II. General Elections

THE ELECTION OF 1790

An ‘Analysis of the House of Commons as it stood on the 1st of May 1788’, made for Lord North, divided the 558 Members as follows:

1. Crown	185
2. Mr Pitt	52
3. Mr Dundas	10
4. Lord Lansdown[e]	9
5. Lord Lonsdale	9
6. East Indians	15
7. Independent	108
8. Mr Fox	139
9. Lord North	17
10. Absentees etc.	14

 

About the same time, George Rose was assisting Pitt with an electoral survey in which the current state of the House was compared with the probable state of it at a future general election. Internal evidence shows that the survey was in Rose’s hands in June 1788. The analysis, modelled on John Robinson’s survey of 1783, has survived in fragments1 PRO 30/8/196 in which the conclusions with regard to support for the government are:

	Present				Future
	Pro	Con	H[opeful]	D[oubtful]	Pro	Con	H[opeful]	D[oubtful
English counties	42	29	1	8	35	30	4	11
Open boroughs, England	128	78	4	12	98	61	33	27
Close boroughs, England	97	50	6	19	99	47	5	24
Wales	8	10	0	4	9	7	3	3
Scotland	32	13	0	0	35	10	0	0
	307	180	11	43	276	155	45	65

 

By adding 23 ‘hopefuls’ to the future pros, 22 ‘hopefuls’ to the future cons and all the 65 ‘doubtfuls’ to the future cons, totals of 299 pro and 242 con were arrived at, accounting for 541 out of a House of 558.

This forecast was subsequently amended, apparently by William Wyndham Grenville, changes being made in three of the categories of constituencies:

	Pro	Con	Hopeful	Doubtful
Close English boroughs	99	43	7	23
Open English boroughs	93	68	38	31
Wales	10	7	4	3

 

giving fresh totals of 272 pro, 158 con, 53 hopeful and 68 doubtful; and when 26 hopefuls were added to the pros, and 27 to the cons, who were also awarded the 68 doubtfuls, the result was: 298 pro, 253 con, accounting for 551 out of a House of 558. The discrepancy between the two counts arose from the omission of two Welsh Members (for Brecon and Caernarvon Boroughs) on the first count who were included in the second, and the omission of eight Members for English open boroughs on the first count (York, Stafford, Old Sarum and Salisbury). The omission of five close borough Members and of two open borough Members on the second count explains the final shortfall. The universities were included among the open boroughs.

Another forecast from the same source, probably by William Wyndham Grenville, has the virtue of covering all 558 Members but is much more ambiguous in its conclusions. Indeed, it probably precedes the two above mentioned.

	Pro	Con	Hopeful	Doubtful	Total
English counties	32	30	6	12	80
Close boroughs	54	56	31	36	177
Open boroughs	67	79	52	34	232
Wales	6	16	1	1	24
Scotland	28	5	6	6	45
Total	187	186	96	89	558

 

With these forecasts are two break-downs of the analysis for English boroughs: a list of 116 open boroughs (including the two universities) accompanies the forecast just referred to; while a list of 89 close boroughs apparently applicable to Rose’s forecast survives, though without a total being given. The close borough list names the Members, the open borough list does not. The close borough list has reference to the present and the future, the open borough list seemingly only to the future. The close borough list also contains comments: 54 in Pitt’s hand name the patrons, while an additional 22 in George Rose’s hand name patrons and indicate in some cases the need for ‘communication to be had’ with them on the part of government. Pitt made a digest of patrons, evidently those who were prepared to place their seats at government’s disposal or return friends of the ministry. The list is as follows:

Lord Mount Edgcumbe	6	[Bossiney, Lostwithiel, Plympton]
Marquess of Buckingham	4	[Buckingham, St. Mawes]
Duke of Newcastle	4	[Boroughbridge]
Duke of Bridgwater	2	[Brackley]
Lord Eliot	6	[Grampound, Liskeard, St. Germans]
Lord Stafford	2	[Newcastle-under-Lyme]
Lord Weymouth	3	[Bath (1), Weobley]
Lord Camelford	2	[Old Sarum]
Lord Aylesbury	4	[Bedwyn, Marlborough]
Duke of Marlborough	3	[Heytesbury (1), Woodstock]
Duke of Grafton	2	[Thetford]
Duke of Rutland	2	[Bramber]
Mr Drake	2	[Amersham]
Lord Westmorland	2	[Lyme]
Lord Westcote	1	[Bewdley]
Mr Hooper	2	[Christchurch]
Mr Selwyn	2	[Ludgershall]
Lord Sydney	1	[Whitchurch]
Lady Irvine	2	[Horsham]
Dean of Exeter	2	[East Looe]
J. Buller	2	[West Looe]
Sir H. Burrard	2	[Lymington]
Sir J. Honywood	2	[Steyning]
Lord Exeter	2	[Stamford]
Mr Steward	4	[Weymouth and Melcombe Regis]
Duke of Chandos	1	[Winchester]
Lord Pembroke	2	[Wilton]
Mr Holmes	4	[Newport I.o.W., Yarmouth I.o.W.]
Mr Barrington	1	[Newtown I.o.W.]
Mr Bankes	1	[Corfe Castle]
Mr Bond	1	[Corfe Castle]
Mr Barne	1	[Dunwich]
Mr Praed	2	[St. Ives]
Duke of Dorset	2	[East Grinstead]
Mr Luttrell	2	[Minehead]
Sir T. Frankland	2	[Thirsk]
Sir H. Gough	1	[Bramber]
	85

 

Owing to changes of patronage in some of the boroughs, the list would have been partly obsolete by 1790.

The close boroughs listed are Aldborough, Amersham, Appleby, Ashburton, Banbury, Bere Alston, Bewdley, Bletchingley, Boroughbridge, Bossiney, Brackley, Bramber, Buckingham, Calne, Camelford, Castle Rising, Chipping Wycombe, Christchurch, Clitheroe, Cockermouth, Corfe Castle, Dartmouth, Downton, Droitwich, Dunwich, East Grinstead, East Looe, Eye, Fowey, Gatton, Grampound, Great Bedwyn, Haslemere, Heytesbury, Higham Ferrers, Horsham, Huntingdon, Knaresborough, Launceston, Liskeard, Lostwithiel, Ludgershall, Lyme Regis, Lymington, Malmesbury, Malton, Marlborough, Midhurst, Minehead, Mitchell, Morpeth, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Newport (Cornw.), Newport (I.o.W.), Newton, Newtown (I.o.W), New Woodstock, Northallerton, Okehampton, Old Sarum, Orford, Petersfield, Plympton Erle, Portsmouth, Queenborough, Reigate, Richmond, Ripon, St. Germans, St. Ives, St. Mawes, Saltash, Stamford, Steyning, Tamworth, Tavistock, Thetford, Thirsk, Tregony, Wareham, Wendover, Weobley, Westbury, West Looe, Weymouth and Melcome Regis, Whitchurch, Wilton, Winchester, and Yarmouth (I.o.W.). (89)

The list of open boroughs consists of Abingdon, Aldeburgh, Andover, Arundel, Aylesbury, Barnstaple, Bath, Bedford, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Beverley, Bishop’s Castle, Bodmin, Boston, Bridgnorth, Bridgwater, Bridport, Bristol, Bury St. Edmunds, Callington, Cambridge, Cambridge University, Canterbury, Carlisle, Chester, Chichester, Chippenham, Cirencester, Colchester, Coventry, Cricklade, Derby, Devizes, Dorchester, Dover, Durham, East Retford, Evesham, Exeter, Gloucester, Grantham, Great Grimsby, Great Marlow, Great Yarmouth, Guildford, Harwich, Hastings, Hedon, Helston, Hereford, Hertford, Hindon, Honiton, Hythe, Ilchester, Ipswich, King’s Lynn, Kingston-upon-Hull, Lancaster, Leicester, Leominster, Lewes, Lichfield, Lincoln, Liverpool, London, Ludlow, Maidstone, Maldon, Milborne Port, Monmouth, Newark, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, New Romney, New Shoreham, New Windsor, Northampton, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Oxford University, Penryn, Peterborough, Plymouth, Pontefract, Poole, Preston, Reading, Rochester, Rye, St. Albans, Salisbury, Sandwich, Scarborough, Seaford, Shaftesbury, Shrewsbury,. Southampton, Southwark, Stafford, Stockbridge, Sudbury, Taunton, Tewkesbury, Tiverton, Totnes, Truro, Wallingford, Warwick, Wells, Wenlock, Westminster, Wigan, Winchelsea, Wootton Bassett, Worcester and York. (116)

Again from the same source, but most probably of a date nearer to the general election of 1790, is a list attributed to Grenville of all constituencies in alphabetical order, categorized ‘remain for’, ‘remain against’, ‘may gain’, ‘may lose’, ‘sure gain’, ‘sure loss’ or ‘doubtful’. Numbers only are given, and the computation is as follows:

Remain for 208, remain against 151

Remain doubtful 14, may gain 37, may loe 45

Sure to gain 5, sure to lose 6, uncertain 43

This computation was then further amended:

Remain for	208	Remain against	151
Omitted in Grenville’s list:		Omitted in Grenville’s list:
St. Albans	1	Cricklade	1
Cricklade	1
Helston	1
Half the remain doubtful	7	Half the remain doubtful	7
May gain	37	May lose	45
Sure gain	6	Sure loss	5
Half the uncertain	21	Half the uncertain	22
Scotland remain for	35	Scotland remain against	10
Total	317		241

 

A fresh analysis revealed that five Members listed ‘remain for’ ought to have been listed ‘against’ while 26 listed ‘remain against’ should have been ‘for’; that of the 14 ‘remain doubtful’ six ought to have been added to the ‘for’; that of the 37 ‘may gain’, 14 should have been added to the ‘against’; that of the 45 ‘may lose’, 16 ought to have been added to the ‘for’; that of the 43 ‘uncertain’, 15 should have been added to the ‘for’. The final adjustment was:

Remain for	211	Remain against	152
Deduct	5	Deduct	26
Total	206		126
Add of the 14 which remain doubtful	6	Add of the 8 which remain doubtful	4
Half the remainder	4	May lose 45 deduct 16	29
Add of the may lose	16	Sure loss	5
Add of the uncertain	15	May gain	14
Half the remainder of uncertain	14	Half of the uncertain	14
Sure gain	6	Scotland	10
May gain 37 deduct 14	23
Scotland	35
	325		202
Add of those which are included in the remain against	26	Add of those which are included in the remain for	5
Total	351		207

 

Given the fragmentary nature of this surviving evidence of the Pitt ministry’s efforts to anticipate the result of the general election, it is the less surprising that evidence of their plan of campaign is equally inadequate. There is a list in the Chatham papers of some 70 constituencies against 56 of which the names of persons with whom government had presumably had communication as to the return are noted: but it is a memorandum and not a systematic list.

The timing of the general election had been a matter of much speculation. As indicated, government had surveyed their electoral prospects in the summer of 1788, and at that time Lord Downe, a Whig, assured Earl Fitzwilliam that government were ready for a dissolution the following spring and had the writs prepared, so that it could be done at short notice. Evidence of ministerial canvassing seemed at first to Fitzwilliam to confirm this view; but doubts soon arose in the Whig camp about it. The King’s illness intervened, in any case. The discomfiture of the Whigs over his recovery when they had banked on a Regency to establish them in power, which would in itself have necessitated a dissolution, led them to suppose that Pitt would push home his advantage by dissolving in the spring of 1789. On 6 Apr. a Whig correspondent wrote: ‘the Treasury has desired their friends to prepare’, but by August the belief that an election would take place that year had disappeared. Nevertheless candidates announced themselves in a number of constituencies that autumn. On 3 Jan. 1790 Pitt assured Sir Archibald Macdonald, the attorney-general, ‘that the ground laid for the general election was very firm and solid, and although it cannot but happen in the course of some years that some persons will be discontented, yet he thinks upon the whole he shall not only not lose, but actually gain’.

After the Regency crisis Pitt had every reason to bide his time so as to encourage deserters, waverers and neutrals who had looked to the reversionary interest of the Prince of Wales to return to their allegiance. The Treasury election forecasts indicate that the recovery of the interests of the Earl of Lonsdale and the Duke of Northumberland increased their confidence of a healthy majority. The dissolution of the Irish parliament in April 1790 did nothing to diminish the momentum of election excitement. On 3 Apr. Lt.-Gen. Grant informed Lord Cornwallis in India:

The popularity of the King and his minister will operate strongly at the general election. The friends of administration say that the ministers, when the new parliament meets, will be stronger by sixty. Opposition, on the contrary, insist that they will carry twenty additional friends. In Scotland the opposition will certainly lose considerably.

George Rose wrote on 25 May: ‘Our prospect of the next Parliament rather improves than falls off, and I have not a shadow of doubt but that we shall be much stronger than we are now’. When the dissolution took place on 11 June 1790, ‘to accommodate the judges, for as the writs will be returnable in 42 days, the new election will not interfere with the autumn assizes’, the Whigs were more or less prepared for it.

Since George III’s dismissal of the Fox-North coalition in 1783 and their ensuing discomfiture at the general election of 1784, the Whigs had, in response to their critical plight, applied themselves to party organization to an extent that would enable them to consider themselves as an alternative government in the event of a Regency. Their leader the Duke of Portland provided a focus for opposition activity at Burlington House, superintending publicity, and late in 1788 William Adam, for whom the office of patronage secretary to the Treasury had been earmarked if the Regency should bring the Whigs to power, became his lieutenant in mounting the Whig election campaign. This involved raising funds, encouraging public debate, issuing propaganda, and forming a liaison with local supporters in as many constituencies as possible throughout the land: they communicated their hopes and fears to Burlington House and were advised and guided as the dissolution loomed. The sounding board of Whig principles, significantly, was not Burlington House but the Whig Club, set up in May 1784 to promote the cause of Charles James Fox, the party’s champion in the House of Commons, in his constituency of Westminster. This Club had called into being a number of imitative Whig clubs elsewhere, including Ireland and Scotland (though in the latter country the founders in 1785 discreetly styled themselves the Independent Friends). The clubs endorsed opposition’s parliamentary campaign, rather than initiating it. That campaign had not achieved popularity during the Parliament of 1784. There were some successes: Fox had retained his seat for Westminster in the face of a ministerial vendetta and secured a Whig colleague for himself in the contest of 1788, the centenary of the Glorious Revolution; on Pitt’s proposals for a commercial treaty with Ireland and on the shop tax, opposition had successfully obstructed government. But in other respects they had been out-manoeuvred by Pitt, who did not let them monopolize the causes of parliamentary reform, the impeachment of Warren Hastings for maladministration in India or slave trade abolition, and who prided himself on his ability to ‘unwhig’ their champion when Fox called for an unrestricted Regency. Thus were the Whigs to be exposed as a power-seeking faction. In the spring of 1790 Pitt was strong enough to abandon to Fox the cause of dissenters disabilities, doubtless not sharing Fox’s view that there was capital to be made out of it electorally: the cause was significantly damaged by the growing alarm of the Whig high priest, Edmund Burke, at the enthusiasm expressed by advanced dissenters on the outbreak of the French Revolution. Differences of opinion among the Whigs as to tactics during the Regency crisis were not healed by division on the dissenting question and on parliamentary reform early in 1790, even before the full impact of the French Revolution had been felt; and the strides made in party organization were not matched in terms of political identification. The party colours, buff and blue, those of George Washington’s regiment, proclaimed Whig alienation without blazoning their future course.

Moreover Whig organization for the general election had certain limitations. It by no means pretended to cover the whole country: no systematic survey was made, except for Scotland, where Lawrence Hill WS placed an analysis of the voters in every county (the total did not exceed 2,600) in the hands of Henry Erskine and William Adam: they gave him every encouragement, but the scheme was his own. Otherwise, Whig electoral activity related largely to those areas where Whig magnates held sway, or could hope to manipulate the returns. It is true that the leadership did not merely rely on reports from local supporters: they employed a few agents. J. Jackman, for instance, compiled a survey of four of the Cinque Ports constituencies, where the Whigs had few prospects, as to ‘what can, and what cannot be done’: in fact, nothing was done. Nor did the Whigs direct their publicity towards contests in given constituencies. The pocket boroughs of their magnates were not a matter for discussion, except where, as in the case of the Duke of Bedford at Okehampton, the patron asked for a short list of potential candidates because he had none of his own in mind. According to Professor Ginter’s analysis2Ginter, Whig Organization in the Election of 1790. of William Adam’s election correspondence, 83 constituencies throughout the land (including 17 in Scotland and three in Wales) were involved, 18 of them being counties; in 37 cases candidates or local patrons drew the leadership’s attention to them, while in the 46 others interest was sponsored by the leadership and its provincial associates. In 43 of the constituencies the leadership attempted to provide candidates, or gave its blessing to aspiring candidates, while in eight others the leadership agreed to cover part of the cost out of election funds. In ten more the leadership offered mediation or an agent’s assistance, in 16 others assisted in the canvass, and only in six declined an interest or could do nothing. There was a list of 57 persons wanting seats to draw on for candidates: at least eight were willing to pay £4,000 to £4,500 for a seat; and at least four others £3,500; 16 of these were supplied with one in 1790 or soon afterwards (John Anstruther, Wilson Braddyll, Lord Downe, Sir Gilbert Elliot, Welbore Ellis, Philip Francis, Thomas Grenville, Lord Grey, Stephen Lushington, Lord Melbourne, Lord Palmerston, John Hayes St. Leger, Lord Robert Spencer, John Tarleton, Thomas Thompson and Lord Titchfield); and some 11 or 12 more eventually found seats, though not all on the Whig interest. Twelve others, Sir Grey Cooper, Edward Cotsford, Sir William Augustus Cunynghame, Charles Francis Greville, Edward Morant, John Ord, George Osbaldeston, Sir Peter Parker, William Popham, John Purling, Thomas Scott and William Wrightson, deprived of the seats they had held in the previous Parliament, never again found one, but most of these were veterans.

The raising of party funds by subscription was of material assistance to Whig election efforts. The general party fund, devoted mostly to newspapers, which had been started some eight years before and raised over £1,000 a year, was not intended to be applied to election expenses, though it placed the Morning Chronicle and Morning Post at the service of the party; but the cost of the scrutiny of Fox’s return in 1784 and, more significantly, the great expense of securing Lord John Townshend’s return for Westminster in 1788 had provoked a special subscription which paid off these expenses within two years. Another general election subscription was raised from July 1789 to which the Whig magnates were the principal contributors: it aimed at £20,000.

