The next business in Parliament did not deserve to be noticed for any importance in itself; the scenes, to which it gave rise, made it very memorable. Lord Sandwich, who could never be unemployed, but to whose busy nature any trifle was food, and who was as indefatigable in the election of an Alderman, as in a Revolution of State, had been traversed at Mitchel[3] in Cornwall, a borough belonging to his nephew, by the families of Edgecombe and Boscawen. His candidates were returned by his intrigues, but a petition was lodged against them. He had scarce effected their return, but he applied to all parties for support, against the cause should be heard in Parliament; and had even worked so artfully as to engage the Chancellor on his side; and having once engaged him, pleaded his countenance, as a proof that it was a private affair, unconnected with party. Mr. Fox eagerly supported him as a creature of the Duke, which soon threw the whole into a cause of faction. The Duke of Newcastle at first did not appear in it; but Lord Lincoln, pretending to espouse the Edgecombes, commanded all their dependents to vote against Lord Sandwich. The second hearing of the petition was on the 28th, when Mr. Fox, attacking and attacked by the law, of which body was Hussey, one of the petitioners, beat four lawyers and Nugent, and carried a division by 26; in which he was aided by Potter, one of the tellers, who counted five votes twice. The Tories, who had promised their votes indiscriminately as their affections led them, perceiving that this election was to decide whether Fox or Newcastle should carry the House of Commons, and that at least in this affair the members were nearly balanced, came to a sudden resolution of giving their little body importance, and at once, as if to add to their weight, threw all their passions and resentments into the scale. Northey, the representative of their anger, proposed to the Duke of Newcastle, that if he would give up the Oxford election, and dismiss both Fox and Pitt, they would support him without asking a single reward. The proposal was tempting--the Tories did not hate Fox and Pitt, the one for always attacking, the other for having deserted them, more than the Duke of Newcastle hated both for acting with him. The defect of the proposal was, that besides disgusting the whole body of Whigs by sacrificing the Oxford election, the Jacobites would deprive his Grace of the two ablest speakers in the House, with all their followers, and could replace them with nothing but about a hundred of the silentest and most impotent votes. Though his Grace would have embraced a whole majority of mutes, he took care not to fling himself away on such a forlorn hope. This notable project being evaporated, the Tories were summoned, on the 5th of March, to the Horn Tavern. Fazakerley informed them that they were to take measures for acting in a body on the Mitchel election: he understood that it was not to be decided by the merits, but was