The chief interests at Sandwich were those of the Administration, based on admiralty and customs patronage, and of the Oxendens, a neighbouring Whig family, who held one seat from 1713 to 1754. The other seat was usually filled by the secretary to the Admiralty.
Rye was managed by giving the corporation posts in the customs service, with which this stagnant port was well provided, having in 1729 a collector, a deputy collector, and twenty other officers.S. H. Nulle, The Duke of Newcastle, 40 n. 2. Under George I and George II the patronage was administered through Sir John Norris and Phillips Gybbon, who had been adopted by the corporation as their patrons, sharing the representation till their deaths in 1749 and 1762.
Under George I the New Romney corporation returned neighbouring Whig landowners without opposition. The first contest occurred in 1727, when one of the late Members, David Papillon, partnered by John Essington, defeated the other, Sir Robert Furnese, partnered by Sir Robert Austen, only to be unseated in favour of their opponents by the House of Commons on a petition alleging that the mayor, John Coates, as returning officer had
Hythe was controlled by the Duke of Dorset, lord warden of the Cinque Ports, who used the patronage of that office and of the Treasury to support his private interest.Namier & Brooke, i. 447. His son, the second Duke, wrote of Hythe to the Duke of Grafton in 1767:
My father for many years contested it while parties ran high, with the Tories of that place; he by degree established his interest in it, and the Whigs prevailed.Germain mss.
Under George I and George II Hastings was managed for the Government by the Duke of Newcastle, who used the Treasury patronage to support his private interest, as the owner of the castle, lordship, and rape of Hastings. From 1733 he employed as his local manager an influential member of the corporation, John Collier, who converted Hastings into a Treasury borough, where Newcastle nominated both Members so long as he remained in office.
The chief interests in Dover were those of the Whig corporation; of the Government, based on the local customs and admiralty services; of the Duke of Dorset, for most of the period lord warden of the Cinque Ports; and of two neighbouring rival Whig families, the Papillons and the Furneses. In 1715 Philip Papillon, who had sat for Dover since 1701, was returned unopposed with another Whig, Admiral Aylmer, M.P. Dover 1697-1713. On Aylmer’s death the Duke of Dorset put up George Berkeley, who wrote to his brother, then first lord of the Admiralty, August 1720:
In 1660 Winchelsea returned a local Presbyterian, Samuel Gott, who had sat as a recruiter for the borough, together with William Howard, an Anabaptist who had become a royalist plotter and was connected with the Ashburnhams. In 1661 the electorate accepted Sir Nicholas Crisp, a great London merchant, as the lord warden’s nominee. Returned with him was Francis Finch, a distant relative of the Earl of Winchilsea, the lord lieutenant.
Seaford was added to the confederation of the Cinque Ports by Henry VIII; but its representation would not have been restored by the Long Parliament if it had been easily controllable by the lord warden. Local interests were dominant, and the lord warden’s ‘nominations’ in 1661 and 1685 only confirmed them. In 1660 the borough returned Sir Thomas Dyke, a royalist sympathizer but no Cavalier, and George Parker, whose father had represented it until Pride’s Purge. The Parker interest appears to have lapsed in 1661, the family preferring to revive their long connexion with Hastings.
The strongest independent interests at Sandwich were enjoyed by the Oxenden and Thurbarne families, both country-oriented. Only in 1661 and 1685 did the Admiralty interest achieve success, and even in 1661 one of the government candidates was defeated by James Thurbarne, the town clerk. At the general election of 1660 the corporation rejected the nomination of the Hon. Edward Montagu by his cousin Admiral Edward Montagu I, and returned Thurbarne with Henry Oxenden, a neighbouring country gentleman.
Rye was a small, decayed fishing port with a tradition of religious radicalism derived from Walloon and Huguenot refugees. During the Interregnum Herbert Morley had established a strong interest there, and at the general election of 1660 the freemen duly returned him with his neighbour and kinsman William Hay.