The progress made by the Whig opposition in organizing for the election was not, and did not need to be countered by Pitt’s administration. The systematic scrutiny undertaken for government by John Robinson, secretary to the Treasury, in 1784 was not matched by the efforts of George Rose and his associates in 1790, though the techniques developed by government over several decades were toyed with. Except in Scotland, where Henry Dundas tightened his hold, Pitt’s sanguine temper prevailed and surviving evidence of government superintendence does not suggest a fierce effort. Whereas the Whig election correspondence in question covered 83 seats, a government list intended evidently to match candidates with constituencies covered 70 seats. Government was more sure of its ground and expenditure out of the secret service fund was not great. A digest of it would run as follows:

PRO 30/8/229

		£	s.	d.
f. 272	Robert Smith received from Pitt, 19 Nov.1790 [presumably for the Leicester election]	5,000	0	0
f. 352	Edmund Estcourt received, 19 Mar. 1792, on account of the Malmesbury election	269	17	0
ff. 318 327	Dean Buller of Canterbury received for East Looe (expenses for the whole Parliament)	900	0	0
ff. 168, 258, 273, 333, 344,350	William Wellesley Pole received from Long and Rose for the Grimsby election	1,725	19	0
f. 318	Still due to Mr Pybus, June 1791, for the Dover election	1,500	0	0
f. 289	Mr Carpenter received, 17 Mar. 1791, for expenses at the Camelford election	68	0	0
ff. 253, 273	William Shirreff and George Rose’s expenses for Hampshire	1,055	10	2
f. 153	Alexander Catmur received, 29 Sept. 1792, on account of the Maidstone nomination	100	0	0
ff. 255, 273	F. Luttrell received, 21 Jan. 1791, for his brother on account of Lord Parker’s return for Minehead	2,000	0	0
ff. 259, 273	R. Manners received, 2 Nov. 1790, on account of Northampton	94	0	0
f. 267	C. Balfour’s expenses, 7 Mar. 1791, at Wendover and East Retford	139	15	0
ff. 24, 250, 273	F. M. Slade’s expenses, 2 Dec. 1790, 14 Apr. 1791, at the Rochester election	451	6	4
ff. 251, 352	Edmund Estcourt, 15 Aug. 1790, 19 Mar. 1792, on acccount of Bond Hopkins’ expenses at Stafford	286	0	0
ff. 272, 273	Edmund Estcourt from Rose ‘in full for my journeys and expenses previous to the last election and for other law business done for him’	273	0	0
ff. 257, 273, 318, 320	W. C. Finch, 3 Feb., 17 May 1791, for expenses for Surrey	4,548	17	0
f. 273	Mr Townson received, 28 Feb. 1791, for the Okehampton petition	500	0	0
Total		19,139	4	6

 

There is reason for supposing that this secret service list does not account for all expenditure on elections by government: for instance, in the case of W.C. Finch’s receipts for Surrey, while two payments of £500 and £1,288 17 s. are itemized, we are informed that the total he received was £4,548 17 s. The totals in other cases are obtained by additions of itemized expenses received and not by statements in the original source as to the totals received. If Finch’s case was in any way typical, the expenditure would have amounted in all to about £40,000, compared with about £32,000 spent on the election of 1784. The Public Advertiser, 12 June 1790, stated: ‘The circulation of money on every general election, is calculated at two millions of pounds sterling. In times of great contest, the expenses have verged towards three millions.’

On 15 June it reported that ‘nearly three millions’ had been withdrawn ‘for electioneering purposes’. The newspaper celebrated the essential drama of the occasion:

On Thursday near 200 more Members of the expiring Senate set off express for the country, in order to court their constituents to a re-election of them to the new Parliament. War, famine, or pestilence, could not thin the town so fast as the dissolution has done within these three days.

All will now soon be hurry and bustle through the country—candidates driving here—electors running there—compliments flying on this side—lies on that—revilings and slanderings on another—balls for the ladies—dinners for the gentlemen—post horses dropping down dead—the roads covered with dust—the inns filled with people—congées, smiles, bows, and the long et cetera of canvassing ceremonies, with many a palpitating heart hid under a smiling face. This is a General Election.

The same newspaper on 14 June measured the difference between ideal and reality: ‘What will foreigners say to the freedom of election, that boast of Englishmen, when they read of compromises, agreements, returns of one and one, purchases of boroughs etc. etc. throughout the kingdom?’ In even more cynical vein, it added ‘Two minutes’ advice to expectant candidates’ on ‘how to begin your addresses’:

To the worthy and independent, etc.—always remember this last word Gentlemen,

Conscious as I am—or Perfectly sensible—or In full confidence—or Flattered by your support—or I flatter myself—or Firmly relying—or Abundantly sensible, as I am—or I am well assured—or I throw myself upon you—or Highly honoured as I am—or, Very proud as I shall be—So much for the beginning—next give a good character of yourself—and mention all the great things you have done—the speeches you have made—and the wonderful effects produced. Then conclude with an appeal to God—your conscience—the parliamentary debates—your general conduct—your warm feelings—or anything else that cannot be produced in evidence—and depart with a flourish.

I am, with most perfect submission, devotion, gratitude, humility, obedience, obligation, your most submissive, most devoted, most grateful, most humble, most obedient, and obliged, very faithful servant.

Further skits on ‘election vocabulary’ followed. On 15 June Stockdale advertised the publication of

The Members and Electors’ Useful Companion for the Present General Election, divided into four columns, the first column containing an alphabetical list of the boroughs etc. of Great Britain; the second the right of election and number of voters; the third, a list of the late Members; and fourth, a blank column for the new elected Members.

The division on the Regency, 16 Dec. 1788, was thrown in, as an indication of Members’ politics.

Writs were issued on 12 June for return on 10 Aug. 1790. No contemporary statement attempted exactness as to the result. The House could still not be polarized into government and opposition. In May 1788 a ‘third party’ project involving over 40 members of the House of Commons and a number of peers had proclaimed their independence of ‘Mr Pitt and Mr Fox and their adherents ... for the purpose of preventing the crown from being too much in the power ... of the two other parties who are contending for the government of the country’. The excitement of the Regency crisis had dished this project, but it testified to a wish for independence that continued to characterize a respectable minority of the House throughout the period. In 1788 their strength had been estimated at 108. The Public Advertiser, 11 June 1790, quoted a correspondent as hoping that ‘the electors at large’ would choose men with ‘the characters of good men and true—neither to be awed by ministerial influence, nor bullied by opposition. Had there not been a majority of upright men in the last Parliament, what would have been the fate of King and People?’.

Pitt informed Edward Eliot, 9 July 1790: ‘if the Scotch elections go as we have reason to expect, I think our whole force will be towards 340, Opposition about 190 and the remainder neutral or doubtful’. This leaves a ‘remainder’ of only 28, which posits a marked degree of polarization. To Lady Chatham, Pitt wrote of ‘not above 3 or 4 instances of disappointment, which are counterbalanced by success in other quarters which we hardly expected, and upon the whole I have no doubt of our being considerably stronger than in the last Parliament’. George Rose wrote of ‘between 20 and 30 more determined friends than in the last’. The Public Advertiser, 21 June 1790, reported the election as running ‘much in favour of the minister’ to date and on 26 June added ‘Administration certainly gains an additional number of Members on their side by the present elections’. If appearance in the opposition lobby in any division within the Parliament is taken as a yardstick, the opposition dropped from a potential of 229 in that of 1784 to 193 in that of 1790, but this does not seem conclusive. The best muster of parties in any one division in the Parliament of 1790 was on the Oczakov question, 12 Apr. 1791, when the voting was 252 to 172: nearly a quarter of the House did not vote. It seems that the ministers anticipated more recruits from the ranks of the uncommitted than they in fact obtained; and their language does not succinctly claim gains from the Whigs. ‘Never were cracked crowns and bloody noses so scarce before at a general election’, opined the Public Advertiser, 26 June 1790, and on 2 July it explained: ‘Though in many places the contests have been violent, an unusual degree of temper and decorum have been preserved among the friends of the contending parties’.

In 1790 there were in all 92 contests: eight in English counties; 66 in the English boroughs; only one in Wales; one in the two universities; nine in the Scottish counties and seven in the Scottish burghs. There had been 87 in 1784 (including four in the Scottish burghs, which were omitted from the calculation in the 1754-90 section of the History), when seven English counties and 65 English boroughs were contested, one university, one Welsh borough, one Welsh county, and eight Scottish counties. So it was in Scotland that the greatest increase in contests occurred. Even so, the record number of contests in 1774 was not matched (there were then at least 102 in all), nor was it to be surpassed, even after the addition of Irish representation in 1801, until the election of 1818.

The English counties contested in 1790 were Cornwall, Devon, Durham, Hampshire, Hertford, Kent, Suffolk and Surrey. Of these only Hertford and Suffolk were among the seven county contests of 1784. Government regained one seat in Cornwall, where one of the sitting Members who had deserted them on the Regency, Molesworth, retired and there were two Whig candidates. In Devon a Whig contender was trounced in two days, but in Durham the sitting Whig Member Sir John Eden held out for ten days before conceding victory to new candidates, one ministerialist and one Whig. As the retiring Member Clavering had been at best an absentee friend of government, Pitt thus gained an active supporter in Burdon. The contest was believed to be the most expensive of the whole election and spelled ultimate ruin for the victors. In Hertfordshire, on the other hand, there was a Whig triumph, or revenge: ‘the most brilliant event’ was how the Duke of Portland described the success of Plumer and Baker, the latter’s a gain. It was offset by their disappointment in Hampshire where one of the sitting Members had deserted them and the other, in conjunction with the Duke of Bedford’s brother, was defeated. This was certainly a contest in which government (notably through George Rose himself) exerted itself for its favourites. It was supposed to have cost £40,000 to each side; and the Duke of Bedford lost a £5,000 bet on his brother’s success, though his ‘aristocratic’ intervention was one of the alleged reasons for the fiasco. In Kent, government gained a firm friend in Knatchbull who came to terms with the Whig Honywood to keep out the independent Marsham, in defiance of the custom that one Member should represent the east and the other the west of the county: both were now from the east. In Suffolk a compromise between a friend of government, Sir John Rous, and a Whig seeking to regain his seat, Sir Thomas Charles Bunbury, was ineffectively challenged by Sir Gerard Vanneck, who appealed to the dissenting vote. Vanneck gave up after two days and Bunbury’s return represented a Whig gain. In Surrey, government secured a firm friend in Finch, whose expenses they helped pay, and ousted Sir Joseph Mawbey, a veteran radical turned Pittite whom they evidently did not trust. It will be noted that of these eight contests, only that for Hampshire was an all-out fight between government and opposition. Government lost two men and gained one outright. They acquired two more active supporters, one in place of a deserter on the Regency, one from an independent, and substituted a friend for a Whig renegade.

In the 32 counties that did not go to the poll, the Whigs, as ministers expected, regained a seat in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Middlesex and Norfolk, where they had met with débacles in 1784, though in the case of Norfolk the ousted Member, Sir Edward Astley, had veered to them since 1788. Thomas William Coke, the successful Whig, had had the freeholders of the county mapped by Humphrey Repton the landscape gardener in 1788 and would have liked to carry a colleague. Elsewhere there was no political change, only a change of Members: Pitt’s gains were made in contests only. The outcome was that 41 friends of Pitt’s administration, 32 friends of opposition, and seven Members who can only be characterized as independent sat in the Parliament of 1790. There were 21 new Members out of 80, though eight of them had been Members before, while seven of the 60 Members re-elected had been returned for their counties during the course of the previous Parliament. Only three of the displaced Members entered Parliament subsequently (Aubrey, William Lowther and Lord Charles Spencer). In 1784, when Pitt gained 12 county seats, he had 48 supporters, the Whigs 29, with three doubtful. The Treasury forecast of 1788 calculated (without specifying names) 42 pro, 29 con, one hopeful and eight doubtful at that time; and at a future election, 35 pro, 30 con, four hopeful and 11 doubtful. This would appear to have been somewhat pessimistic, but it shows that the ministry expected losses in the counties. The following counties returned two Whigs: Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, Northumberland and Nottinghamshire; while two friends of Pitt were returned by Cambridgeshire, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Shropshire, Yorkshire and Westmorland. Both Warwickshire representatives were independent. Otherwise the counties compromised, some by time-honoured agreement.

There were 66 contests in the English boroughs: 39 in the 91 freeman boroughs, 13 in the 37 scot and lot boroughs, six in the 13 householder boroughs, three in the 25 corporation boroughs, three in the seven freeholder boroughs and two in the 30 burgage boroughs. If the boroughs as a whole are divided into large (1,000 or more voters), medium (500-1,000 voters), and small (less than 500 voters), the break-down is:

21 contests in 32 large boroughs (26 freeman; 2 householder; 2 freeholder; scat and lot)

19 contests in 32 medium boroughs (21 freeman; 4 householder; 1 freeholder; 6 scot and lot)

26 contests in 139 small boroughs (44 freeman; all 29 burgage boroughs; all 26 corporation boroughs; 29 scot and lot; 7 householder; 4 freeholder)

If the small boroughs are subdivided into those with 200-500 voters and those with fewer than 200 voters, it emerges that ten of the 22 contests took place in the 25 boroughs of the first category (which included 15 scot and lot, 5 freeman, 1 burgage, 1 freeholder and 3 householder boroughs).

It may be noted that there were 20 contests in the 32 large boroughs in 1784 and 21 in 1790; and that of the 27 boroughs which remained in this category as compared with the previous period, 15 were contested both times. All were classified ‘open’ in the Treasury forecast. Durham, Hereford, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Oxford, Southwark and Gloucester were not contested at either general election, though the last two had meanwhile been contested at by-elections. Newly contested were Bedford, Great Yarmouth, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham and Worcester, none of which had seen a poll more recently than 1780. Six of the boroughs compromised politically and averted a contest; as did Bristol and Great Yarmouth, where there were token contests; and Westminster, where the compromise was resented.

The contests led to the ministry’s gaining both seats at Colchester, one each in London and Westminster, and one at Lancaster; while the opposition gained one at Bedford (where Whitbread junior supplanted his father), one at Beverley, one at Northampton, one at Great Yarmouth, one at Leicester, the scene of the rowdiest contest, and one at Liverpool. So in these contests the honours were nearly even, with the opposition making up for the debacles they had suffered in 1784 in some boroughs, only to lose others. At Exeter, too, they could no longer count on one of the Members. In the uncontested large boroughs, while ministers gained one at Berwick, opposition gained one at Hull and York. In all, Pitt appears to have acquired 39 supporters, opposition 25, while two Members have to be regarded as independent (Buller of Exeter and Wigley of Worcester).

In the 32 medium boroughs, where there were 19 contests, 13 of them had been contested in 1784, but nine had known no poll at a general election since 1780. Of the three classified as ‘close’ by the Treasury (Newcastle-under-Lyme, Stamford and Weymouth) the first only was contested, to no effect. Seven others compromised politically without going to a poll. In the contests, ministers gained two at Carlisle (pending a petition which led to their losing both); opposition gained one at Evesham, one at Sandwich and both at Sudbury, while at Ipswich ministers had to reckon with one independent Member in place of a friend. In the uncontested boroughs, ministers gained two at Warwick, and, thanks to a change of patronage, three at Weymouth. Pitt could count in all on 42 friends and 18 opponents in these constituencies, while five more Members can best be described as independent.

Of the 139 small boroughs, only 26 were contested, and ten of the contests took place in the 25 largest (12 of which were contested in 1784). Seven of these compromised politically without a poll. In the seven classified as ‘close’ by the Treasury (Malton, Minehead, Okehampton, Reigate, Richmond, St. Ives and Tamworth) there was only one contest, at Okehampton. These ten contests led to a gain for ministers at Dorchester and a loss to opposition at Okehampton and Ilchester. In the 15 uncontested boroughs in this group, as well as a potential loss to an independent at King’s Lynn, ministers lost one at Great Marlow, but gained one at Arundel, Bridport and Penryn. In the remaining 114 small boroughs, those with fewer than 200 voters, there were only 16 contests (Bath, Bodmin, Chipping Wycombe, Dartmouth, Downton, Fowey, Guildford, Helston, Horsham, Ludgershall, Plymouth, Poole, Queenborough, Seaford, Steyning, and Stockbridge). They resulted in a gain for ministers at Bath, Downton, Guildford, Plymouth and Poole, and in opposition gains at Chipping Wycombe, Helston and (temporarily) both seats at Horsham and Steyning, while at Stockbridge ministers could now count on neither Member. In the uncontested boroughs in this group, Pitt gained supporters at Bere Alston, Bishop’s Castle, Christchurch, Clitheroe, East Retford, Saltash, Scarborough, Tregony (both) and Winchelsea. Opposition made gains at Camelford, Cockermouth, Gatton, Launceston, Maldon, Midhurst, Portsmouth and Thetford. In all, it seems that the 139 small boroughs provided Pitt with 167 supporters, opposition with 93, with 11 independent and three doubtful.

The two universities, of which Cambridge was contested, saw no change: three ministerialists and one independent were returned. In Wales only one of the 24 seats was contested—New Radnor Boroughs. Government gained one there and one in Cardiff and in Caernarvon Boroughs; otherwise there was no change. Ministers now had 12 friends, opposition eight, with three independent and one doubtful. In Scotland nine of the 27 counties and seven of the 18 burgh constituencies were contested, which marks an increase compared with 1784, when eight counties and four burghs were contested. As a result, ministers could expect support from 36 out of 45 Members, opposition from six with one independent and two doubtful. Opposition expected to be reduced to ten, but fared even worse.

In 1790 177 Members were not returned for the same English borough constituency as in 1784, 82 of them never again entered the House, while the rest either found seats elsewhere in 1790 or subsequently. The following, who never returned to Parliament, gave up their seats after becoming politically unreliable during the Regency crisis: William Clayton (Marlow), Sir George Collier (Honiton), Robert Kingsmill (Tregony), Charles Edmund Nugent (Buckingham) and Sir Peter Parker (Maldon). Others, George Osbaldeston (Scarborough), Sir Robert Smyth (Colchester) and Lord Westcote (Bewdley), had turned coat before. Other turncoats such as Lord Malden, Humphrey Minchin and Charles Stuart found seats elsewhere.

How did the results compare with Treasury forecasts? In the 40 English counties the adjustment made to the forecast before the election proved entirely right in 19 cases, and more or less right in another nine. In Berkshire one seat was lost, where ‘may lose two’ was forecast; in Herefordshire the amendment ‘may lose one’ proved unnecesssary; in Hertfordshire the hope of holding one seat proved false; in Kent the gain of a seat was evidently unexpected. Neither in Northamptonshire nor in Rutland were there the anticipated gains. In Hampshire there were two gains, and not just one, and opposition retained a seat for Surrey, contrary to Treasury hopes. In Monmouthshire it seems that John Morgan was expected to rally to ministers from his defection: his state of health rendered the result ambiguous, and there is no evidence that he did so. It is puzzling that ministers thought they might lose one for Somerset, and both for Yorkshire; while in Westmorland, where they had at first reckoned ‘two against’ and changed the forecast to ‘two for’, Lord Lonsdale’s rallying to government seems insufficient to account for the forecast, as only one of the two Members was his man.

As for the boroughs, the forecasts, classified it will be recalled as to open and close boroughs, were less accurate, and do not seem to have taken into account developments just before the election: at least, some of the predictions can only be interpreted in that light. In the 32 large boroughs 15 forecasts proved accurate. The loss of a seat at Bedford, Beverley and Hull was not forecast; one, and not as hoped both seats, was won at Berwick, Bristol and Great Yarmouth and there was no gain of a seat at Norwich. On the other hand, there was no loss of a seat at Chester, Cricklade, Lancaster or London, and there was an unexpected retention of both for Cricklade, Southwark and Worcester, and one for Westminster; and an unexpected gain at Oxford, though at Exeter the supposed gain proved dubious. Preston, reckoned doubtful as to both, compromised politically. In the 32 medium boroughs, Treasury forecasts proved accurate in 16 cases, and more or less so in four more. The greatest disappointments were at Sudbury where both seats were lost against their hopes; at Sandwich where one was lost, and at Cirencester, St. Albans and Stafford where there was no gain. On the other hand, there proved to be no ground for doubts about both seats at Leominster and Maidstone, or one at Boston, Pontefract, Reading and Rochester, while Carlisle carried two friends contrary to expectation, though only temporarily. In the 139 small boroughs, among the largest 25 it would appear that the Treasury calculated rightly in 16 cases. They need have had no doubts about a friend’s return for one seat at Barnstaple, Great Marlow, Honiton and Shaftesbury; and they unexpectedly gained one at Arundel, Bridgwater, Dorchester and Wootton Bassett, losing one against their expectations only at Ilchester. In the 114 boroughs with fewer than 200 voters, the Treasury could expect a higher degree of accuracy, provided they were sure of the patrons’ attitudes: 79 of the 89 boroughs they classified as close fell into this category. Of the 39 freeman boroughs included in it, they forecast accurately the results in 27. Their friends were returned (in one case against expectations) at Bishop’s Castle, East Retford, Hythe, Poole and Queenborough; and despite their doubts, for both seats at Dartmouth and one at Guildford. They were, in the event, disappointed about one Member at Bossiney, Maldon, Portsmouth and Wycombe, and both at Camelford. Of the 28 burgage boroughs included, they forecast the result in 17 or 18 cases: they were disappointed over both seats (temporarily) at Horsham, and possibly at Newport (Cornwall), and one at Cockermouth, but did better than they expected at Boroughbridge, Castle Rising, Clitheroe, Downton and Westbury as to one seat, and at Appleby and Saltash as to both. In the 26 corporation boroughs, the Treasury forecast 18 results; were over-optimistic about Bodmin, Caine, Helston, Newport (Isle of Wight) and Thetford; and over-pessimistic about Malmesbury, Newton and Tiverton. In the 14 smallest scot and lot boroughs, the Treasury forecast 12 results—they need not have feared that an enemy would be returned for Fowey, but they temporarily lost both seats for Steyning. They were on the right lines in their forecasts for the three smallest freeholder boroughs, and right about two of the four smallest householder boroughs, Wendover (of which they were in doubt) going against them, but Tregony, through a change of patronage, providing them with two gains. The results for the two universities were more or less as expected. In Wales, 21 out of 24 forecasts proved substantially correct: the hope of gaining Cardiganshire proved false, and their doubts about Carmarthenshire and New Radnor Boroughs groundless. In Scotland the result exceeded government’s hopes: they hoped for 35 and got 36 supporters; while opposition did not get the ten predicted by government and by themselves, but four staunch and two temporary supporters, with one independent (Sir John Sinclair) and two doubtful. At the dissolution they had 26 supporters with two penitent deserters; opposition had 15; there was one doubtful and one independent.

