In the foreground, a mounted clergyman is at the head of a procession of his flock, all wearing favours in their hats, and professing themselves supporters of the “Protestant Interest,” _i.e._ Whigs; two of them carry staves and books; the “gauges” in their hands seem to indicate that they are gaugers or excisemen, _i.e._ placemen: it must be noted that the chief grievance against Walpole and his administration at this time was the attempt to tax tobacco and wines. The Opposition party-cry is “No Excise,” with the names of “Vane and Dering,” the successful candidates, in whose honour, with that of the “Country Interest,” _i.e._ Tories, which they had pledged themselves to promote, the followers of their party wear sprigs of oak in their hats--a memorial of the Restoration of the Stuarts. The party-cry of their antagonists is for “King and Country,” and “Middlesex and Oxenden.” Sir George Oxenden had voted for the Government and in favour of the Excise Bill; he sat for Maidstone before the dissolution, April, 1734. The Earl of Middlesex was not a member of the former Parliament. These gentlemen finally threw up the poll, the victory of their opponents being assured, May 16, 1734. Of the successful candidates, Viscount Vane and Sir Edward Dering, the former had voted against the Excise Bill, and the latter was absent on the division. Something in the way of influencing suffrages seems to have been done on a large scale by Viscount Vane. Two hogsheads of French brandy were sent down to his seat in Kent (according to the _Daily Post_), together with sixty dozen of knives and forks, in preparation for the entertainment his lordship offered the freeholders. _The Grub Street Journal_ devotes some attention to the treats with which the successful candidates regaled their constituents at an early stage of their canvass, and these hospitalities were returned in kind. “At a meeting lately at the _Swan Tavern_ in Cornhill, of about 100 substantial worthy citizens of London, freeholders of the County of Kent, the Right Hon. the Lord Vane and Sir Edw. Dering, Bart., candidates in the Country Interest, were entertained in an elegant manner by the freeholders,” etc. It is further stated that “these candidates were met at about two miles from Westerham, in Kent, by 300 freeholders on horseback, and dined at the _George Inn_, where healths were drunk to the glorious 205”--this being the number of members whose votes placed the Government in a minority upon the Excise Bill. Nor was wanting what later statesmen have termed “the fine old English Institution” of parading the Minister in effigy.