Thus, little by little and step by step, the Ryders firmly consolidated their political influence in the town, and though only one of the seats was claimed for a member of the family, the other seat also was evidently at their disposal. This for a long series of years was entrusted to the Duntzes, rich merchants of Exeter, who became baronets. Apart from politics, the Ryders had no connection with Devonshire, which they seldom visited, but Sir John Duntze, living at Rockbeare, and a member of the Tiverton Corporation, was able to keep a watchful eye on the local barometer, of whose subtle changes he (and most of his colleagues) kept Lord Harrowby sedulously and punctually informed through the post. On the other hand, poor Duntze, a perfect martyr to rheumatism, experienced, owing to the exposure of the long journey by coach, considerable difficulty in attending to his Parliamentary duties, and for practical purposes Lord Harrowby, or his nominee, was the London agent of the Tiverton Corporation. From the point of view of convenience no arrangement could have been happier. The above remarks apply to the first Lord Harrowby and the first Sir John Duntze. The second Lord Harrowby, after a distinguished official career, was advanced to the dignity of an earldom, and locally much regret was expressed that he did not take his second title from the town so long represented by his grandfather, his father, and himself. Had this been the case, the present Lord Chancellor, whose eldest son enjoys the courtesy title of Viscount Tiverton, must have looked elsewhere for a subsidiary territorial designation. The second Sir John Duntze lived at Tiverton in a large house, which he either erected or restored for himself in the centre of the town; and an old man named Court, who is still alive, but almost totally blind, told me a year or two since of a lively incident which he can remember as taking place in front of the floridly decorated mansion. The potwallopers of the place, he said, organized a torchlight procession, the principal feature of which was a cavalcade of four-and-twenty bedizened donkeys. The point could not be missed. The asses were aggressively emblematic of the “corporators,” and their riders of the family of which Lord Harrowby was the head.