SUMMARY OF RESULTS 1790

	Ministers	Opposition	Independent	Doubtful
English counties	41	32	7	0
English boroughs	248	136	18	3
Universities	3	0	1	0
Welsh counties	5	4	2	1
Welsh boroughs	7	5	0	0
Scotland	36	6	1	2
Total	340	183	29	6

 

ENGLISH BOROUGH RESULTS ANALYZED BY FRANCHISE

	Ministers	Opposition	Independent	Doubtful
Burgage (60 seats)	36	22	2	0
Freeman (181 seats)	102	70	7	2
Corporation (49 seats)	30	14	5	0
Scot and lot (73 seats)	48	21	4	0
Freeholder (16 seats)	13	2	0	1
Householder (26 seats)	19	7	0	0
Total	248	136	18	3

 

ENGLISH BOROUGH RESULTS ANALYZED BY SIZE

	Ministers	Opposition	Independent	Doubtful
Large (66 seats)	39	25	2	0
Medium (65 seats)	42	18	5	0
Small (274 seats)	167	93	11	3
Total	248	136	18	3

 

Petitions were presented to the House against the returns of 1790 in 39 cases: Barnstaple, Bedford, Bodmin, Boston, Carlisle, Cirencester, Colchester, Cricklade, Dartmouth, Dorchester, Downton, Dumfries Burghs, Exeter, Fowey, Great Grimsby, Haddington Burghs, Helston, Honiton, Horsham, Leominster, Ludgershall, Newark, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Okehampton, Orkney, Plymouth, Pontefract, Poole, Radnorshire, Roxburghshire, Seaford, Shaftesbury, Steyning, Stirlingshire, Stockbridge, Sudbury, Sutherland, Taunton and Westminster. The irregularities alleged involved the legality of votes and/or the right of election in 29 constituencies; the legality of procedure in 11 and the legality of the returning officer in five (three in cases of a double return, viz. Fowey, Helston and Okehampton); bribery, treating or corruption in 26; intimidation in five (that for Westminster alleged violence and murder); the ineligibility of a successful candidate in five; undue influence in one, and an illegal contract in one. Of the eight rejected as ‘frivolous and vexatious’ that of John Horne Tooke was outstanding, being a manifesto in favour of parliamentary reform, in which he complained that the cost of an unfinished election scrutiny at Westminster had proved greater than what appeared ‘by some late proceedings in Chancery, to be the allowed average price of a perpetual seat in the House of Commons, where seats for legislation are as notoriously rented and bought as the standing for cattle at a fair’. He alleged that in his constituency 17,291 unrepresented rated householders contributed more than those who sent 100 Members to the House.

Apart from adjudicating on the double returns at Fowey, Helston, Okehampton and Stockbridge, the House unseated both Members at Carlisle, Horsham and Steyning, and one at Cirencester, Leominster and Poole. The election for Grimsby was declared void, but the same Members secured re-election in 1793. The right of election was defined for Carlisle, Dartmouth, Great Grimsby, Ludgershall, Newark, Poole, Seaford and Steyning, and, as a result of a by-election, for Warwick, as well as for Westminster on a longer-pending petition. The systematic corruption discovered at Stockbridge provoked proposals for reforming the franchise by throwing it open to the neighbouring hundred, an expedient adopted in the last two decades at Cricklade and Shoreham, but the debate was conducted in the shadow of alarm induced by the French Revolution, and the bill was lost, 27 May 1793.

The replacement of 12 Members on petition involved four gains for the opposition (two at Carlisle, one at Leominster and one at Poole), and five for government (two each at Horsham and Steyning, and one at Cirencester). At Dorchester, Seaford and Stockbridge the new Members did not markedly differ in political practice from those they had been at such pains to unseat. It is remarkable that more than twice as many Members were unseated on petition in the Parliament of 1790 than in any other Parliament in this period.

As a result of vacancies arising during the Parliament of 1790, the alignment of parties was slightly affected: some 173 new Members were chosen including the new Members previously mentioned as capturing seats on petition. There were 21 contested by-elections in England and one in Scotland. Only five of these (in England) produced a political change: Steyning in 1791 (where the result was soon reversed on petition), Norwich in 1794 (where, however, the Member re-elected had gone over to government), and Bridport, Launceston and London in 1795. The Norwich by-election, involving tension between William Windham, a convert taking office, and his erstwhile Whig associates was the liveliest of all, while at Launceston Pitt authorized an attack on the Duke of Northumberland’s interest the ethics of which were questioned by at least one member of his cabinet. Including these five, 38 shifts of allegiance resulted from by-elections in England, six of them occurring in the same constituencies on fresh vacancies. In 1791 the opposition gained two seats outright at Appleby and Steyning, secured a surer friend at Camelford, and a less predictable one at Heytesbury; in 1792 they lost their Member for Steyning on petition, gained an ally in Somerset, and became sure of one for Calne and Winchelsea, but the government strengthened itself at Grantham, Malmesbury, Merioneth, Monmouthshire and Tewkesbury as well as Steyning. Government secured a friend for Heytesbury in 1793, as well as Ludgershall, where Newnham, a former Whig, went over to them: the opposition could no longer count on the new Member for Newport. In 1794, government did distinctly well, gaining one for Bedfordshire, Ross-shire and Winchelsea, and the support of converted Portland Whigs for Ludlow, Norwich and Wenlock, and the opposition could not count on the new Members for Durham and Orford: only at Malmesbury were ministers less sure of their man. The trend continued in 1795. Ministers strengthened themselves in Berwick, Bridgnorth, Camelford, Helston, Launceston, London, Midhurst, Northumberland and Petersfield (at the latter through a former Portland Whig). The opposition could no longer count on Members for Montgomeryshire and Morpeth. They gained one for Bridport, Forfarshire, Shoreham, and, before the dissolution in the following year, one at Lincoln.

The interesting swing towards the ministry in these by-elections after 1792 reflects the situation of the parties in the House of Commons. Only on Pitt’s warlike stance over the threat of Russian expansion involved in the Oczakov incident did the opposition muster in strength: on 12 Apr. 1791 they were defeated by 252 to 172. After that and the reverberation of it in Whitbread’s motion of 1 Mar. 1792, no other issue arose or could be contrived to bridge the rift among the opposition leaders, which, as a fissure, had preceded the French Revolution but grew ever wider as the European implications of that cataclysm became obvious. In mid April 1791, in a canvass of 539 Members for his motion of 10 May to exempt Scotland from the restrictions of the Test Act, Sir Gilbert Elliot listed 167 pro (all but 22 of whom voted or paired against government on one or other of the Oczakov divisions), 280 con and 81 doubtful.1 As Dr Ditchfield has demonstrated,2 support for dissenting relief had already fallen off since the divisions of 1787-90. Membership of the Whig Club had become a party badge. In the two divisions on the armament against Russia, at least 57 members of the Club had appeared in both minorities, as compared with 44 non-members; while the minority of 116 on the second division in 1792 included at least 62 Club members. Moreover, 97 or 98 members of the Club voted in one or other of the divisions, with four others absent or paired off; only three Club members remained unaccounted for, Sir Robert Clayton, Richard Myddelton and Lord Upper Ossory. The latter was one of the two members of the Club then in the House (the other was Richard Beckford, a founder member) who had seceded from it by 5 June 1792. Other seceders by that date not then in the House were John Calcraft, John Dashwood, John Nicholls, Thomas (Tyrwhitt) Jones and Viscount Malden.

When on 13 Dec. 1792 Fox defied the more conservative Whigs with an amendment to the address, reproving the drift into war with revolutionary France, it was defeated by 290 votes to 50, and there was no noteworthy addition to this Foxite rump until December 1794. The alarmist Whigs had failed to convince Fox either of the possibility of a coalition with Pitt, which the latter felt no need of, or of the expediency of rallying to the government. They thereby provided him with the opportunity for a restatement of Whig principles in a new critical situation, and for remoulding the party. A tug of war now developed between Fox and the alarmists for the allegiance of their nominal leader, the Duke of Portland. The latter’s reluctance to sever his connexion with Fox led to two gestures from the alarmists: the bid to promote a ‘third party’ (tried as recently as 1788) and secession en bloc from the Whig Club. On the other hand, Fox himself was urged by his younger friends in the more radical direction through the medium of the Society of the Friends of the People for Parliamentary Reform. Thus the Whig opposition was splintered: when the Duke of Portland was finally dragged out of Fox’s orbit and joined the government with other Whig alarmists in July 1794, a fresh polarization of government and opposition parties developed, in which the government’s superiority was overwhelming.

On 28 Feb. 1793 the following 18 members of the Whig Club seceded en bloc, because they could no longer follow Fox’s lead: Stephen Thurston Adey, John Anstruther, Wilson Braddyll, Edmund Burke, Richard Burke jun., Sir Gilbert Elliot, William Elliot, Sir James St. Clair Erskine, Sir Abraham Hume, Robert Ladbroke, Viscount Midleton, Sir Ralph Payne, George Porter, John St. Leger, George Shee, Lord Sheffield, Thomas Tyrwhitt and William Windham. The 11 in italics were then Members of the House. Subsequent seceders who sat in the House included William Baker, William Baldwin, Joseph Foster Barham, Lords Edward and William Cavendish Bentinck, Sir Thomas Charles Bunbury, Sir Robert Clayton, James Dawkins, Sylvester Douglas, William Evelyn, Viscount Feilding, Sir John Frederick, Thomas Grenville, the Earl of Inchiquin, Henry Jodrell, French Laurence, Edward Law, Sir John Fleming Leicester, Sir Henry St. John Mildmay, Nathaniel Newnham, the Marquess of Titchfield and Glynn Wynn jun. Of these 22, the 12 italicized were in the House at the time of their secession. So in all there were 23 seceding Members.

The ‘third party’ project pre-dated the above secession. William Windham invited potential recruits to a meeting at his house on 10 Feb. 1793. The resolution was

That it is the opinion of this meeting that it is their duty as public men to oppose to the utmost of their power, the alarming progress of French power and French principles both at home and abroad, and for that purpose that they will give their decided and efficient support to his Majesty’s government in the present crisis of public affairs.

The meeting was followed by another on 17 Feb. Fourteen or 15 attended both meetings. Those present according to lists retained by Sir Gilbert Elliot were as follows (21 on the 10th; 25 or 26 on the 17th):

‘Third Pary’ 1793

Anstruther, John	10, 17 Feb.	Coke, Daniel Parker	10, 17 Feb.
Ashley, Hon. Cropley	10, 17 Feb.	Dawkins, James	10, 17 Feb.
Basset, Sir Francis	17 Feb.	Downe, Lord	10, 17 Feb.
Beauchamp, Visct.	10 Feb.*	Elliot, Sir Gilbert	10, 17 Feb.
Braddyll, Wilson	10 Feb.*	Gregg, Francis	17 Feb.
Burke, Edmund	10, 17 Feb.	Hartley, Col. W. H.	17 Feb.
Inchiquin, Earl of	17 Feb.	Ridley, Sir Matthew	10 Feb.*
Keene, Whitshed	10, 17 Feb.	Sheffield, Lord	17 Feb.
Knight, Richard Payne	17 Feb.	Sinclair, Sir John	17 Feb.
Midleton, Visct.	10 Feb.*(?)	Sloane, Hans	10, 17 Feb.
Mundy, Edward Miller	17 Feb.	Stanley, Thomas	17 Feb.
North, Frederick	10, 17 Feb.	Tempest, John	10 Feb.
Ossory, Earl of Upper	10 Feb.*	Townshend, Charles	10, 17 Feb.
Pierrepont, Charles	10, 17 Feb.	Walpole, Col. H.	17 Feb.
Powys, Thomas	10, 17 Feb.	Windham, William	10, 17 Feb.
Rainsford, Gen.	10, 17 Feb.

 

The ten in italics were certainly to secede from the Whig Club; two more (Dawkins and Walpole) did not formally secede. Those asterisked were invited to the meeting on 17 Feb., though they do not appear to have attended, except perhaps for Lord Midleton, who appears on one list. Thirty-one Members were involved in all, and not ‘about forty’ as Lord Sheffield supposed: compare this with the nucleus of ‘about forty’ who launched a ‘third party’ in 1788. Incidentally, Sir John Sinclair and Viscount Midleton, at least, were a link with this bid of 1788. The following 14 were invited on the 17 Feb., but did not attend then, or on the 10th: Richard Beckford, John Bullock, Sir Thomas Charles Bunbury, Sir Peter Burrell, Sir George Cornewall, William Currie, Thomas Grenville, Robert Ladbroke, Gen. Lake, William (Mostyn) Owen, John Payne, Col. St. Leger, Robert Vyner and James Walwyn. Lord Sheffield, in an improvised list of 23 attenders in a letter to Lord Auckland, 22 Feb. 1793, includes Sir George Cornewall and (?) Charles Boone. A list in William Windham’s papers gives a clue to other Members invited for 10 Feb. who did not attend: Thomas Stanley and Richard Payne Knight were stated to have been prevented by indisposition, but appeared on the 17th. So did Sir Francis Basset and Francis Gregg. The other Members were Thomas Anson, Lee Antonie, William Baker, Lord Edward Bentinck, Lord Bingham, Sir Henry Bridgeman, John Bullock, Lord Burford, Edward Coke, Sir George Cornewall, John Cotes, the Hons. George and Lionel Damer, Sir Thomas Dundas, Sir Henry Fletcher, [Andrew and Edward] Foley, ‘Gray’, John Harrison (queried), (?) Hussey, William Jolliffe, Robert Ladbroke, Lord Melbourne, Sir William Milner, Sir Roger Mostyn, Lord Mount Stuart, Dudley North, Francis Page, Thomas Boothby Parkyns, Payne, Col. St. Leger, John Scudamore, [Hugh and William] Seymour Conway, Hon. James Stuart, Beilby Thompson, John Trevanion, Sir Joshua Vanneck, Robert Vyner, Sir George Warren, John Webb, Charles Callis Western and the Hons. Charles and Percy Wyndham. Of these 44 Members, the six italicized were also invited for the 17th, but did not attend. Windham’s list also contains the following 25 names which have been deleted: Sir Charles Bunbury, Benyon, Lord Downe, Lord Midleton, Milbanke, Sir John Morshead, Mundy, Ch[arles] Pelham, Pierrepont, Sir M. Ridley, Lord Sheffield, Thomas Stanley, Thomps [sic], Walwyn, Sir Edward Winnington, Hartley, Lord Inchiquin, Lush[ington], Sloane, Ashley, Lord Feilding, Rainsford, Welbore Ellis, Lord Ludlow, and an illegible name that looks like Paul. (Also included in the list are the names Bligh and Leake, undeleted, which have not been identified as those of Members of the Commons at the time.) Of these the 12 italicized attended on the 10th and 17th. Seventy-seven individuals seem to have been involved in Windham’s catchment plan, to judge by this list. A fragmentary list endorsed ‘Meetings at Windham’s’ in Sir Gilbert Elliot’s papers may be taken to add William Evelyn and Sir Henry Clinton as two other possibles for ‘third party’ recruitment.

The ‘third party’ provided a manifesto for those described by Lord Sheffield as ‘our independent country gentlemen who were in opposition’. While Windham supplied the initiative, he was temporarily incapable of sustaining the lead and the ‘third party’ eventually merged with Pitt’s government in July 1794 in the junction formed under the Duke of Portland’s leadership, an event that was foreshadowed by the wooing into office of individuals.

Who were the Duke of Portland’s followers (as opposed to Fox’s) among the Whigs? That there was some doubt about this is suggested by a ‘List of Members of the House of Commons supposed attached to the Duke of Portland with notes by the Duke of Portland. Decr. 1792. Very incorrect’ (to quote its endorsement). The list of 109 Members is in Sir Gilbert Elliot’s hand and survives among his papers.1 It appends a list of peers. The Duke of Portland has queried some 25, deleted five or six others and noted five as ‘P’ (friends of the Prince of Wales), three as ‘N’ (nominees of the Duke of Northumberland), and one as ‘Ld. C’ (Lord Carlisle’s Member). As reproduced here, it has been partly rearranged in alphabetical order (72 names were at first thus arranged, and the rest added less systematically). The curious spelling of some surnames has been corrected to facilitate identification. The Duke of Portland’s amendments appear in brackets. It is not clear whether any distinction was intended between ‘Q?’ and ‘?’.

