Against Fox was raised the odium of the coalition with Lord North, and his attack on the East India Company’s charter was represented as but the commencement of a general invasion of chartered rights of corporate bodies. The Prince of Wales interested himself warmly in favour of Fox, to the extreme provocation of the king and queen; it was declared that the prince had canvassed in person, and that the members of his household were actively engaged in promoting the success of the Whig chief. The exertions of the Court were extraordinary; almost hourly intelligence was conveyed to the king, who is said to have been affected in the most evident manner by every change in the state of the poll. Threats and promises were freely made in the royal name, the old illegalities were revived, members of the king’s household claimed votes, and on one occasion two hundred and eighty of the Guards were sent in a body to give their votes as householders--an ill-advised manœuvre, upon which, as Horace Walpole declared, his father, Sir Robert, would not have dared to venture in the most quiet seasons. All dependents on the Court were commanded to vote on the same side as the soldiers. When Fox’s friends, the popular party, protested against this unconstitutional interference, their opponents retaliated by charging the Foxites with bribery, and with resorting to improper influences of extravagant kinds. Beyond the unpopularity of relying upon Court patronage and the imputations of “wearing two faces under a Hood,” and being “a Greenwich pensioner,” Admiral Lord Hood escaped; the most bitter party and personal attacks were made upon Wray. At the beginning of the election, Hood had brought up a large contingent of sailors, or, as the opposition alleged, chiefly hired ruffians dressed in sailors’ clothes; these desperadoes surrounded the hustings, and intimidated Fox’s friends, and even hindered those who attempted to register votes in favour of the Whig chief; they grew uproarious as the poll progressed, and, parading the streets, assaulted Fox’s partisans, made conspicuous by displaying his “true blue” favours; they also attacked the Shakespeare Tavern, where his committee met, when, threatening to wreck the house, they were beaten off by the inmates. After a reign of terror, which was endured for four days without organized resistance, the sailor mob encountered a rival faction--entitled the “honest mob” by the opposition newspapers,--these were the hackney chairmen, a numerous body, chiefly Irishmen, almost unanimous in their support of Fox; these, with hearty will, basted the sailors, breaking heads and fracturing bones in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden. The sailors thence proceeded to St. James’s, where the chairmen chiefly plied for hire, to wreak vengeance on their chairs; but the Irishmen beat them again and the Guards quelled the riot. The day following, both parties were reinforced. The sailors, vowing vengeance, left the hustings to