This condition of affairs produced a mechanical majority as long as the prime minister in power could command wealth and influence sufficient to secure a larger number of seats than the opposition. It was in this direction that the famous electioneering genius, the Marquis of Wharton, spent a hundred thousand pounds in William III. and Queen Anne’s days; while Walpole manipulated such huge sums, thinly disguised as “Secret Service Money,” that, never wealthy enough to purchase all, and meeting occasional honest members, he was, at intervals, impeached for corruption in a House two-thirds venal, as it is alleged. Walpole’s successors, who finally drove him from office, bought elections on even a more extended scale; the Pelhams were clever dissemblers and apt negotiators for this commodity; it was written of the Duke of Newcastle, by his antagonist, Lord Hervey, it is believed:-- “And since his estate at Elections he’ll spend, And beggar himself without making a friend; So while the extravagant fool has a sous, As his brains I can’t fear, so his fortune I’ll use.” Major Cartwright, the advocate of universal suffrage, who had the misfortune to live a trifle before the times were ripe enough for reform to be carried, addressed a petition to parliament in 1820, showing “that 97 Lords usurped 200 seats in the Commons House in violation of our Laws and Liberties;” while 90 wealthy commoners “for 102 vile sinks of corruption (pocket boroughs) brought in the House 137 members;” Ministerial patronage returning another twenty, thus giving, according to the petitioner’s statistics, “a total of 353 members corruptly or tyrannically imposed on the Commons in gross violation of the law, and to the palpable subversion of the constitution.” At that time the Earl of Lonsdale commanded eight seats, as did the Earl of Darlington. William Pitt, as already described, was seated in Parliament, 1781, by Lonsdale, then Sir James Lowther, who had been stigmatized by “Junius” as “The contemptuous tyrant of the North,” and who himself declared that he was in possession of the land, the fire, and the water of Whitehaven. When the youthful Pitt became premier, one of his first acts was to acknowledge his obligations to “the Wolf,” and Lowther was raised to the peerage as Earl Lonsdale. The “pacific entrance” of this plutocrat shows the docile “free and independent voters” of Whitehaven, driven by Lonsdale’s law agent, and lashed with thongs of “sham suits at law,” dragging the earl through the tumble-down streets of his town, every window being illuminated with candles in his honour. He exclaims, “Dear gentlemen, this is too much; now you really distress me!” Mobs of his miners are cheering vociferously, he having brought the townsmen to submission by suspending the working of his coal-mines. Fair canvassers, with complimentary inscriptions on their banners, head the triumphal procession:--