Portland Whigs 1792-3

Anson		Clayton, Sir R.
Anstruther, John		Clinton, Sir H.	(N)
Ashley, Hon. Cropley	(Q?)	Coke, Parker	[deleted]
Baker	(Q?)	Coke of Derby	[bracketed]
Basset, Sir F.		Coke of Norfolk	[bracketed]
Beauchamp, Lord		Conway, G. S.
Bentinck, Lord E.		Conway, Hugh	(P)
Benyon		Cornewall, Sir G.
Bingham	(Q?)	Cotes
Bridgeman		Crewe	(Q?)
Bridgeman		Curwen, J. C.	(Q?)
Bullock		Damer, Lionel
Bunbury, Sir C.		Davers, Sir C.	(Q?)
Burford, Lord		Dent	[deleted]
Burke, Rt. Hon. Edmund		Downe, Lord
Burrell, Sir P.		Duncannon, Lord
Campbell, John		Dundas, Lawrence
Cavendish, Lord G. H.	(Q?)	Dundas, Sir Thomas
Cavendish, Lord G.		G. Elliot, Sir Gilbert
Ellis, Welbore		Page
Erskine, Sir James	(Q?)	Palmerston, Lord
Feilding, Lord	(N)	Parkins
Fletcher, Sir H.		Payne, J.	(P)
Foley, Hon. Andrew		Pelham, Anderson
Foley, Hon. Edward		Pelham, H.	[deleted]
Forrester, Cecil	(Q?)	Pelham, Thomas	(Q?)
Graham, G.	[? deleted]	Penton
Gregg	(Ld. C.)	Pierrepont
Grey, Lord		Plumer	(?)
Harrison		Powlett, W.	(?)
Hartley		Powys, Thomas
Heneage	[deleted]	Rainsford, Gen.	(N)
Hippisley, J. C.		Ridley, Sir M. W.
Honywood, Filmer	(Q?)	Russell, Lord W.	(?)
Howell		St. Leger, J.	(P)
Inchiquin, Lord		Scudamore	(?)
Jolliffe		Sheffield, Lord
Knight, R. P.		Sloane
Lake	(P)	Smith, Gen.	(Q?)
Laurence		Stanley, Thomas
Legh, T.	(Q?)	Stuart, Hon. James
Lister [? Leicester, Sir J. F.]	[deleted]	Stuart, Lord Mount
Ludlow, Lord		Tempest, John
Lushington, Sir Stephen	(Q?)	Thorold, Sir J.
Melbourne, Lord	(P)	Titchfield, Lord
Middleton, Sir W.	(Q?)	Townshend, Rt. Hon. Charles
Midleton, Visct.		Vanneck, Sir Joshua
Milbanke	(?)	Vyner
Milner, Sir W.	(Q?)	Walpole
Milton, Lord		Walwyn	(Q?)
Mundy, E.M.	(?)	Warren, Sir George	(Q?)
Myddelton, Richard	(Q?)	Windham, Wm.
North, Fred. Wyndham,		Charles	[bracketed]
Ossory, Lord Upper		Wyndham, Percy	[bracketed]
Owen, W. M.
List of Peers:
Ld. Albemarle	(Q?)	E. of Carlisle
Ld. Bessborough	[deleted]	Ld. de Clifford
Ld. Breadalbane	(Q?)	Ld. Cork
Ld. Brownlow	[deleted]	Ld. Courtenay
E. of Buckinghamshire		Ld. Darnley
E. of Bute		D. of Devonshire
Ld. Dumfries		Ld. Peterborough	(Q?)
Ld. Egremont		Ld. Plymouth
Ld. Exeter	[deleted]	Ld. Porchester
Ld. Fitzwilliam		D. of Portland
Ld. Grantley	(Q?)	Ld. Scarbrough
Ld. Hereford		Ld. Shaftesbury	(Q?)
Ld. Hertford		Ld. Spencer
Ld. Kinnoul		Ld. Stamford
D. of Leeds		Ld. Stawell
Ld. Loughborough		Ld. Stormont
Ld. Malmesbury		Ld. Tankerville	(Q?)
Ld. Monson	(Q?)	Ld. Thanet	(Q?)
D. of Northumberland		Ld. Vernon
Bp. of Oxford		Ld. Walpole
Ld. Pelham		Bp. of Winchester

 

An analysis of the Commons list shows that some 51 were members of the Whig Club, of whom 16 subsequently formally seceded, six of them en bloc on 28 Feb. 1793 (Burke, Erskine, Viscount Midleton, Col. St. Leger, Lord Sheffield and Windham). Moreover, all except nine voted in one or other of the Oczakov divisions with the opposition, the exceptions being Clayton, Dent (deleted), George Graham (?deleted), Heneage (deleted), Myddelton (queried), Frederick North (a new Member), Lord Upper Ossory, Francis Page and Lord Mount Stuart. It may also be noted that 27 of the 31 Members known to have attended Windham’s two ‘third party’ meetings on 10 and 17 Feb. 1793 appear in this list (omitting only Wilson Braddyll, James Dawkins, Whitshed Keene and Sir John Sinclair), while the list includes ten more Members who were certainly invited by Windham though they did not attend, and 37 or 38 more who were thought of by Windham as potential recruits for the third party. This underlines the intention of forcing the Duke of Portland’s hand through a ginger group formed largely from his followers who deplored his reluctance to break with Fox on the issue of war with revolutionary France. The total figure of 109 Members compares with the 102 Members listed as attending the meeting called by the Duke of Portland at Burlington House on 11 May 1790, though of course 29 or 30 of those Members were no longer in the House; 41 (perhaps 42) of the 102 were among the 109 listed in December 1792. At least 30 and perhaps 32 were still in the House but not listed as Portland Whigs, more than half of them being Foxites, but others doubtful. If William Adam, Sir John Aubrey, George Byng, Clarke Jervoise, Fox himself, Philip Francis, Charles Grey, Hussey, Lambton, Lord John Russell, Sheridan, Lord Robert Spencer, Taylor, Trevanion, Webb, Weddell and Wilbraham are reckoned Foxites, a question mark hangs over Hugh Barlow, Beckford, Clive, Dawkins, Dickinson, William Gerard Hamilton, Keene, Ladbroke, Lord Lisburne, James Macpherson, Hon. Edward Monkton, Sir John Morshead, Strachey and Gen. Vaughan, as well as ‘Stewart’ whose identity is not certain (probably Hon. James Stuart).

Of the 109 Members listed, 72 never voted in surviving minorities between December 1792 and December 1794; of these, ten appear in no minority list from 1790 to 1794 and only 11 resumed voting in the minority after 1794, two of them only on the slave trade. Twenty-five of the remaining 37 remained in opposition, with two doubtful, and nine did not remain in opposition, with one doubtful.

Only four of the 109 Members ‘supposed attached to the Duke of Portland’ in December 1792 were members of the Society of the Friends of the People: William Baker, who proceeded to desert the Friends with some noise, and John Christian Curwen, Ralph Milbanke and William Powlett Powlett, all three of whom were queried by Portland in his examination of the list of his alleged supporters. These four were among the 28 Members who had adhered to the Friends. Most of the others were Foxites. They were George Byng, John Barker Church, John Courtenay, Hon. Thomas Erskine, Philip Francis, Charles Grey, Henry Howard, William Henry Lambton, Samuel Long, Norman Macleod, Hon. Thomas Maitland, James Martin, Richard Slater Milnes, Dudley North, Lord John Russell, John Sawbridge, John Scott, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, William Smith, Col. Banastre Tarleton, Michael Angelo Taylor, Thomas Thompson, John Wharton and Samuel Whitbread junior. Of these, Long, Martin, Milnes, Scott and Smith should probably be described as reformers, not (as yet) particularly attached to Fox. Fox himself steered clear of the Friends, but to the dismay of his more conservative admirers insisted on endorsing their reformist intentions. The committee of the Friends consisted of 12, eight of them being Members of Parliament: William Baker, Philip Francis, Charles Grey, William Henry Lambton, Hon. Thomas Maitland, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, John Wharton and Samuel Whitbread. With the exception of Baker, all of these were Foxites. Associated with the Friends of the People were the Friends of the Liberty of the Press. The committee of this body, numbering 28, included 15 Members, all of them Foxites and all (except Hon. John Rawdon) Friends of the People: Byng, Courtenay, Thomas Erskine, Howard, Lambton, MacLeod, Maitland, Sawbridge, Sheridan, Smith, Michael Angelo Taylor, Thompson, Wharton and Whitbread. There were also four future Members: George Tierney (who had sat in the House briefly before), James Mackintosh, Joseph Richardson and Arthur Leary Piggott. The Friends of the People included at least 20 once or future Members of the House; the former Members were William Cunynghame, William Fullarton, Charles Goring, Lord Lauderdale, Thomas Bates Rous and Tierney, of whom Fullarton and Tierney subsequently returned to the House. The other future Members were Edward Bolton Clive, Edward Jeremiah Curteis, Humphrey Howorth, Robert Knight, Malcolm Laing, John Leach, William Lushington, James Mackintosh, John Nicholls, Arthur Leary Piggott, Joseph Richardson, Richard Sharp, Henry Swann and Charles Warren. It does not, of course, follow that these future Members held similar political views when they entered the House.

Twenty Friends of the People voted for parliamentary reform on Grey’s motion, 7 May 1793; Howard, Long, Maitland, Milnes, Powlett, Sawbridge, Scott and Tarleton were the absentees. All except Martin were also members of the Whig Club. The 43 supporters of the motion included another 14 Whig Club members, though two had yet to join (Western and William Smith). Four of Lord Lansdowne’s Members also supported.

Upon whom could Fox count to vote with him in opposition from December 1792 when he took his stand against the conservatives in his own party disposed to rally to government in case of war with France? On 13 Dec. 1792 he was in a minority of 50 against 290. Between then and December 1794, when the call for an armistice prompted an accession to the minority, 64 Members appeared with sufficient regularity to be labelled in opposition: none of the following voted less than six times in the 25 divisions for which full lists survive between 1790 and the summer of 1794, excluding one of purely Scottish interest but including the two divisions on Oczakov, 17 divisions on the policy of war and the war effort, five involving the curtailment of civil liberties and one on parliamentary reform. The highest minority of 57 was that on Fox’s motion against the war on 30 May 1794. In the following list, the bracketed figures are the number of minority votes recorded out of 25 possible: Charles James Fox (25), Charles Grey (25), Michael Angelo Taylor (25), Joseph Randyll Burch (25), Samuel Whitbread (24), Philip Francis (24), Richard Brinsley Sheridan (23), Lord Robert Spencer (23), William Smith (23), Dudley North (22), Lord William Russell (22), John Courtenay (21), Henry Howard (21), Richard Fitzpatrick (20), Banastre Tarleton (20), William Hussey (20), William Plumer (19 or 20), Hon. St. Andrew St. John (19), John Harrison (18), Hon. Edward Bouverie (18 or 19), Benjamin Vaughan (18), Hon. Thomas Maitland (18), Norman Macleod (17), Charles Callis Western (17), James Martin (16), George Byng (16), William Henry Lambton (16), Thomas Thompson (16), Sir Edward Winnington (15), Earl Wycombe (15), Charles Sturt (15), Sir William Mordaunt Milner (15), Thomas Champion Crespigny (14), William Baker (13), Roger Wilbraham (12), James Hare (12), Joseph Jekyll (12), Sir John Aubrey (12), John Barker Church (12), Hon. Thomas Erskine (12), William Adam (11), Earl Ludlow (11), Robert Vyner sen. (11), William Lee Antonie (11), Lord John Townshend (10), John Wharton (10), John Christian Curwen (9), John Crewe (9), John Harcourt (9), David Howell (9). Henry Speed (9), Thomas William Coke (8), William Colhoun (8), Jervoise Clarke Jervoise (8), Sir William Lemon (8), John George Philipps (8), Hon. John Rawdon (8), Lord George Augustus Henry Cavendish (7), James Walwyn (7), Sir Henry Fletcher (7), Thomas Whitmore (7), Sir Francis Baring (7), Clement Taylor (6), and Richard Slater Milnes (6).

Not all of these 64 ‘regulars’ were Foxites and 18 of them were not members of the Whig Club: W. Lee Antonie, Sir Francis Baring, Hon. Edward Bouverie, Sir Henry Fletcher, John Harrison, David Howell, William Hussey, Joseph Jekyll, Sir William Lemon, James Martin, Robert Slater Milnes, Hon. John Rawdon, Henry Speed, Benjamin Vaughan, Robert Vyner sen., Roger Wilbraham, Sir Edward Winnington and Earl Wycombe. William Baker had seceded from the Whig Club, as also from the Friends of the People; 21 of the other 27 Members who were Friends of the People appear among these ‘regulars’. Eleven of the 64 had been evidently regarded as provisional recruits for the ‘third party’, but none accepted the invitation. Five of them had been listed as attached to the Duke of Portland in December 1792, without his demur, namely Fletcher, Harrison, Howell, Vyner, and Lord Ludlow (added to the list by the duke himself). Another nine appeared on the same list but were queried by the duke (Baker, Lord George Augustus Henry Cavendish, Thomas William Coke, John Christian Curwen, John Crewe, Sir William Mordaunt Milner, Plumer, Lord William Russell and Walwyn). Some 11 had been written off by the Portland Whigs by December 1792 in any case (Adam, Byng, Clarke Jervoise, Fox, Francis, Grey, Hussey, Lambton, Sheridan, Michael Angelo Taylor and Wilbraham). Of the 18 non-Whig Club members listed above, apart from the four who deserted Portland four were the Marquess of Lansdowne’s Members (Lord Wycombe, Baring, Vaughan and Jekyll), and one was Lord Sandwich’s (Speed). Martin and Milnes were Friends of the People, and Rawdon apparently a Friend of the Liberty of the Press. Hussey and Lemon eschewed party badges, as no doubt did the remaining five.

The following 20 Members lent occasional support to opposition in the period up to December 1794: Charles Anderson Pelham (5), Thomas Anson (5), William Henry Bouverie (2 or 3), Sir Robert Clayton (3), Edward Coke (3), Gerard Noel Edwards (3), Sir Henry Fetherstonhaugh (4), Edward Foley (4), Joseph Foster Barham (2 or 3), Filmer Honywood (5), Sir John Jervis (4), Richard Payne Knight (3), Samuel Long (5), Ralph Milbanke (4), William Powlett Powlett (4), Sir Matthew White Ridley (5), Morris Robinson (3), Lord John Russell (5), William Cunliffe Shawe (3) and Hon. Percy Charles Wyndham (4). There is little doubt that most of these disappointed opposition by irregular attendance: 11 of them were members of the Whig Club, though Clayton and Foster Barham were seceders. Shawe and Robinson were Members for only part of the Parliament and the same applies to Henry Hippisley Coxe who voted in two minorities. Long, Milbanke, Powlett and Russell were Friends of the People. Although eight of them were regarded as potential recruits to the ‘third party’, only one showed an interest (Ridley).

Opposition received even less active support from the following members of the Whig Club: the veterans Lord George Cavendish, John Coxe Hippisley, John Lee, John Sawbridge (a Friend of the People), John Scudamore and John Webb. Other former occasional supporters fell off during this period: Hugh Barlow, George Best, Sir Charles Davers, Andrew Foley, Sir Roger Mostyn, Sir John Shaw Stewart, Gen. Richard Smith, John Trevanion and Sir George Warren among them. The question mark that hung over the unsuspecting head of William Weddell was removed by his sudden death. Five Members voted with Fox on 13 Dec. 1792, but not subsequently: Bingham, Hon. Lionel Damer, Thomas Grenville, Viscount Milton and Sir John Shaw Stewart. Only one or two minority votes were recorded after 1792 by James Adair, Sir Francis Basset, John Pollexfen Bastard, Sir George Cornewall, William Curtis, Henry Duncombe, Sir Thomas Dundas, Whitshed Keene, John Langston, Edward Law, Edmund Lechmere, William Mainwaring, Nathaniel Newnham, Lord Upper Ossory, Thomas Boothby Parkyns, John Peirse, John Pitt, Lord Sheffield, John Thomas Stanley, Robert Thornton, Lord Titchfield, Sir Frederick Vane, Robert Watkin Wynne and Charles Yorke, most of these being Portland Whigs or Members normally supporting government.

The following 100 Members—asterisked if ‘supposed attached to the Duke of Portland’ in December 1792—who voted with opposition on one or other of the Oczakov divisions never appear in a minority again before December 1794, and only those italicized ever did so again throughout the Parliament:

John Anstruther*	William Grieve
Hon. Cropley Ashley*	Winchcombe Henry Hartley*
Visct. Beauchamp*	John Coxe Hippisley*
Ld. Edward Bentinck*	Earl of Inchiquin*
Richard Benyon*	William Jolliffe*
George Best	Thomas Kemp
Wilson Braddyll	Gerard Lake*
Sir Henry Bridgeman*	William Laurence*
Orlando Bridgeman*	John Lee (d.1793)
Francis John Browne	Thomas Peter Legh*
James Buller	Sir John Fleming Leicester
John Bullock*	James Martin Lloyd
Sir Thomas Charles Bunbury*	Edward Loveden Loveden
Earl of Burford*	James Macpherson
Gen. John Burgoyne (d.1792)	Sir Horatio Mann
Edmund Burke*	Visct. Melbourne*
Sir Peter Burrelb	Sir William Middleton*
John Campbell* (of Stackpole)	Visct. Midleton*
John Cator (unseated 1793)	Ld. Milford
Ld. George Augustus Cavendish* (d.1794)	Patrick Miller
	Hon. Edward Monckton
Sir Henry Clinton*	Sir John Morshead
Ld. Clive (peerage 1794)	Sir Roger Mostyn
John Somers Cocks	Edward Miller Mundy*
Sir William Codrington	John Nesbitt
John Cotes*	Ld. North (peerage 1792)
William Currie	William Owen*
Sir Charles Davers*	Lawrence Palk
James Dawkins	Visct. Palmerston*
Baron Dimsdale	John Willett Payne*
Visct. Downe*	Thomas Pelham*
Sir John Hadley D’Oyly	Henry Penton*
Visct. Duncannon* (peerage 1793)	Charles Pierrepont*
Lawrence Dundas*	Thomas Powys*
Sir Gilbert Elliot*	Sir William Pulteney
Welbore Ellis*	Charles Rainsford*
William Evelyn	Sir James St. Clair Erskine*
Visct.Visct. Feilding*	John St. Leger
Andrew Foley*	John Sawbridge
Cecil Forester*	John Scott
Francis Gregg*	John Scudamore*
Ld. Grey*	William Seymour Conway*
Timothy Shelley	John Trevanion
Sir John Sinclair	Sir Joshua Vanneck*
Hans Sloane*	Gen. John Vaughan
Gen. Richard Smith*	Horatio Walpole*
Thomas Stanley*	Sir George Warren*
Hon. John Stuart*	William Weddell (d.1792)
John Tempest*	William Windham*
Sir John Thorold*	Charles William Wyndham*
Charles Townshend*

 

Thus 62 of these 100 had appeared on the Portland list of December 1792, though ten of them, Ashley, Davers, Forester, Legh, Sir W. Middleton, Mundy, St. Clair Erskine, Scudamore, Smith and Warren had been queried by the duke, who had also indicated that Lake, Melbourne, Payne and St. Leger were the Prince of Wales’s friends, Gregg Lord Carlisle’s, and Clinton, Feilding and Rainsford the Duke of Northumberland’s. Of the 18 Members in the list of 100 who to any extent resumed voting with opposition after December 1794, it should be noted that Windham and Charles Townshend appeared in the minority only on the slave trade, 15 Mar. 1796, which they had presumably done before though the divisions (except for a fragment of 1791) have not survived. Eight more of the 18 had appeared on Portland’s list of December 1792.

The remaining 38 Members in the list not supposed attached to Portland call for some comment. Burgoyne, Codrington, Lee and Weddell were dead by 1793, Cator, Lloyd and Shelley unseated, and North succeeded to a peerage in 1792, while Clive obtained one in 1794, a clue to his change of tack. John Sawbridge was no longer fit to attend and Lord Milford stayed away. Of the remaining 27, Braddyll, Kemp, Leicester, Miller and Mostyn resumed voting with opposition after December 1794; and at least 11 of the 22 others were either not partisans or temporary defectors from government over Oczakov: Francis John Browne, James Buller, John Somers Cocks, Baron Dimsdale, Sir John Hadley D’Oyly, Edward Loveden Loveden, James Macpherson, Lawrence Palk, Sir William Pulteney, John Scott (who was, however, a Friend of the People, and the only Member of Parliament in that body to behave thus, except for the ailing John Sawbridge) and Sir John Sinclair. There remains to be explained the conduct of Best, Currie, Dawkins, Evelyn, Grieve, Sir Horatio Mann, Monckton, Morshead, Nesbitt, Trevanion and Gen. Vaughan. Of these, Best, Currie and Nesbitt (these last two Members for Gatton), Dawkins, Sir Horatio Mann, Monckton and Trevanion appear to have gone over to government; Evelyn seceded from the Whig Club in February 1793; Grieve was the nominee of the turncoat Duke of Queensberry, and Vaughan the brother of the vacillating Earl of Lisburne, a Portland Whig, who was courting government for peerage promotion. Morshead was a friend of the Prince of Wales, not unknown to the Duke of Portland, though not on the list of 792. Apart from the five Members (Bingham, Hon. Lionel Damer, Thomas Grenville, Lord Milton and Sir John Shaw Stewart) who voted with Fox on 13 Dec. 1792 and not subsequently before 1794, Sir Thomas Dundas, Sir George Cornewall, Hugh Barlow, Whitshed Keene, Lord Upper Ossory, Thomas Boothby Parkyns and Lord Sheffield gave only one vote with opposition, 1792-4.

