum” would not have produced much effect on the same field, when Wilberforce fought, in 1807, what has been described as the “Austerlitz of electioneering,”--the candidates between them expending above three hundred thousand pounds,--the details of which follow in their chronological sequence); and so great was their show of numbers and of resolution, that the candidates upon the other side did not venture to stand a contest. Wilberforce was also returned at the head of the poll by his former constituents at Hull. “I can never congratulate you enough on such glorious success,” wrote the youthful prime minister to his equally youthful friend. Rank and file, leaders and spokesmen, of the coalition party fell before the masterly tactics of the young chief, who stirred the minds of the people by extreme views as to England’s sinister future (if the Whigs prevailed) menaced with the onslaught of sweeping revolutions, and the destruction of every moderate institution and every safeguard of the state. In this manner, writes Pitt’s biographer, the party of the opposition was scattered beyond rallying. “To use a gambling metaphor,” declares Stanhope, “which Fox would not have disdained, many threw down their cards. Many others played, but lost the rubber.” A witty nickname was commonly applied to them. In allusion to the History, written by John Fox, of the sufferers under the Romish persecution, they were called “Fox’s Martyrs;” and of such martyrs there proved to be no less than one hundred and sixty. Amidst all these reverses, however, Fox’s high courage never quailed. On the 3rd of April, we find him write as follows to a friend: “Plenty of bad news from all quarters, but I think I feel misfortunes when they come thick have the effect rather of rousing my spirits than sinking them;”--as set down by Earl Russell in his “Memorials.”