Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster, who had established the dominant single interest in Caithness with his unopposed return in 1780, concluded from the canvass which he undertook in 1787 when he was sitting for Lostwithiel that he was certain of ‘an unanimous election whenever that event takes place’. Of the 23 voters on the roll at Michaelmas 1788 he was calculated by Lawrence Hill to command about 15; and he himself later observed:
Although there was no serious challenge in this period to the control exercised by John, 4th Earl of Bute (created Marquess in 1796), there is evidence that neglect temporarily made his command over the county less absolute than appears on paper. On 14 Apr. 1795, before taking up his embassy to Spain, Bute asked George Rose for a written promise of a pension for the wife of Professor James Young of Glasgow University, which ‘would in all probability command the next return’.
The contention between the Earls of Marchmont and Home for the county representation, which had given Berwickshire elections their bite for more than a generation, ended ostensibly in 1784. Thereafter, with Marchmont disdaining to take an interest and Home a minor, only echoes of it remained. Patrick Home of Wedderburn, the sitting Member returned by Henry Dundas who, with the Duke of Buccleuch, assumed the management of Lord Home’s interest, was warned in January 1788 that ‘the independent friends ... mean to try Sir Alexander Don against you’. His informant added:
Banffshire was dominated in the mid 1780s by James Duff, 2nd Earl Fife, whose family had enjoyed supremacy for some 60 years. Fife himself had won the Elginshire seat in 1784, turning over Banffshire to his illegitimate son Sir James Duff of Kinstair; as his influence extended also to Aberdeenshire and Elgin Burghs he was a major electoral force in north-east Scotland, where his chief rival was the 4th Duke of Gordon.
With one of the largest county electorates in Scotland, owing to competitive enrolment after 1779, Ayrshire was also one of the most keenly contested seats, even when the fictitious votes fell away after 1790. The Earl of Eglintoun retained the major interest, but he needed allies to carry the county, in which the Earls of Cassillis, Glencairn and Dumfries, Sir Adam Fergusson and Sir John Whitefoord also had considerable interests; but in which election contests were nevertheless decided by the ‘non-declarants’, the independent freeholders who might be swayed either way.
The 5th and 6th Dukes of Argyll maintained their family’s complete dominance in the county, which was not challenged in this period.
Under the terms of the electoral truce, negotiated in 1787 by Henry Dundas, between the 4th Duke of Gordon and the 2nd Earl Fife, who had been contending fiercely for supremacy in Aberdeenshire, the seat was allocated for the next general election to Dundas’s friend James Ferguson of Pitfour, the beaten candidate at the by-election of 1786.SRO GD51/1/198/1/2-4; NLS mss 5, ff. 16, 41; PRO 30/8/157, ff. 53, 59; H.
Since 1781 Edward Harley, 4th Earl of Oxford, having routed the rival interest of the Lewis family of Harpton Court after a 20-year struggle, had been unquestioned patron of the boroughs. His nominee Edward Lewis was, however, an opponent of Pitt’s administration, and the earl’s brother Thomas Harley prevailed on the dying peer to allow him to promote the candidature of his son-in-law Murray, who had in that Parliament supported Pitt and was duly adopted at Presteigne on 6 Apr. 1790.
Since 1780 Thomas Johnes, who had succeeded his father to the county seat, had held it without any further opposition from his principal rival, Walter Wilkins, the nabob purchaser of the Maesllwch estate. The fact that the lord lieutenant, Edward Harley, 4th Earl of Oxford, had fallen out with Wilkins reinforced Johnes’s position.Based on D. R. Ll. Adams, ‘Parl. Rep. Rad. 1536-1832’ (Univ. Wales M.A.
The borough of Pembroke had been the focus of the influence of the Owens of Orielton since the mid 17th century. It was on their doorstep and the corporation enfranchised voters in their interest only: the admission books were not even accessible to their opponents in the litigation that followed the contest of 1812. The Owens had not succeeded in their earlier attempts to disfranchise Wiston, the lesser contributory borough which was influenced by their enemy Lord Cawdor, lord of the manor by purchase from 1794, who at once created 600 burgesses. The Owens now did the same at Pembroke.