Opposition to Pitt’s administration derived some encouragement from the amendment to the address, urging an armistice, moved by Wilberforce and seconded by his Yorkshire colleague Duncombe on 30 Dec. 1794. This not only attracted the votes of a number of independent country gentlemen but saw several Whigs whose loyalties had lapsed from the outset of war return to the fold: thereafter opposition numbers rose, at least on the issue of an armistice, reaching 86 in divisions of 26 Jan. and 27 May 1795 on the subject. More typically, perhaps, for an indication of the Foxite revival, the division on Fox’s motion to consider the state of the nation, 24 Mar. 1795, was lost by 63 votes to 219, his amendment to the address, 29 Oct. 1795, by 59 to 140, and his opposition to the alarmist legislation against sedition, 25 Nov. 1795, by 72 to 273. The last issue gave Fox an opening for public agitation against internal repression, but the increase in the government majority underlines the fact that he was swimming against the tide. Pitt himself suffered more anxiety over the question of the Prince of Wales’s debts than any other. On 29 May 1795 he wrote to George III:

Of the friends of government there do not appear to be more than 360 who could by possibility attend. If they were all to be present, the number of those who can be at all counted upon as likely to support the original plan appears to be between 150 and 160. The number of those likely to vote on the other side, about 140; and between 60 and 70 doubtful. Of those that are stated as doubtful, it would be too much to expect the support of one half. A larger proportion would probably take the other side. On this statement, supposing as full an attendance as possible, there is very little chance of a considerable majority, even among the friends of government, in favour of the original plan. But it must be recollected that the bulk of opposition, amounting probably to between 60 and 70, with the exception only of two or three persons, are to be added to the numbers on the other side. It is not likely that so many as are here stated will actually vote on either side, but the proportion will probably not be materially varied, and certainly not in a way favourable to government, by the number of those who may stay away. The result therefore is that there is a probability that the measure, if persisted in, in its original shape, will be lost by a majority of at least between 40 and 50.

In the event more stringent terms were imposed on the Prince for the payment of his debts with public assistance and on 1 June Pitt carried this modified plan by 266 votes to 52.

An analysis of voting behaviour between December 1794 and the dissolution of 1796 bears out the development of a phalanx of opposition. Nineteen of the 20 divisions surviving for the period are its basis, the other division—that on Foster Barham’s motion of 2 June 1795—being of more special relevance to the West India interest in the House. The ‘fre’ vote on the slave trade, 15 Mar. 1796, is included, as also Sumner’s motion of 1 June 1795 critical of the Prince of Wales’s debts, which attracted an assortment of back-bench Members. The other divisions involved a censure motion, six motions calling for an armistice, five involving the conduct of the war and the war effort and five on its domestic repercussions, four critical of repression.

In these 19 divisions (compared with 25 considered between 1790 and 1794) at least 74 Members voted no less than six times with opposition; and at the bottom of the list independent supporters of government vie for place with negligent Whigs in opposition. Of the 64 Whig ‘regulars’ between 1790 and 1794 five, namely William Adam (out of Parliament), David Howell, Henry Speed (in flight from his creditors), Benjamin Vaughan (in France), and Lord Wycombe cast no vote with opposition in this period; William Baker, Lord George Henry Cavendish, Thomas Erskine, Richard Slater Milnes, John George Philipps, Clement Taylor, John Wharton, Thomas Whitmore (who died in 1795) and Sir Edward Winnington so fell off in attendance as no longer to be among the 74 regulars. They were replaced (in order of assiduity) by Henry Peirse, Thomas Kemp, Edmund Lechmere, Samuel Long, Gen. Richard Smith, George Barclay, Sir Matthew White Ridley, Morris Robinson, Robert Watkin Wynne, Thomas Anson, Sir Henry Fetherstonhaugh, John Langston, Sir Ralph Milbanke, and to add the other new ‘regulars’, Edward Coke, Percy Charles Wyndham, John Baring, Sir Robert Clayton, Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, William Powlett Powlett, Lord John Russell, William Henry Bouverie, Edward Foley, Sir Martin Browne Ffolkes and Robert Vyner II. Of these, Barclay and Vyner junior were new Members, while those five whose names are italicized had cast no recorded minority vote before December 1794.

Other occasional voters in the minority in these 19 divisions were, in order of assiduity (but none with more than six votes or less than two): Henry Bankes, Sir Richard Hill, William Wilberforce, Henry Thornton, Sir John Thorold, James Buller, Charles Dundas (a new Member), John Thomas Stanley, Thomas Erskine, Richard Payne Knight, Joseph Foster Barham, Richard Slater Milnes, John George Philipps, John Wharton, Sir Edward Winnington, John Pollexfen Bastard, Rowland Burdon, Filmer Honywood, Clement Taylor, Sir George Augustus Shuckburgh Evelyn, William Mainwaring, John Bullock, Daniel Parker Coke, Henry Hippisley Coxe, Sir Charles Davers, Henry Duncombe, Edward Hyde East, Sir Roger Mostyn, John Scudamore, William Cunliffe Shawe, William Baker, Sir Francis Basset, Wilson Braddyll, Francis John Browne, Robert John Buxton, Richard Glover, Alexander Popham, Henry Berkeley Portman and Thomas Whitmore. Nine of these 39, namely, Bankes, Burdon, Buxton, East, Hill, Popham, Portman, Henry Thornton and Wilberforce had no previous record of a minority vote in that Parliament. Seven of the other 30, Bastard, James Buller, Browne, Daniel Parker Coke, Duncombe, Shuckburgh Evelyn and Mainwaring were acting independently rather than voting as occasional or negligent opposition supporters.

One minority vote in the same period is recorded by the following 39 Members: John William Anderson, John Blackburne, John Bond, Charles Brandling, Lord George Henry Cavendish, John Dent, Charles Duncombe, Gerard Noel Edwards, Sir Francis Ford, Lord Garlies, Francis Glanville, James Gordon, Francis Gregor, Robert Ladbroke, Sir John Fleming Leicester, Sir Watkin Lewes, Sir Edward Littleton, William Lushington, William Lygon, Patrick Miller, William Mills, Charles Paulet (with a query), Charles Pierrepont, Vere Poulett, Philip Rashleigh, Sir Frederick Leman Rogers, Sir James St. Clair Erskine, Robert Salusbury, Thomas Stanley, S. Stewart [sic], George Sumner, Sir Francis Sykes, Francis William Sykes, George White Thomas, Sir John Trevelyan, Sir Frederick Vane, George Vansittart, Edmund Wigley and John Wilmot. No more than seven or eight of these had any previous connexion with opposition. No less than 12 of them voted for Sumner’s motion critical of the Prince of Wales’s extravagance, 1 June 1795: Blackburne, Dent, Duncombe, Glanville, Gregor, Littleton, Pierrepont, Rashleigh, Stanley, Sumner, Trevelyan and Wigley. (This was a motion supported mainly by the more independent opposition regulars.) Five of the rest were in the minority on the imperial loan, 5 Feb. 1795, and five on the seditious meetings bill, 25 Nov. 1795, three against the further suspension of habeas corpus, 23 Jan. 1795, two for an armistice, 30 Dec. 1794; the seven others were in isolated divisions.

The prelude to the broadening of dissent from the government described above was Wilberforce’s amendment in favour of an armistice, 30 Dec. 1794, when, according to a newspaper account of the division, 21 Members ‘who had previously supported the war’, changed sides: John William Anderson, Bankes, Foster Barham, William Henry Bouverie, Browne Ffolkes, Bullock, Burdon, Henry Hippisley Coxe, Davers, Henry Duncombe, Lord Garlies, Hill, Kemp, Langston, Lechmere, Mainwaring, Mostyn, Henry Thornton, Robert Thornton, Wilberforce and Robert Watkin Wynne. They might have added that the same issue had revived the opposition habits of Anson, Edward Coke, Fetherstonhaugh, Samuel Long, Peirse, Shawe and Clement Taylor. The nine Members in italics were county Members, and the opposition could boast of 20 knights of the shire in their minority of 73.

The division on the slave trade, 15 Mar. 1796, in which the abolitionists were defeated by 74 votes to 70, is of interest as the only one on the subject in which the majority survives, though not quite completely or correctly. The division was not regarded as being along party lines. Indeed, of 64 in the minority of 70 whose names commonly survive, only 27 were at this time acting with opposition more or less regularly, while 28 were normally supporters of government (Pitt himself being one) and the nine others were at that time behaving independently, after previously supporting government. In the majority, only six were habitually in opposition (Joseph Foster Barham, a West India planter, John Crewe, John Langston, a West India merchant, the Hon. John Rawdon, Gen. Smith and Gen. Tarleton, whose constituency was tied up with the trade) and no more than three or four were then acting independently towards government. It is necessary to add that 16 or more renegade Whigs were among the majority. The importance of the division is, however, greatly reduced by its catching only the polarized extremists on the issue: the majority of the House evidently favoured a more compromising approach to the subject. Of 47 surviving names for the minority against the slave trade on 18 Apr. 1791, out of a division of 163,28 voted the same way in 1796, 11 did not vote and eight were no longer Members by then.

 

THE ELECTION OF 1796

When in the autumn of 1795 George Rose was assisting Pitt with a forecast of the results of the next general election, based on a statement of the current allegiance of Members, he listed as many as 100 Members in opposition, as well as 21 doubtful, in England and Wales. They consisted of 17 English county Members, 47 Members for open boroughs, 33 Members for close boroughs and three Welsh Members. (The Scottish list contains predictions only, and only the Member for Renfrewshire, Sir J. Shaw Stewart, or his successor, is marked ‘con’ though a second, unnamed, Member was added before the election.)

It has been shown that 74 Members had voted with opposition regularly from December 1794 to 1796 and that another 39 did so occasionally (but more than once). As nine of the 39 were not normally disposed to quarrel with government, the figures correspond approximately. The term used by Rose, ‘con’, does however lump together Foxites and at least the most independent Members critical of government. Only five of the 74 who have been categorized as regular in opposition between 1794 and 1796 are not marked ‘con’ in Rose’s list: of these, two were Scots, Macleod and Maitland; John Baring and John Langston were listed as ‘doubtful’ by Rose, while Percy Charles Wyndham was curiously (? in confusion with his brother) marked ‘pro’. Of the other 31 marked ‘con’, 18 have been noted as occasional voters with opposition from 1794 to 1796 and two others (Lord George Augustus Henry Cavendish and Sir John Fleming Leicester) were in at least one minority list in that period. Four of the remaining 11, Andrew Foley, Henry Speed, Benjamin Vaughan and Lord Wycombe, had not apparently voted with opposition since the spring of 1794, though they had done so until then; five others had been inactive in opposition since 1 Mar. 1792 at latest, viz. William Currie, John Nesbitt, William Owen, Sir Joshua Vanneck and Charles William Wyndham. Of the other two, Bragge is clearly an error and Henry Howard is duplicated owing to his switch of constituency in February 1795.

Of the 21 listed ‘doubtful’ by Rose in 1795, Baring (Exeter) and Langston had been regular in opposition, four others, John Pollexfen Bastard, James Buller, William Mainwaring and Alexander Popham sporadic, while one, George White Thomas, voted at least once in the minority between 1794 and 1796. Of the remaining 14, eight (including David Howell and Whitshed Keene) had not voted with opposition since 1794, six of these not since at latest 1792 (Lionel Damer, Lawrence Dundas, Lord Feilding, Lord Milford, Lord Milton and Charles Rainsford). Six others were clearly doubtful in the sense that they were inactive, namely Matthew Bloxam, Lord John Cavendish, George Fulke Lyttelton, John Rodney, Lord Sherard and Samuel Whitbread senior.

Of the 23 Members listed ‘hopeful’ by Rose, three had voted occasionally with opposition, 1794-1796 (Browne of Dorset, Daniel Parker Coke and Sir George Augustus Shuckburgh Evelyn), and one at least once (Robert Ladbroke), while six had not appeared in the minority since 1792 at latest. Of the other 13, no less than seven were Lord Lonsdale’s Members, who had not acted with opposition, and the other six (Edmund Bastard, William Beckford, Lord Lisburne, Gen. George Porter, Lord Robert Seymour and Sir Henry Vane Tempest) were far from active. Rose had no doubt about the support of the leading ‘rebels’ of the last two sessions of the Parliament, Bankes, Burdon, Robert John Buxton, Henry Duncombe, Hill, Henry Berkeley Portman, Henry Thornton and Wilberforce.

Rose’s general view of the state of the parties, not later than 10 Nov. 1795 to judge from amendments to the forecast surviving among the Stanhope papers, was as follows:

Pro 369

Con 100

Hopeful 23

Doubtful 21

 

with one correction to reconcile the addition:

Pro 370

Con 99

Hopeful 23

Doubtful 21

 

This covers England and Wales only, but it seems reasonable to suppose that, including Scotland, government might claim 400 pro, compared with little over 100 in opposition. Rose’s forecast for the future election (which need not have taken place until 1797) was as follows, the figures in brackets being his assessment of the current state of affairs:

SUMMARY OF ROSE’S FORECAST

	Pro	Con	Hopeful	Doubtful
English counties	50 (53)	10 (17)	9 (6)	11 (4)
Open English boroughs (111 including the two universities)	130 (164)	27 (47)	38 (6)	29 (7)
Close English boroughs (94)	128 (134)	24 (33)	20 (10)	13 (8)
Wales (24)	15 (18)	0 (3)	6 (1)	3 (2)
	323 (369)	61 (100)	73 (23)	56 (21)

 

(It may be noted that since 1788 Rose had seen fit to transfer Andover, Aldeburgh, Bishop’s Castle, New Romney and Winchelsea from the list of open to that of close boroughs.) The prediction for Scotland is a faulty compilation, with three entries blank, one omitted and another wrongly inserted. Leaving out these four, Rose expected 39 pro, 1 con and 1 doubtful. So his total prediction, except for the four missing Scottish constituencies, would be

Pro 362

Con 62

Hopeful 73

Doubtful 57

 

To rectify some small errors of calculation, his forecast could be amended as follows, figures in brackets again representing the then state of affairs:

ROSE’S AMENDED FORECAST

	Pro	Con	Hopeful	Doubtful
English counties	51 (54)	10 (17)	8 (5)	11 (4)
Open boroughs	128 (162)	27 (46)	39 (7)	28 (7)
Close boroughs	131 (136)	23 (33)	20 (10)	13 (8)
Wales	15 (18)	0 (3)	6 (1)	3 (2)
	325 (370)	60 (99)	73 (23)	55 (21)

 

If the incomplete Scottish forecast is added, the result is:

Pro 364

Con 61

Hopeful 73

Doubtful 55

 

At some stage nearer to the general election of 1796, Rose appears to have revised his forecast in accordance with further information. The statistics, but not the detail, of this closer forecast survive among the Chatham papers.3PRO 30/81/197 f. 243 and PRO 30/8/234, f. 265. They show the following predictions, figures in brackets again indicating the current situation:

ROSE’S REVISED FORECAST

	Pro	Con	Hopeful	Doubtful
English counties	53 (54)	11 (17)	9 (5)	7 (4)
Open boroughs	136 (156)	32 (44)	28 (6)	16 (6)
Close boroughs	140 (146)	24 (36)	14 (8)	19 (7)
Wales	17 (18)	0 (2)	5 (1)	2 (3)
	346 (374)	67 (99)	56 (20)	44 (20)

 

Rose then contrasts present and future more closely by adding half the hopefuls to the ‘pros’, and half the hopefuls and all the doubtfuls to the ‘cons’, in each case. The result is

Present:	Pro 384	Con 129
Future:	Pro 374	Con 139

 

Finally he adds what is clearly a new and complete forecast for Scotland of 43 pro and 2 con, and arrives at 417 pro and 141 con.

This official optimism was to an extent borne out by the quietest general election in the period. The True Briton reported, 10 May 1796, ‘we never remember to have heard of so few contests in agitation’. No more than 66 contests went to a poll in 1796. Only in 1812 were as few—four—English counties contested, half as many as in 1790, though two Welsh counties were newly embroiled. In Scotland there were only three county contests and one burgh contest, a quarter as many as in 1790. The total distribution of the contests was as follows:

4 in English counties	2 in Welsh counties
55 in English boroughs	1 in Welsh boroughs
(33 freeman boroughs, 12 scot and lot, 6 house-	3 in Scottish counties
holder, 3 corporation and one burgage)	1 in Scottish burghs

 

These 66 contests compare with 92 in 1790 and 86 in 1802 (leaving Ireland out of the reckoning).

The timing of the general election had been a matter of conjecture: in October 1794, and September 1795 after much canvassing that summer, there were rumours of impending dissolution. The Oracle on 10 Oct. 1795 reported ‘a most general canvass ... in most counties’. Pitt paid a rare visit to his constituents in January following. The dissolution came on 20 May 1796. Two days later Charles Long of the Treasury wrote to William Windham: ‘The elections upon the whole are likely to turn out more favourable than we had calculated upon and I think I can promise even a better House of Commons than the last’. Rose was more cautious in a letter of 25 June: ‘We shall on the whole do quite as well as we expected’, but to another correspondent, the bishop of Lincoln, he wrote the same day:

On the whole the elections have ended well, there are a very few returned about whose political principles I am in some doubt; I am inclined to think, however, that we may rely on rather a better strength in this Parliament than in the last, with which we ought surely to be content in the midst of disasters and difficulties.

The True Briton alleged, 22 Apr. 1796, ‘The opposition lay their accounts with losing 16 or 17 of their number at the general election’. On 2 June the same newspaper concluded triumphantly:

The event of the general election must have the best effect, both on the internal and external situation of this country. It will convince the English Jacobins how hopeless, from the unanimity of the people of England, is their cause; and it will prove to the rulers of France, that Britons never will submit to the arrogant terms which they prescribe, as the only means of producing a peace.

Next day the editor was assured by a correspondent: ‘The present elections are going on in general with less riot and drunkenness than, perhaps, any for the last century’. The paper subsequently claimed that there were 172 new Members, and that ‘nearly 50’ Members were citizens of London.

The platform of the Foxite opposition at this election, as expressed by their leader on the Westminster hustings and echoed by his supporters generally, was peace negotiation with revolutionary France and the restoration of civil liberty at home. The ministerial case against this rested on the necessity for an honourable peace, rather than peace at any price, and on justifiable alarm about sedition at home. A crop of ‘Jacobin’ or ‘Citizen’ candidates appeared at this election, to no effect: they insisted on the need for parliamentary reform, in addition to peace and liberty.

Government was besieged with applications from persons wanting seats in Parliament. Three lists in the Chatham papers4PRO 30/8/197, ff. 98, 247, 248. provide the names of the following claims acknowledged by the Treasury: Messrs Adams, Hiley Addington, Angerstein, Arbuthnot, Lord Arden, Gen. Balfour, Sir George Beaumont, Wilbraham Bootle, Canning, Crutchley, Sir Lionel Darrell, William Joseph Denison, Sylvester Douglas, Lord Downe, Drummond, Charles Duncombe, Dundas, Charles Rose Ellis, Col. Fullarton, Glanville, James Gordon, Thomas Grenville, Charles Greville, Lt. [sic] Grey, Harbord, George Hardinge, Henniker Major, Lord Inchiquin, Sir George Jackson, Long, the Marquess of Lorne, Manning, Lord Melbourne, Metcalfe, Matthew Montagu, Lord Mornington, Lord Muncaster, Lord Palmerston, Spencer Pitt, Preston, Sir James Sanderson, Mr Smith of Bromley, John Stanley, the Hon. Mr Stewart, John Sullivan, Richard Sullivan, Sumner, Sykes, Thellusson, Vansittart, George Villiers, Wallace, Lord Wiltshire and Wodehouse. Of these 54 only seven were hoping to enter the House for the first time—most of them were unsure of their present seats, often supplied through the Treasury. Only 18 failed to find seats in the ensuing Parliament. It would seem that Denison and Grey were prepared to offer £4,000 for a seat, Crutchley and Metcalfe £3,000, and Lord Arden, Darrell, Harbord, Lord Melbourne, Stewart and Wodehouse £2,000.

The Treasury also drew up lists of ‘candidates’, i.e. persons willing to try their fortune on the hustings: John Blackburne junior, Lord Dalkeith, Messrs Damer, Frere, Garthshore, Huskisson, John Hornby, Madocks, Capt. Peachey, Mr Pollen, Sir George Prescott, David Scott and Stephen Sullivan were on this list. Of these 13 (one of whom, Frere, appeared on the other list), three at least did not find seats in the ensuing Parliament (Hornby, Prescott and Sullivan).

