But he was ambitious of political power for his sons; and he certainly strove to make the College a pocket-borough. This attempt brought about him a nest of hornets. The fact was, that bribery or intimidation, which might be used with hardly any risk in constituencies of ordinary electors, was sure to stumble upon some young gentleman of high character and independence among the Fellows or Scholars, and thus be exposed. On the other hand, the abuses tolerated by Andrews gave the new Provost a great power of intimidation, which he could have used very effectually. Fellows with wives and large families, who had broken their solemn engagement to celibacy, and resided outside the College, contrary to the Statutes, who, moreover, owed to the College large sums of money for the purchase of rooms, which they could not pay, were practically in the Provost’s hands. It is much to be regretted that when a layman, an outsider, and a public man chanced to be set over the Society, he did not take in hand thorough reforms on these all-important points--reforms which could hardly be expected from an old member of the Corporation, promoted after years of acquiescence or participation in the growing laxities of discipline. But the school in which Hutchinson was educated was even morally worse than that of the culpable Fellows. There must be substantial truth in the constant allegation, proved by two Parliamentary inquiries, that the Provost’s assertions of discipline were not just and uniform, but intended to promote his political power. Both in 1776 and in 1790, when Hutchinson secured the return of his elder and younger sons respectively by a very narrow majority, there were petitions against them on the ground of intimidation and bribery, and the evidence then given is the real ground of the severe judgment which the local historians have pronounced against the Provost. In the former petition his son was unseated; in the latter--remarkable for having Lord Edward Fitzgerald and the future Duke of Wellington among its members--the casting vote of the chairman saved the sitting member. The evidence in both cases is so very similar, that we cannot but wonder at the incaution of the Provost, who was probably saved from a second disgrace only by his personal influence with the Chairman of the Committee. In this latter case, however, Hutchinson disowned altogether the person who acted as go-between, and who made offers to the scholars. He was private tutor to the Provost’s family, but was dismissed, and excluded from the precincts of the College by order of the Visitors. The case is therefore strong against the Provost, though we should remember that in those days all Parliamentary elections in Ireland were carried on by similar means, and that bribery was only condemned by the law, not by the moral sense of the community.