About 1640, although absolute intimidation was not common, it at least was resorted to in the case of one candidate, who suffered therefrom, and evidently entered a subsequent protest. In Nalson’s papers it is recorded:--“A paper sent to the Secretary of State by Mr. Nevil, of Cressing Temple, the unsuccessful candidate, whose life was threatened. ‘It was said among the people that if Nevil had the day they would tear the gentleman to pieces.’” Walpole, otherwise unscrupulous in his resort to corruption of various kinds, appears to have avoided downright violence; it was reserved for the Pelhams and the Duke of Grafton to bring armed force to the hustings by way of intimidating opposition--an unsatisfactory state of affairs which reached its most unconstitutional proportions under the administration of William Pitt, when those Court candidates selected from the two services received the support of both army and navy; when the guards and sailors surrounded the hustings, and menaced such as were prepared to record votes for candidates other than their employers. Much might be written of the struggles in which envenomed adversaries were led into personal encounters; and rival factions, as between the Cavaliers and Roundheads, went to great lengths in their hostilities: but when the excitement cooled down, the honour of sitting for a borough did not, as a rule, excite fierce competition, at least, anterior to the Revolution which dismissed the Stuarts; members were proposed and accepted in a half-hearted way, and the burgesses sent to Parliament seemed little ambitious of the honour. The method in which a member was selected in the middle of the seventeenth century for the city of Bath, even then a place of importance,[2] which a short while after became a celebrated centre for election contests and ministerial and party intrigues, may be studied with all its simple minutiæ among the “Nugæ Antiquæ,” (vol. ii.) prepared from the family papers of the Harringtons, landed proprietors in the locality, who, from father to son, had represented the citizens in successive sessions:-- “_To our much honoured and worthie Friend, J. Harrington, Esq., at his house at Kelston, near Bathe._ ”WORTHIE SIR, “Out of the long experience we have had of your approved worth and sincerity, our Cittie of Bathe have determined and settled their resolutions to elect you for Burgess of the House of Commons in this present Parliament, for our said Cittie, and do hope you will accept the trouble thereof: which if you do, our desire is you will not fail to be with us at Bathe on Monday next, the eighth of this instant, by eight of the morning at the furthest, for then we proceed to our election. And of your determination we entreat you to certifie us by a word or two in writing, and send it by the bearer to “Your assured loving friends, ”JOHN BIGG, _the Mayor_. ”WILLIAM CHAPMAN. “Bathe.”