A list of constituencies5PRO 30/8/197, f. 252. a shows that the Treasury could expect to return Members gratis for Grampound (2), Harwich (1), Newtown (1), Rye (1), Tregony (2), Winchelsea (1) and Woodstock or Heytesbury, the latter choice clearly referring to the Duke of Marlborough’s interest. Seats could be or were purchased for the following boroughs: Aldborough (2), Great Bedwyn (2), Bossiney (1), Boroughbridge (2), Camelford (1), East Looe, Fowey (1), Hastings (2), Horsham (1), Lostwithiel (2), Malmesbury (2), Marlborough (2), Newport (I.o.W.) (2), Penryn (2), Plympton Erle (2), St. Germans (1), Saltash (2), Thirsk (2), Westbury (2), West Looe (2), Wootton Bassett, Yarmouth (I.o.W.) (1). In the cases of East Looe and Wootton Bassett the Treasury seems to have been uncertain what they could get. There is also a list of constituencies for which candidates were wanting.6PRO 30/8/234, f. 267. They were Abingdon, Beverley, Boston, Bridgwater, Bridport, Bristol, Colchester, Coventry, Evesham, Exeter, Hereford, Ilchester, Ipswich, Liverpool, Rochester and Southwark. Provisional arrangements were made for some of these, to judge from comments written against them. Further hints on the same subject are provided by the comments written against many of the constituencies in Rose’s pre-election survey of 1795.

The results of the election justified Treasury optimism. In the English counties they might reckon on 57 supporters out of 80, with opposition reduced to 17, and six independent. Rose’s forecast (correctly added up) gave them 54 to 17 with five hopeful and four doubtful in 1795, prognosticating 53 pro, ten con, eight hopeful and 11 doubtful then; and, nearer the election, 53 pro, 11 con, nine hopeful and seven doubtful. As the figures for 1790 have been reckoned at 41 pro, 32 con, with seven independent, it will be seen that the accession of Members to government on the advent of war with France had already placed government in a favourable position, offset to some extent by the critical attitude of some county Members from December 1794. In 1796, seven sitting Members have been reckoned as having gone over to government and remained with them (Gerard Noel Edwards, Mundy, Thomas Pelham, Pochin, Powys, Thomas Stanley and Lord Titchfield), while both new Members for Nottinghamshire, previously borough Members, followed the same line, like their predecessors, as did the new Member for Oxfordshire. Government gained another Member for Huntingdonshire, without a contest, and another Member for Kent, which was one of the four contested counties. The contest in Berkshire produced no change, nor did that for Hertfordshire, where the lone radical county candidate appeared, except that William Baker was no longer a Member the opposition could rely on. In Herefordshire, Biddulph, a Whig sponsored by the Duke of Norfolk, ousted Cornewall, a Portland Whig. Otherwise the opposition could no longer rely on two Members for Lincolnshire nor government on one of the Members for Devon. Of 16 new county Members, nine had already sat in Parliament. The Treasury forecast was quite wrong in only one case (Herefordshire, where the Whigs ousted Cornewall). Though they seem to have been over-optimistic about Devon and Suffolk, elsewhere they erred on the side of caution. No less than 15 counties compromised politically, but government now received support from both Members in 20 counties, while opposition could not be certain of both in any one case.

In 1796 there were 55 contests in the English boroughs, 33 of them in freeman boroughs, 12 in scot and lot boroughs, six in householder boroughs, three in corporation boroughs, one in a burgage borough and none in the freeholder boroughs.

In the 32 large English boroughs there were 16 contests: at Bristol, Canterbury, Colchester, Coventry, Dover, Hull, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Northampton, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Preston, Southwark and Westminster. This was four fewer than in 1790, and only Hull, Northampton, Oxford, Preston and Southwark were fresh contests. At Beverley opposition lost a Member without a contest, likewise gaining one at Exeter; they could no longer count on their second Member for York, however, or on one for Lancaster. Otherwise, changes resulted from the contests. Opposition gained Canterbury and Coventry, and held the former on a fresh election when the first was voided, only to lose both seats on petition in 1797. At Southwark they gained one in the same fashion. They lost one at Hull, and gained one for London. Government could no longer count on one of the Members for Oxford. At Bristol, Dover, Leicester, Norwich and Nottingham, former members of opposition who had gone over to government retained their seats. It was in these large constituencies that the issues of peace versus war and liberty versus alarm were most vehemently canvassed. Radical platforms were raised at Bristol, Colchester, London, Norwich, Nottingham and Westminster, to no effect. The opposition, however, were not to be shaken out of a seat at Liverpool, Northampton or Preston. Only at Gloucester, Lincoln, Shoreham and York did political compromise prevail. On the whole, government had gained ground: 41 supporters, 20 opponents, with three independent and two doubtful.

In the 32 medium English boroughs, in which there were 15 contests compared with 19 in 1790, government fared better still. They might look to support from 50 Members, opposition from only 11, with four independent. At Aylesbury, St. Albans, Sandwich and Stafford, one of the sitting Members now returned had gone over to them during the preceding Parliament, and at Boston, Ipswich and Sudbury they replaced others who had done so. They gained one at Maidstone, but lost one at Pontefract and Rochester, and, in effect, at Leominster where the battle between the Duke of Norfolk and Lord Malden for control of the borough resulted in a duel. Elsewhere, challenges to the status quo made no difference, or at least no political difference, since Shrewsbury was the scene of a lavish contest in which the Attingham branch of the Hill family ousted the Hawkstone branch. The radical platform was canvassed at Boston, Chichester, Derby, Maidstone, Rochester, St. Albans and Tewkesbury, to no avail.

In the 139 boroughs with fewer than 500 voters, government made the greatest inroads. In 1790 the 274 seats had been distributed 167 pro, 93 con, 11 independent, three doubtful: in 1796 the result was 213 pro, 45 con, 13 independent, three doubtful. In the 25 boroughs with between 200 and 500 voters the trend is already clear: government now had 33 supporters compared with 26 in 1790, opposition ten compared with 20, independent four compared with three, and two were now doubtful.

To tabulate the English borough results, figures in brackets being those for 1790:

ENGLISH BOROUGH RESULTS 1796: ANALYZED BY SIZE

	Ministers	Oppositions	Independent	Doubtful
Large boroughs (66 seats)	41 (39)	20 (25)	3 (2)	2 (0)
Medium boroughs (65 seats)	50 (42)	11 (18)	4 (5)	0 (0)
Small boroughs (274 seats)	213 (167)	45 (93)	13 (11)	3 (3)
	304 (248)	76 (1136)	20 (18)	5 (3)

 

ENGLISH BOROUGH RESULTS 1796: ANALYZED BY FRANCHISE

	Ministers	Opposition	Independent	Doubtful
Burgage (60 seats)	46 (35)	12 (21)	2 (2)	0 (0)
Freeman (181 seats)	133 (102)	35 (70)	10 (7)	3 (2)
Corporation (49 seats)	36 (31)	10 (15)	3 (5)	0 (0)
Scot and lot (73 seats)	58 (48)	8 (21)	5 (4)	2 (0)
Freeholder (16 seats)	13 (13)	3 (2)	4 (0)	0 (1)
Householder (26 seats)	18 (19)	8 (7)	4 (0)	0 (0)
	304 (248)	76 (136)	20 (18)	5 (3)

 

It may be observed that it was only in the householder boroughs that government lost any ground, and that marginally.

There had been 24 contests in the small boroughs in 1796 compared with 22 in 1790, and in 15 of these cases there had been no contest then (Andover, Bridport, Bury St. Edmunds, Camelford, East Looe, Grampound, Guildford, Launceston, where there had been a contest in 1795, Maldon, Malmesbury, Marlow, Milborne Port, East Retford, Totnes, and Tregony). Barnstaple, Downton, Grimsby, Ilchester, Lewes, Minehead, Seaford, Shaftesbury and Stockbridge were contested again. Eight of the contests were in boroughs with between 200 and 500 voters. The political content of these contests was low: they were mostly struggles for control of boroughs. The honours were more or less even as a result of them, and it was among those without contests that the government gained most ground. In a dozen or so cases they had already gained the allegiance of a sitting Member returned in opposition in 1790; in most other cases it was the allegiance or identity of the borough patron that had changed in their favour. Thus they gained friends for both seats at Bodmin, Gatton, Huntingdon, Wendover and Wigan; and for the present, at least, need not expect active opposition from Earl Fitzwilliam’s Members. Amid many expected losses, the opposition gained both seats at Tregony and one each at Appleby, Banbury, Honiton, Launceston, Minehead, Steyning, Thetford and (by purchase) at Boroughbridge and Truro.

There was no change whatever in the university representation in 1796, though 105 masters of arts were created at Cambridge shortly before Pitt’s visit to his constituency in January 1796—a show of strength to discourage opposition, and scarcely to be differentiated from the mass creation of freemen before elections in other constituencies.

In Wales, only two counties were contested, and that for Carmarthenshire was not serious. In Caernarvonshire, Lord Penrhyn failed to topple Sir Robert Williams in a contest of great bitterness, little of it political. Government could now count on friends for Denbighshire and Cardiganshire (though Thomas Johnes the new Member for that county ceded Radnorshire to Wilkins, who inclined to opposition). In the boroughs, government did better, in the sense that not one Member was now clearly in opposition. The one contest was for Carmarthen; there, however, the Whigs subsequently secured their man on petition.

In Scotland, where only three counties and one district of burghs were contested, Henry Dundas virtually realized his ambition of sweeping the board for government.

The results of the general election of 1796 can be set out as follows (those for 1790 in brackets):

SUMMARY OF RESULTS 1796

	Ministers	Opposition	Independent	Doubtful
English counties	57 (41)	17 (32)	6 (7)	0 (0)
English boroughs	304 (248)	76 (136)	20 (18)	5 (3)
Universities	3 (3)	0 (0)	1 (1)	0 (0)
Welsh counties	7 (5)	2 (4)	2 (2)	1 (1)
Welsh boroughs	10 (7)	0 (5)	0 (0)	2 (0)
Scotland	43 (36)	0 (6)	0 (1)	2 (2)
	424 (340)	95 (183)	29 (29)	10 (6)

 

How did the results in 1796 compare with George Rose’s forecast? Briefly, they were even more favourable to government than he expected. His final prognostication had been 417 to 141: the estimate of government supporters was near enough; that for opposition included all doubtful cases and half the ‘hopefuls’, and while it has been considered that 134 Members were not clearly supporters of government, 29 have been classified as independent and ten doubtful. Certainly some of these occasionally or even regularly voted with opposition, but the attribution to opposition of 95 Members must also be qualified by the fact that a number of them were to be inactive or irregular in attendance in the ensuing session, even before the Foxite secession of June 1797.

Petitions against the returns of 1796 led to the opposition gaining Carmarthen (Philipps) and, after the first election had been voided and a fresh election gone against them, Southwark (Tierney). At Canterbury, where they succeeded on a new election in similar circumstances, they lost both Members (Baker and Sawbridge) on petition. In general, the House’s success in remedying the disastrous backlog of petitions against elections after the previous general election by tightening up procedure on them was reflected in the reduction of the number of petitions presented in 1796 to 23 constituencies (compared with 39). Decisions on these controverted elections were reached in the ensuing session in all but one case, and that (Shrewsbury) was subsequently given up. Thirteen were settled by Christmas 1796, seven the more easily because they lapsed. The right of election was defined at Camelford, Malmesbury, Milborne Port and Tewkesbury, as well as at Newton, after a by-election in 1797. Only at Camelford did the committee endorse the petitioners’ plea on behalf of an enlarged franchise, though they did not unseat the Members returned: at Milborne Port they rejected a petitioners’ plea which reduced the number of electors. The legality of votes was the ground for petition in 12 cases; bribery was mentioned in four and bribery and treating in five more; corrupt or illegal practice in four; illegal procedure in three; undue influence (other than that of the returning officer) at Milborne Port; and an illegal bargain in the case of Kent. Disqualification of a successful candidate was alleged in three cases, and in a fourth arising out of a by-election late in 1796 for Flintshire, Sir Thomas Mostyn did not defend the petition which unseated him because he was not yet of age. Between 1799 and the election of 1802 there was only one election petition, from Canterbury in 1800.

As a result of by-elections between 1796 and the dissolution of 1802, an adjustment in the state of the parties took place. In the reshuffles due to double elections in 1796, government seemed likely to benefit from replacements at Ashburton, Gatton and Newport (I.o.W.), though not at Wareham. In 1797 a potential supporter was unseated on petition after a contest at Newton, but a potential opponent was likewise unseated on petition after a contest for Flintshire. On the other hand, opposition benefited from by-elections at Denbigh, Leominster and Petersfield. In 1798 Earl Fitzwilliam’s drift back towards opposition gave them hopes of the new Members for Higham Ferrers and Malton. In 1799 opposition gained an inactive supporter for Flintshire, but made up for this in Montgomeryshire and Wareham; though they could no longer count on a Member for Helston. In 1800 the opposition could look to new Members for Durham and Wareham, if not for such a regular supporter at Lincoln, and in 1801 a change of patron brought them a controversial acquisition at Old Sarum. Between then and 1802, with Addington in power instead of Pitt, the only significant changes favoured a ‘New Opposition’ to ministers, which secured Members for Downton, Haverfordwest and Thirst

The only contests were for Malmesbury (1796), Great Yarmouth (1796, for both seats), Flintshire (1796), Dover (1797), Leominster (1797), Newton (1797), Tewkesbury (1797), Windsor (1797), Beverley (1799), Lichfield (1799), Canterbury (1800), Durham (1800), Stirling Burghs (1800), Bath (1801) and Cambridgeshire (1802); that is 15 in about 120 by-elections involving a change of Member, though at Dover it was the sitting Member’s re-election that was contested.

Between the opening of the new Parliament in 1796 and Grey’s motion for parliamentary reform, 26 May 1797, after which Fox and his followers announced their secession from Parliament, the opposition musters on minority lists that have survived ranged from 37 to 93. The latter figure was on the reform motion, which attracted six or seven votes from Members not previously in the minority: nor, in a critical year for Pitt’s administration, was it the first division to do so. Accessions to opposition on questions raised by the Bank stoppage were forthcoming, and in March a new ‘third party’ termed ‘the armed neutrality’ was floated under the aegis of Sir John Sinclair and Sir William Pulteney. This was more reminiscent of bids of 1784 and 1788 than of 1793 in its attempt to combat the Pitt-Fox dichotomy of the political nation, and also in that it was a muster of (about 30) independent country gentlemen. It evaporated like the others, without trace, though not without announcing its aims to George III through the mediation of Lord Moira. These were (as resolved at their first meeting on 9 Mar. 1797) economy, peace, opposition to Pitt on his Bank policy and opposition to Fox in his bid to secure the repeal of alarmist legislation.

In the minorities of 1796-7, therefore, the Foxite Whigs are to be distinguished from a batch of independent critics of Pitt’s administration struggling towards, but not achieving, coherence. Of eight minority lists surviving in full, 77 Members may be distinguished as having voted four or more times in the minority (59 of them five or more times). Of these, 43 were regular in opposition between December 1794 and 1796, nine were then occasionally in opposition but now stepped up their attendance (John Pollexfen Bastard, Lord George Cavendish, Charles Dundas, Hon. Thomas Erskine, Sir Frederick Fletcher Vane, Richard Payne Knight, John George Philipps, Gen. George Porter and Sir Edward Winnington). One (George Rawdon) was elected just before the dissolution; and 24 were newly elected to that Parliament: John Baker, Sir Charles Warwick Bampfylde, Richard Bateman Robson, Charles George Beauclerk, Robert Biddulph, William Wilberforce Bird, James Brogden, Sir Francis Burdett, Harvey Christian Combe, Sir Lionel Copley, William Joseph Denison, James Greene, Nathaniel Jefferys, James Martin Lloyd, John Nicholls, William Northey, Joseph Richardson, John Scudamore junior, George Shum, Lord Stanley, George Tierney, Henry Tufton, John Tufton and George Walpole. (Scudamore, Tierney and Walpole came in after the general election.) Only four of these 24 had sat previously in the House (Bampfylde, Lloyd, Nicholls and Tierney). They and the better-attending old Members more than supplied the gap in the regular opposition left by 18 Members no longer in the House (Lee Antonie, Church, Crespigny, Fetherstonhaugh, Francis, Harcourt, Lechmere, Long, Lord Ludlow, Macleod, Maitland, William Powlett Powlett, Morris Robinson, Gen. Richard Smith, Vyner senior, Wilbraham, Percy Charles Wyndham and Robert Watkin Wynne) and 12 others, one of whom (William Henry Lambton) no longer attended at all, while the rest (Sir Francis Baring, John Baring, William Henry Bouverie, Sir Martin Browne Ffolkes, Sir Robert Clayton, Edward Coke, Edward Foley, Henry Howard, Kemp, Sir Matthew White Ridley and Thompson) did so less regularly than before. Of the 77 regulars, 16 sat for English counties; of the 61 borough Members, 33 sat for boroughs reckoned ‘open’ by Rose in 1795 and 27 for ‘close’ boroughs, while one sat for an open Welsh borough. Six open and six close boroughs returned two Members in opposition.

With reference to other Members who voted in the minority in 1796-7, the following 29 were stated by the Morning Chronicle to have acceded to opposition in March on one or more of four questions, three concerning the Bank (the revival of the secret committee and whether Fox should be added to it) and one on a plea for public economy: James Adair (1), William Baker (2), William Baldwin (1), John Pollexfen Bastard (2), John Bond (2), Edward Bouverie of Downton (1), Orlando Bridgeman (2), Edward Clarke (2), William Joseph Denison (1), Bryan Edwards (2), Joseph Foster Barham (2), Richard Bateman Robson (2), Sir William Geary (1), William Gore Langton (1), Sir Christopher Hawkins (2), Richard Payne Knight (2), John Lemon (1), John Lubbock (1), Sir John Macpherson (3), Lord Morpeth (1), Lawrence Palk (1), George Augustus Pollen (3), Sir George Augustus Shuckburgh Evelyn (1), Sir John Sinclair (2), Thomas Tyrwhitt (1), Sir Godfrey Webster (2), Sir Watkin Williams Wynn (2), Richard Wilson (2) and Col. Wood (1). The five italicized acceded on the question of economy only. It may be noted that Bastard, Bateman Robson, Denison and Knight, though hailed as acquisitions, have been previously classified as regular in opposition, though not necessarily as partisan. The Morning Chronicle on 24 Mar. 1797 also supplied a list of those who joined opposition in the division on the French attack on Ireland. The names on this list are Richard Bateman Robson, Sir Henry Watkin Dashwood, Charles Dundas, Bryan Edwards, Sir Christopher Hawkins, Richard Payne Knight, French Laurence, Sir John Fleming Leicester, Sir George Augustus Shuckburgh Evelyn and Tyrwhitt—the new ones therefore being Dashwood, Dundas, Laurence and Leicester. But it should be pointed out that Dundas was not infrequently in opposition, and for none of the other three was it their only minority vote. Moreover, of the 29 first listed, only 11 (Adair, Baldwin, Bond, Bouverie, Bridgeman, Hawkins, Lubbock, Macpherson, Webster, Williams Wynn and Wood) do not appear in any of the eight full surviving minority lists in 1796-7.

What relation do these accessions to opposition in March 1797 bear to the membership of the ‘armed neutrality’ assembled by Sir John Sinclair on 9 Mar.? Of the 30 or so present, 19 names are supplied by Charles Abbot in his diary for that date, and at least three others (Bryan Edwards, Sir Christopher Hawkins and Shuckburgh Evelyn) may be added, as they requested Lord Moira to lobby the King on behalf of the group. Sir William Pulteney should doubtless be added. Abbot named Allardyce, John Pollexfen Bastard, Sir Lionel Copley, Foster Barham, Sir Richard Hill, Langston, Sir John Fleming Leicester, John Lemon, Sir William Lemon, Lubbock, Sir John Macpherson, Nicholls, Palk, Petrie, Pollen, Porter, Sewell, Sinclair and Tyrwhitt. It will be noted that of these only Allardyce, Copley, Hill, Langston, Sir William Lemon, Nicholls, Petrie, Porter and Sewell had not appeared in the lists of accessions to opposition, but Copley, Langston, Lemon, Nicholls and Porter have been counted among the opposition.

Apart from those regular in opposition and the above accessions to it, and the 12 Members who ceased to be regular in opposition (Sir Francis Baring, John Baring, William Henry Bouverie, Sir Martin Browne Ffolkes, Sir Robert Clayton, Edward Coke, Edward Foley, Howard, Kemp, William Henry Lambton, Ridley and Thompson), the following 29 cast occasional votes with the minority: John Bullock, Sir Charles Bunbury, Lionel Damer, Sir John Dashwood King, Sir Charles Davers, Baron Dimsdale, Sir William Dolben, Viscount Galway, Sir Gilbert Heathcote, Benjamin Hobhouse, John Jeffery, Sir William Johnston, William Jolliffe, Whitshed Keene, Lord Milton, Henry Peters, Sir James Pulteney, Sir Henry St. John Mildmay, Samuel Elias Sawbridge, Sitwell, Stein, Henry Thornton, Trevanion, Sir Charles Turner, George Vansittart, Wigley, Owen Williams, Thomas Williams and Lord Wycombe. Of these, 12 were new Members and the remaining 17 had been known to vote with the minority before.

The 93 Members who supported Grey’s reform motion on 26 May 1797 included 27 who had voted the same way on 7 May 1793, and of four others in that minority still in the House Martin of Tewkesbury was reported absent favourable, William Henry Lambton was abroad, Thomas Thompson ill and Lord Wycombe abroad. Four other would-be supporters were unavoidably absent in 1797 (Bryan Edwards, Milnes, Scudamore and Tarleton). Of the 93, 69 were regular in opposition in that Parliament and four were former regulars (John Baring, Browne Ffolkes, Edward Coke and Howard). Twenty-two of the 69 regulars were new Members, and there were ten new Members among the rest, who also included William Baker, a voter for the measure in 1793. Sir Charles Davers, Dimsdale, Dolben, Lawrence Dundas, Sir Richard Hill, Henry Thornton, Trevanion, George Vansittart and Wigley were the other supporters in 1797 not new to the House. As to the kind of constituency represented by the supporters of reform, 20 were county Members: Baker, John Pollexfen Bastard, Biddulph, Byng, Lord George Cavendish, Thomas William Coke, Crewe, Charles Dundas, Sir Henry Fletcher, Charles Grey, Heathcote, Sir Richard Hill, Sir William Lemon, Milbanke, Plumer, Lord William Russell, St. John, Vansittart, Vyner and (one from Wales) Wilkins. One (Dolben) was Member for Oxford University. Of the rest, 43 sat for boroughs described by Rose in 1795 as ‘open’ (including the Member for Carmarthen) and 29 for 19 ‘close’ boroughs: Aldeburgh (2), Appleby (2), Banbury, Bletchingley (2), Boroughbridge, Calne, Camelford, Knaresborough (2), Launceston (2), Newport (Cornw.) (2), Northallerton, Okehampton, Portsmouth, Richmond (2), Tavistock (2), Thetford (2), Tregony (2), Wareham and Yarmouth (I.o.W.). The Members for Boroughbridge and Camelford, at least, came in by purchase; all were nominated by patrons.

The Foxite secession of June 1797 which, in theory at least, lasted until the fall of Pitt’s ministry in January 1801, reduced the minority considerably: the highest muster of 71 (against 196) on the third reading of Pitt’s assessed taxes, 4 Jan. 1798, involved, as did 12 other surviving minorities on taxation, an addition to opposition of independent or disgruntled Members who on other issues supported ministers, though the same phenomenon occurred to a lesser extent on the question of the Irish rebellion in 1798, the minority rising to 64 on 22 June (against 212). On the refusal to negotiate with France, 3 Feb. 1800, the minority was 64, but the majority rose to 260. The 46 surviving minority lists between December 1797 and December 1800 (excluding the fragmentary one for 19 June 1798) give an average opposition muster of 24 or so to government’s 125; and in 24 of these divisions during 1800, it was 23 to 121.

The secession was not rigidly adhered to: Fox, to whom it was congenial on personal as well as political grounds, attended on Pitt’s tax proposals (December 1797-January 1798), on the Irish rebellion (June 1798) and on the refusal to negotiate with France (February 1800). Not only was the secession rebuked as unconstitutional from the government benches and in the government press, but Fox and those of his friends who represented populous constituencies were to some extent pressurized to attend. Moreover, some Foxites either never effectively seceded or attended much more frequently than their leader. While Fox was content to leave this to their own judgment, and turned a blind eye to the appearance of being eclipsed by ambitious lieutenants like Tierney or Sheridan, the want of cohesion in the opposition rump, particularly in their relations with the crop of ‘little great men’ who now took advantage of the absence of a regular opposition to wage guerilla warfare against ministers, was damaging. Consequently Fox relied on his chosen lieutenant, Charles Grey, to attend and set the tone on occasions when he preferred to remain absent. He did not alienate those of his friends to whom secession was as congenial as to himself by seeming to capitulate to critics of the prudence of the measure.

Of the 44 Members who voted at least nine times in the minority between December 1797 and December 1800 (out of 46 surviving minorities of two or more votes), only 11 had not been regular in opposition in the first session of that Parliament: William Henry Bouverie, Hobhouse, Howard, Jolliffe, Jones, Kemp, Laurence, Pulteney, Sinclair, Wigley and Adair, a new Member. George Tierney was by far the most frequent minority voter (41 out of 46) and was often accused of usurping the lead. He justified himself by a conscientious objection to the secession and by reference to the wishes of his Southwark constituents, but he was undeniably ambitious: his duel with Pitt in 1798 was symbolic of this. Benjamin Hobhouse, a new Member who appeared in 30 minorities, was also making a bid for recognition. Sheridan, who appeared in 28, was unfavourably viewed by many Foxites, notably by Grey, as an intriguant for Fox’s position, but Fox would never outlaw him. Thomas Jones (25 minority votes) was an ambitious freebooter who sprang to the fore during the secession but when it was over sank into insignificance. The other regulars (in order of attendance for divisions) Plumer, St. John, Burdett, Western, James Martin, Brogden, William Joseph Denison, Richardson, Edward Bouverie, Lord William Russell, Nicholls, Alderman Combe, Hussey, Jekyll, Milner, Sir William Pulteney, Bateman Robson, Henry Tufton, Charles Grey, Jolliffe, Biddulph, Bird, Dudley North, Lord John Russell, Jefferys, George Barclay, William Smith, Copley, Kemp, George Walpole, Sturt, Sir William Lemon, Lord George Cavendish, Dr Laurence, Henry Howard, Vyner, Wigley, Sinclair, Robert Adair and William Henry Bouverie were in all but a few cases Foxite in sympathy. Burdett was moving towards a more radical position, courting extra-parliamentary applause. Bateman Robson, Nicholls and Wigley were, like Thomas Jones, freebooters anxious to cut a figure in debate. Sir William Pulteney and Sir John Sinclair were still looking for political consequence to match their respective wealth and pretensions. William Jolliffe had returned to the fold. Dr Laurence was Earl Fitzwilliam’s ponderous instrument.

Apart from Fox, the following 28 former regulars in opposition voted in between four and eight minorities in the same period, and it looks as if they favoured secession: Anson, Burch, Byng, Clarke Jervoise, Thomas William Coke, Colhoun, Courtenay, Fitzpatrick, Sir Henry Fletcher, Greene, Hare, Harrison, Knight, Langston, James Martin Lloyd, Northey, Peirse, Porter, Shum, Lord Robert Spencer, Lord Stanley, Tarleton, Michael Angelo Taylor, John Tufton, Walwyn, Whitbread, Wilkins and Winnington. (Some of Fox’s most loyal adherents feature in this list.) The same is probably true of Sir Martin Browne Ffolkes, John Lemon and Thomas Thompson, whose attendance had been less regular, and of Sir John Aubrey, William Baker, Sir Charles Bampfylde, Crewe, Curwen, Charles Dundas, Thomas Erskine, Sir Frederick Fletcher Vane, Sir Ralph Milbanke, John George Philipps, John Rawdon, John Scudamore and Lord John Townshend, none of whom appeared in as many as four minorities, but had previously shown some regularity in opposition. It may be true of a few Members with opposition leanings who recorded very few or no minority votes between 1797 and 1800, such as John Bullock, Bunbury, Edward Clarke, Sir Robert Clayton, Sir Charles Davers, Edward Foley, Viscount Galway, George Rawdon and Earl Wycombe. This would amount to little more than 50 secessions.

The remaining 14 of the 50 Members who voted between four and eight times in the minority, 1797-1800, were: Sir Francis Baring, John Pollexfen Bastard, Bryan Cooke, Sir John Dashwood King, John Denison, Bryan Edwards, Sir William Geary, William Gore Langton, Sir John Fleming Leicester, Evelyn Pierrepont, Philip Rashleigh, Shakespeare, Lord Sheffield and Sir George Augustus Shuckburgh Evelyn, all of whom except Cooke (Earl Fitzwilliam’s nominee) and Shakespeare (Lord Dundas’s) were following their own line. Occasional or stray minority votes were cast in the same period by William Baldwin (against the grain), Henry Bankes, Hugh Barlow*, Beauclerk (who went out in 1798), [John] Blackburn* junior, Blackburne* of Lancashire, John Bond, Boucherett*, Bunbury*, Burdon*, Sir Robert John Buxton*, Henry Frederick Campbell, Cartwright*, Cholmondeley, Sir Robert Clayton*, Daniel Parker Coke, Edward Coke, Lionel Damer, Dent, Dickins, Dickinson senior, Dolben*, Charles Lawrence Dundas, Lawrence Dundas*, Du Pré, Egerton*, Ellison, Fellowes*, Andrew Foley*, Edward Foley, Foster Barham, Frankland, Isaac Gascoyne, Goddard*, Hamlyn*, Hawkins, Sir Gilbert Heathcote, John Heathcote, Hicks Beach, Sir Richard Hill, William Hill*, George Johnstone, Keck*, Keene, John Kynaston Powell*, Ralph Lambton*, Lord Granville Leveson Gower, Francis Lloyd*, Lygon*, William Mainwaring*, Manning, Lord Milford, Morritt, Mostyn, Norton*, Lord Francis Osborne, Sir Gregory Page Turner*, Sir Lawrence Palk, Patten, Peachy, Petrie*, Pochin*, Reginald Pole Carew*, Pollen, Lord Porchester*, Sir James Pulteney*, St. John Mildmay*, Savile, Smollett*, Thomas Stanley, Thomas Powell Symonds, William Taylor, Henry Thornton*, Thomas Tyrwhitt*, John Vaughan*, Sir Robert Williames Vaughan*, Wilberforce, Wilkins*, Thomas Williams, Wodehouse and Col. Wood* Of these 81, the 37 asterisked voted in the minority only on Pitt’s tax measures; and of the former opposition regulars mentioned above as having reduced their attendance, four more (Bunbury, Clayton, John Rawdon and Vane) likewise voted in the minority only on fiscal measures. The same is true of two Members (Rashleigh and Lord Sheffield) who voted four times in the minority, 1797-1800. The nine Members marked with a dagger opposed on the question of Ireland only.

Of two majority lists surviving from the same period, the first (the majority of 36 on the loyalty loan, published by the Morning Chronicle to show that 21 officeholders, two loan contractors, eight bankers, three East India Company directors and a gunpowder maker ranged themselves on the government side) is of no great interest. That of 4 Jan. 1798 on the third reading of Pitt’s assessed taxes increase bill is more interesting, as the majority was 196, and it gives us some clue as to the Members government might on significant issues count on for support. The only Members on it who had of late shown any disposition to act with opposition (whatever their former record in this respect) were perhaps William Baker, Lionel Damer, Charles Dundas, Sir William Geary, William Jolliffe, Thomas Jones (?), French Laurence, Evelyn Pierrepont and Sir William Pulteney. The 32 to 34 county Members were Baker, Bramston, Burdon, Cartwright, Chute, Coke, Dickins, Sir George Douglas, Charles Dundas, Robert Dundas (?), Ferguson, Fraser, Frederick, Geary, Lord Gower, William Grant, Lord Hinchingbrooke, Thomas Johnes (?), Knatchbull, Laurie, John Lowther, John Lloyd, Robert Manners, Sir Charles Morgan, Pierrepont, Ross, Lord Charles Spencer, Lord Titchfield, George Vansittart, Wilberforce, Wilkins, Charles Williams Wynn, Henry Penruddocke Wyndham and Charles Yorke. Nine or 11 of these (depending on the identity of ‘Robert Dundas’ and ‘Thomas Jones’) were Scottish or Welsh.

Government could not, in any case, count on the support of anything like as many placemen as had been possible 20 years before. On or after 19 Oct. 1799, George Rose drew up a list of persons holding employment during pleasure or for life who were members of the House and contrasted it with the situation in 1778. In 1799, according to Rose’s arithmetic, 40 persons held employment during pleasure compared with 85 in 1778; 12 persons (excluding seven who also held places during pleasure) held employment for life (six in the law) compared with 16 in 1778; the totals being therefore 52 in 1799 and 101 (not 99 as in Rose’s addition) in 1778, when there were also 19 government contractors in the House. Rose adds three pensioners (Ainslie, Scrope Bernard, and Marriott) to his list, and queries Thomas Carter, private secretary to the Duke of Portland. He further lists 39 army officers (only two of whom, Gen. Tarleton and Hon. George Rawdon, were habitually in opposition) and 11 naval officers (none of whom was in opposition). The place-holders during pleasure were Lord Arden, Hon. William Broderick, John Calvert, John Clevland, Sylvester Douglas, Henry Dundas, Robert Dundas, William Dundas, Thomas Fane, John Fordyce, John Hookham Frere, Philip Goldsworthy, William Grant, Robert Fulk Greville, Sir Andrew Snape Hamond, Lord Hawkesbury, Viscount Hinchingbrooke, William Huskisson, Charles Long, Sir John Mitford, Sir Charles Morgan, Evan Nepean, Spencer Perceval, William Pitt, Mark Pringle, Charles Small Pybus, John Robinson, George Rose, George Henry Rose, Dudley Ryder, Richard Ryder, Sir James St. Clair Erskine, John Sargent, Sir William Scott, John Smyth, Lord Charles Henry Somerset, Thomas Steele, Sir Philip Stephens, Viscount Stopford, Henry Strachey, William Tait, George Villiers, Thomas Wallace and William Windham. (There are in fact 44 listed.)

Rose lists 13 place-holders for life, seven of whom (Lord Arden, Henry Dundas, Evan Nepean, William Pitt, John Robinson, George Rose and Thomas Steele) had already appeared in the list of place-holders during pleasure. The six new names were Lord William Bentinck, Charles James Fox, Thomas Johnes, William Rose, Sir James St. Clair Erskine and John Charles Villiers. Rose also lists six legal office-holders for life: Sir Richard Arden, Francis Burton, George Hardinge, Thomas Manners Sutton, Sir John Scott and John Simeon.

The numbers of distinct individuals appearing on Rose’s lists are 52 place-holders plus 48 officers (excluding Goldsworthy and Sir James St. Clair Erskine as place-holders), that is 100. Of these, it may be observed that 62 or 63 appeared in the government majority on the assessed taxes on 4 Jan. 1798; only four (Fox, George Rawdon and Tarleton as usual, and Gen. Norton unusually) in opposition; and on this occasion, as so often since the war began, a number of officers were unavoidably absent on active service.

As Pitt did not want for a parliamentary majority, his resignation in January 1801 over the King’s refusal to countenance Catholic relief as a concomitant of the Irish union was a court and cabinet affair: apart from the royal veto, it was an issue that divided a cabinet already at loggerheads over the conduct of war and the prospects of peace. The King’s choice for Pitt’s successor fell on the Speaker, Henry Addington, whose political promotion was ridiculed and widely regarded as a pis aller bound to fail sooner or later. Thanks to Pitt’s acquiescence and promised support, which involved half his ministry in the new administration even when the other half elected to resign with him for conscience sake, Addington clung to power: and the Foxite opposition which had returned in numbers to Parliament at first under Fox’s lieutenant Grey, then drawn back Fox himself to see some sport, soon found their hostility abated by Addington’s bringing about an armistice. They concentrated accordingly on soliciting parliamentary sanction for Pitt’s self-dismissal and distinguishing between the former and the new administration. The partiality to Addington’s ministry that ensued served as a counterbalance to the growth of the New Opposition (as it was called) among Pitt’s disgruntled friends, more particularly among the connexions of his cousin Lord Grenville, with whom he had grown into the habit of differing on public affairs. They took their stand against the armistice and enlisted the debating force of William Windham on their side: though small in numbers, they were formidable.

The meeting of the first Imperial Parliament on 1 Jan. 1801 was therefore the prelude to a period of political uncertainty and reshuffling. The addition of 100 new Members from Ireland, much decried by critics of the Union as swamping the House with potential supporters of ministers, meant that the House was swollen to 658 Members: it was physically enlarged to make more room for them, though it could still not accommodate them all. The bias of the Irish representation in favour of the counties, which returned two each (64 in all), was intended to offset charges of packing the House: it had inevitably led to the revival of the question of parliamentary reform, however untimely, as well as to rumblings in Scotland, which returned only 45 Members. The disfranchisement of so many Irish boroughs set an interesting precedent, particularly as the owners of proprietary boroughs were compensated. The limitation of Irish place-holders at Westminster to 20 led to more Union claims. The bargains struck to carry the Union in the last Irish parliament were notorious. Yet the storm blew over: the Irish contingent caused no undue disruption and the question became how many of them would make the journey to Westminster. About 28 had not yet taken their seats by 25 Mar. 1801. The Irish Members were classified by the Castle as follows about that time: government 55 or 56; opposition 16; ‘on sale’ 17; inactive five; no comment six (though in some three or four cases queries as to the classification arose). Undoubtedly government drew proportionately most of its support from the Irish borough Members, but some 30 county Members were also reckoned on its side; opposition had 11 county Members and five borough Members. The Castle believed that at least 47 Members attended from Ireland in the session beginning in November 1801. Only 22 of them apparently cast minority votes between January 1801 and the dissolution of 1802: Henry Vaughan Brooke, Dalway, Denis Bowes Daly, Richard Dawson, Falkiner, Fitzgerald, John Foster, George Jackson, Keating, John Latouche, Charles Powell Leslie, Hugh Dillon Massey, May, O’Hara, Sir John Parnell, Sir Lawrence Parsons, George, John and William Ponsonby, Power, Savage and Somerville. Most of these were in only one minority, and only the Ponsonbys, the leading Irish Whig family, were regular in opposition.

The return of Fox and his friends to Westminster on the fall of Pitt led to significantly larger minorities: if, out of 15 surviving divisions between February 1801 and May 1802, 12 are selected as politically significant, the average size of the minority had risen to 55, that is more than doubled as compared with the secession period. On two divisions, Grey’s censure motion of 25 Mar. 1801, and the Prince of Wales’s entitlement to the duchy of Cornwall revenues, 31 Mar. 1802, it rose to 105 and 103 respectively. The opposition regulars, reckoned at 44 during the secession, now rose to 73 if the names of those (60 of them) who attended more regularly than or as regularly as Fox are counted. These 73 include all but two (Sir William Lemon and Sir William Pulteney) of the regulars during the secession; and, in addition, Sir John Aubrey, Bryan Cooke, John Courtenay, John Christian Curwen, Charles Lawrence Dundas, Lawrence Dundas, Hare, Harrison, John Horne Tooke, Knight, Langston, James Martin Lloyd, George and John and William Ponsonby, Gen. Porter, Sir Matthew White Ridley, Shakespeare, Shum, Lord Stanley, Michael Angelo Taylor, William Taylor, and Whitbread, all of whom voted more often than Fox; and Byng, Thomas Erskine, Viscount Folkestone, Isaac Gascoyne, Gore Langton, John Lemon, Pierrepont and Winnington, who like Fox voted four times in the 12 minority lists under analysis. It may be remarked that most of these were returning or reviving Foxites, though the two Dundases and Shakespeare were Lord Dundas’s Members, Cooke was Earl Fitzwilliam’s, the three Ponsonbys were new Irish Members and Horne Tooke and Lord Folkestone new English ones. Gascoyne, Gore Langton and Pierrepont cannot be described as Foxites either.

Four divisions in 1801-2 are of particular interest. Sturt’s motion critical of the failure of the Ferrol expedition, 19 Feb. 1801, defeated by 144 votes to 75, attracted the votes of about 30 Members (so The Times reported) ‘not in the habit of voting with the opposition’: Agnew, Angerstein, Boucherett, William Baker, Lord Bruce, Snowdon Barne, Henry Bankes, Crutchley, Dent, Dolben, Dickinson junior, Ellison, Fitzgerald, Gen. Gascoyne, Geary, Hammet, Hartopp, Sir William Johnston, [George] Jackson, Langston, Leicester, Hugh Dillon Massey, Morritt, Peachy, Pierrepont, Porter, Simeon, Earl Temple, Charles Williams Wynn and his brother Sir Watkin. Grey’s censure motion of 25 Mar. 1801, defeated by 291 votes to 105 (the largest division of that Parliament) brought out a minority consisting of most opposition regulars, a muster of irregulars and, again, over 20 Members not in the habit of voting with opposition. Manners Sutton’s motion of 31 Mar. 1802, defeated by 160 votes to 103, is interesting in showing the addition to its quota of opposition Members attached to the Prince of Wales nearly 40 Members unprepared to turn a blind eye to the reversionary interest, though not in the confirmed habit of voting with the minority. They included Miles Peter Andrews, Assheton Smith, Hugh Barlow, John Pollexfen Bastard, Thomas Richard Beaumont, John Blackburne (Lancs.), Edward Bouverie (Downton), Calcraft, Sir Lionel Darell, Dent, Dickins, Francis Fane, John Foster, Gen. Gascoyne, Gore Langton, Lord Huntingfield, Sir William Johnston, Col. Lowther and Sir William Lowther, Lubbock, Lygon, Thomas Manners Sutton, Manning, May, Morland, Morshead, Palmer, Patten, Penn, William Stewart, Sir Francis Sykes, Charles William Taylor, Peter Isaac Thellusson, Horatio Walpole, Sir John Borlase Warren, James Stuart Wortley, Charles Wyndham and Lord Yarmouth. Some 20 of the opposition regulars did not vote for the Prince’s claims, notably Grey and Whitbread whose indifference on the subject was known, and the same may be true of some of the others.

The division on Windham’s motion for an address critical of the peace terms made by Addington, 14 May 1802, defeated by 276 votes to 20, is particularly interesting as introducing the nucleus of the New Opposition which complicated the party scene in the House between 1802 and 1806. Since November 1801, Lord Grenville and his friends had diverged from Pitt as well as from Fox in their hostility to the peace. This bellicose minority of May 1802 was composed of William Baker, Lord Bruce, William Chamberlayne, Bryan Cooke, Charles Lawrence Dundas, William Elliot, Charles and George Ellis, Francis Foljambe, Viscount Folkestone, Gen. Gascoyne, Thomas Grenville, Lord Kensington, Dr Laurence, Gen. Lennox, Lord Morpeth, William Stephen Poyntz, Lord Temple, Charles Williams Wynn, Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, Windham and Sir William Young. Of these 22, only eight, Grenville, Kensington, Temple, the two Williams Wynns, Young, and by association, Poyntz and Windham, can be readily connected with Lord Grenville: Cooke, Foljambe and Laurence were Earl Fitzwilliam’s Members, and William Elliot was on the eve of becoming one. Lord Morpeth (Lord Carlisle’s son) and Charles Lawrence Dundas (Lord Dundas’s son) were also linked with discontented northern magnates. The Ellises (like Morpeth) were friends of George Canning, whose disagreement with his mentor Pitt over the latter’s approval of the peace treaty was sufficiently well known.

In view of the opposition tactic of distinguishing between Addington’s and Pitt’s administration, the better to censure the latter and muzzle the former, a ginger group, of which Canning was one of the prime instigators, came into existence to keep up Pitt’s reputation, to which, in their view, their hero paid too little heed. Fox’s birthday had been f’ted by the Whigs for many years. On 28 May 1802, it was Pitt’s turn, and a Pitt Club, aping the Whig Club in some respects, was promulgated. The stewards in 1802 included 23 Members of the House: Lords Euston, Temple, Worcester, Morpeth, Lovaine, Granville Leveson Gower, Sir William Lowther, Sir Henry St. John Mildmay, Sir Robert Vaughan, Sir John Wrottesley, Sir Robert Peel, William Dickinson, John Fane, Francis Gregor, William Egerton, William Ralph Cartwright, Hans Sloane, Charles Rose Ellis, Edward Wilbraham Bootle, Ellison, Lt.-Gen. Egerton, Samuel Thornton and Manning, not to speak of two ex- and future Members. Canning remained behind the scenes, as did others, such as Sturges and recruits like Sir Robert Lawley. The Pitt Club continued to attract members from the House of Commons, before and after Pitt’s death.

 

THE ELECTION OF 1802

Speculation about a dissolution began when Addington secured the ratification of peace preliminaries in October 1801, though many new candidatures had been announced before then. On 11 Dec. the chief secretary Abbot assured the prime minister that ‘parliamentary canvass for the next election is going on in more than half the counties of Ireland’, adding by way of reassurance, ‘the returns where they change will be uniformly for the better’. Addington had no wish to commit himself at this stage. After the conclusion of the peace treaty in March 1802, however, the prospects of a dissolution were generally acknowledged and their being favourable to Addington was undoubted. According to Gen. Gascoyne, Member for Liverpool, many who in their hearts disliked Addington would not go into ‘decided opposition’ until after the elections, for fear of contests. Edward Loveden wrote on 23 May:

I understand it has been determined if the public business could not be finished by the 12th June the dissolution should not take place before the autumn. Indeed I doubt much if the minister is prepared.

On 7 June Addington settled Irish election arrangements with the chief secretary, who had wished to do this for six months past. On 10 June Walter Boyd wrote apropos of the dissolution, ‘the 25th is now talked of’. It took place on 29 June 1802.

Lord Auckland wrote, 28 June:

It does not appear that there will be many contested elections in England or Scotland. The struggle will be more general in Ireland. ... Among the new men coming forward in the new Parliament, there are some active and enterprising characters:- and other individuals will feel free from certain restraints which had affected them hitherto. It is possible therefore that strong permutations may take place at the opening of the next session: but if the King should preserve his health, I have not the smallest doubt that the present administration will be able to maintain itself.

Addington himself informed the Irish viceroy, 29 June: ‘The elections on this side of the water are likely to be very quiet in general, and the result extremely satisfactory’, and the same day he assured the Irish lord chancellor, ‘No successful attempt, I have some reason to believe, has hitherto been made to collect the elements of an opposition for the ensuing Parliament’. Addington had every reason to be satisfied with the exertions of his friends in the west of England; but in Pitt’s domain of the Cinque Ports there were fiascos. Charles Long wrote, 17 July:

we of the old school do not think in some instances that the thing has been quite so well managed as it might have been—there is no doubt however that Addington will have a good Parliament, but the difference of having a few more Jacobins in the House of Commons will be the difference on many occasions of having or not having a troublesome debate, and whether the numbers of opposition will be such as to induce a more constant attendance of Messrs Fox, Grey, Sheridan etc. remains yet to be seen, for among the new Members there are I understand several whose political opinions are not at all known.

Canning was far gloomier: on 18 July he wrote to Lord Granville Leveson Gower:

Nothing can be worse (as it strikes me) than the spirit of the elections in general. It is not peace. It is the operation of the principles of ’93 which it is the fashion to consider as defeated and extinguished, but which show themselves to have been only cowed and subdued under a strong government, and which will assume the direction of public opinion and ere long the sway of Parliament under a weak one.

Lord Auckland added his jeremiad, 21 July, writing to Lord Sheffield: ‘Many of the elections seem to have been conducted awkwardly and to have ended unfavourably for the principles, system, and support of government’. Addington conceded, writing to the viceroy on 24 July, that though the elections were likely to turn out ‘very favourable on the whole ... enough of the old Jacobin leaven has shown itself on our side of the water at least to demand continued vigilance, and precaution’. (On this principle, the banker Thomas Coutts was denied official patronage because of his supposed support for his son-in-law Burdett for Middlesex.) Lord Pembroke had the same tale to tell to the viceroy, 13 Aug. 1802:

With us the old Jacobin spirit has intermixed too much with the election contests, and though government may not have lost in point of numbers, in the new Parliament I am afraid in many instances the rejected candidates have made way for very exceptionable people.

Then there was the expense. Lord Hawkesbury assured his father, 13 Sept., ‘The expenses of elections have been great beyond measure. The Treasury had but one seat to dispose of for nothing and Mr Addington’s brother was I know obliged to give £1,500 for his election’.

Government’s want of activity was a source of some bitterness. William Baker, defeated in Hertfordshire, wrote, 2 Oct.:

The event of this election ... has proved how small a disposition has existed in our present government to exert itself, as it became them, in the support of some of their best friends. With an affectation of candour, which was never before practiced, and (considering the subject, and those they had to deal with, as well as the particular moment when these events were passing) such as argued weakness, without conciliating respect or esteem in any quarter they have only given one more proof of their want of that energy, which can alone support the country in the present crisis, whether we consider its foreign relations or its domestic prospects.

On 27 Nov. 1802 Charles Yorke reported with some relief to his brother after the opening: ‘I think all will do well; but there are a d-d number of new and rather ugly faces; and I long to have some question put that may enable us to count noses’.

Although the general election of 1802 was the scene of a third as many contests again as that of 1796, it exceeded the figure for 1790 thanks only to its share of Irish contests, which brought the figure up to 97 in all:

6 in English counties

66 in English boroughs (37 freeman boroughs, 15 scot and lot, 7 householder, 3 corporation, 2 burgage and 2 freeholder)

2 in Welsh counties

1 in Welsh boroughs

6 in Scottish counties 5 in Scottish burghs

5 in Irish counties

6 in Irish boroughs (including Dublin University)

Of the English counties, Cambridgeshire (for the second time in a few months), Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Middlesex and Norfolk were contested. The last three were the scene of gains for the Whig opposition, though Burdett, the new Member for Middlesex, was far from orthodox and equally far from secure in his seat. Opposition were defeated in Cambridgeshire and lost one seat for Herefordshire, while in Hertfordshire the independent William Baker, who had alienated the dissenters, was defeated. Without a contest, the Whigs lost one each for Cheshire and Lincolnshire on the retirement of Crewe and Vyner; they could no longer count on Dundas of Berkshire, Bullock of Essex, Bastard and Palk of Devon, or Bunbury of Suffolk; on the other hand, the New Opposition was represented by Earl Temple (Buckinghamshire) and Berkeley (Gloucestershire). Government could no longer count on Geary (Kent) or Cornewall (Herefordshire) or the new Member for Essex. In all, it seems, 59 county Members were well disposed to government—even more than in 1796—while 14 were friends of the old opposition, two of the new, four doubtful and one independent.

The Whig opposition derived some satisfaction from the election results in the 32 large English boroughs, in which there were 18 contests. Seven of these made no change politically, but in all the Whigs regained one at Beverley and Canterbury, gained one at Cricklade, Lancaster, Worcester and (temporarily) at Nottingham, while at Norwich in a ‘triumph of Jacobinism and money’ they gained both. On the other hand, government gained one for Durham and made sure of supporters for Exeter and Oxford; they could, however, no longer count on one Member for Canterbury and Dover, while the Whigs were in the same plight at Southwark and possibly Shoreham. York returned a member of the New Opposition. The status quo was maintained without a contest at Bedford, Bristol, Chester, Colchester, Gloucester, Great Yarmouth, Hereford, Lincoln, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northampton and Preston. The merits of the peace with France were the main election issue. The reassertion of radicalism in Westminster, London and Southwark was notable, but unsuccessful, and the issue of Members acting as instructed delegates of their constituents met with limited support. There was some violence, particularly at Nottingham, where the keeping of the peace became a matter for parliamentary legislation in 1803, when the election was declared void.

There were 14 contests in the 32 medium-sized English boroughs, one fewer than in 1796. Opposition again made a little headway, the Whigs gaining a seat at Aylesbury, Boston and Maidstone and losing one at Evesham; the other contests brought no change. Without a contest, the Whigs ceded one at Carlisle by way of compromise, but gained one at Sudbury, where the other Member hovered between them and the New Opposition. The New Opposition replaced the old opposition Member for Pontefract and recruited a sitting Member for St. Albans. Except possibly at Boston, there was little excitement.

In the 139 small English boroughs there were 34 contests. As only 66 English boroughs in all were contested, this represents an extraordinarily high proportion. For instance, in 1790 when there were also 66 English boroughs contested in all, only 26 were in the small boroughs: but whereas ten of the 26 contests were in the 25 largest of these small boroughs, 15 of the contests in 1802 were in these 25 (Abingdon, Barnstaple, Bridgwater, Bridport, Great Marlow, Grimsby, Honiton, Ilchester, Lewes, Minehead, New Windsor, Okehampton, Penryn, Shaftesbury and Wells). There seems in short to have been a stronger challenge to close borough proprietors or patrons in 1802. From whom did it come? In only three of these 15 boroughs was a contest a novelty (Abingdon, Penryn and Wells): while in the 19 contested among the 124 remaining small boroughs Bishop’s Castle, Callington, Chippenham, East Grinstead, Eye, Harwich, Hedon, Hythe, Liskeard, Morpeth, New Woodstock, Plympton and Scarborough were unaccustomed to contests. There was a strong opportunistic element in these novel contests and in only five of them was success achieved by the challengers. At Morpeth, William Ord, relying on local popularity and the alienation of a number of freemen from Lord Carlisle, the absentee patron, snatched a seat from him—and held on to it. At Hedon, which was becoming ever more open and venal, George Johnstone secured a seat. At Hythe, Godfrey, a local candidate, and White, an outsider, relied on the non-resident vote and non-resident sponsors of local origin to undermine the status quo. At Chippenham the breakdown of the corporation’s agreement with the sitting Members encouraged Brooke to step in, but he lost his seat on petition. The same happened at Harwich where Myers, son-in-law of the moribund John Robinson, the veteran agent of the Treasury interest, stepped in and snatched a seat from the Treasury, only to lose it on petition. In Cornwall, Lord de Dunstanville was challenged at Penryn and the basis laid for upsetting his control in future; the Clinton interest (in the hands of trustees) brushed off a challenge at Callington, also intended to open up the borough. At Liskeard the cause of the inhabitant householders was ineffectually championed. At East Grinstead, John Frost the radical espoused the scot and lot vote in a burgage borough, but got nowhere. At Plympton a local candidate took up the cause of hereditary freemen not admitted to the franchise. At Woodstock the Duke of Marlborough and at Bishop’s Castle the absent Lord Clive withstood attacks on their interest, while at Eye Lord Cornwallis withstood two challengers. The sitting Members easily defeated an opportunist at Wells. At Abingdon Sir Thomas Metcalfe was strongly challenged by a local banker, but held on for the time being. At Scarborough another local banker made no great headway against the patrons of the corporation. In the other small boroughs contested, challenges to the prevailing interest were not new. At Queenborough the government candidates were defeated and at Lewes and Steyning the Duke of Norfolk’s friends succeeded for opposition, who however lost Tregony. More political changes in Membership resulted from variations in the patrons’ politics than from contests.

On the whole, government lost some ground in the small boroughs compared with 1796, not only to the Foxite opposition who gained seven seats at least, but particularly to the New Opposition, 15 of whose supporters sat for small boroughs. It has been estimated that some 194 Members for small boroughs were inclined to Addington’s ministry, 52 to the Foxite opposition, 15 to the New Opposition, eight were independent and five doubtful. The withdrawal of Pitt from active politics and Addington’s inexperience in election management contributed to the Treasury setback in these boroughs. No better illustration of how the uncertain relationship between the outgoing and the new minister affected the election, in England at least, can be found than in the mediocre success of government in the Cinque Ports, of which Pitt remained lord warden.

There was no change in the university representation. In Wales there was little change, the only counties contested being Carmarthenshire and Radnorshire and the only borough Montgomery, where Lord Clive was challenged in vain, as he had been at Bishop’s Castle. The New Opposition acquired two county Members in the Williams Wynns, Lord Grenville’s nephews. The old opposition lost the quixotic Thomas Jones, Member for Denbigh Boroughs (who in any case made his peace with government and came in later for an Irish borough); nor could they for the present count on Wilkins, the Radnorshire Member. In Scotland where six counties and five districts of burghs were contested, the situation was complicated by the tetchy relationship between Addington and Henry Dundas, who resented attempts by the prime minister to interfere in Scottish electoral arrangements: there was no question of Dundas’s squad becoming hostile to government at this juncture, though their support might well be lukewarm; opposition, in any case, made no headway. On 27 July Dundas assured Addington that although ‘the democratical interests of this country have been more alive and active than I have known them for these some years past’, they had ‘been everywhere discomfited’. On 29 July he assured Huskisson that he had succeeded beyond his expectations: ‘A more steady and attached representation never came from Scotland. Not one of our old steady supporters have [sic] lost their seats, and some changes to the better.’

In Ireland, five out of 32 counties and six out of 34 boroughs, including the University, were contested, the lowest total in this period, despite forecasts of a general battle. Little change was effected, though in the Dublin contest the return of John Latouche was symptomatic of a residual resistance to Castle control. Government might expect most Irish Members to support them, but the difficulty was to get them to attend and keep them happy. The reversionary interest of the Prince of Wales proved attractive to a number of Irish Members, as was illustrated in the ensuing Parliament: and if in theory ministers might perhaps count on as many as 73 potential supporters, leaving 20 in opposition (one of them, Newport, being New Opposition) and seven independent or doubtful, the Castle soon discovered that qualification was necessary on any scrutiny. The temptation—on both sides of the House—was to regard the Irish Members as a reserve to be drawn on for special occasions in so far as they were not regular visitors to Westminster.

If a result of the general election of 1802 were to be calculated, it might run something like this:

SUMMARY OF RESULTS 1802

	Ministers	Old Opposition	New Opposition	Independent	Doubtful
English counties	59	14	2	1	4
English boroughs	278	88	19	11	9
Universities	3	0	0	1	0
Welsh counties	6	1	2	2	1
Welsh boroughs	9	1	1	0	1
Scotland	39	1	0	2	3
Ireland	73	19	1	2	5
Total	467	124	25	19	23

 

No attempt to calculate thus was made in The Picture of Parliament; or a History of the General Election of 1802. Events in any case would have robbed any such calculation of much of its meaning. Addington wrote on 1 Aug. 1802:

As far as party strength is concerned, the elections have done little or nothing. We shall however look in vain for Opera Taylor, and even Michael, for Nicholls, Jones, Robson, Biddulph, Wilson, Thompson, little Denison and Wigley, and the Song of Simeon will be heard no more.

Addington already had a personal following, particularly in the west of England where borough proprietors rallied to him, and he acquired additional supporters, as any minister of his day might expect to, but just as the King’s prerogative had elevated him, Pitt’s blessing sustained him in Parliament. He had inherited the lower echelons of Pitt’s administration, but he could not count on those former supporters of Pitt who wished to see their hero back in office. Nor could Pitt in the long run discipline them, even when he wished to do so; Addington’s recruits to office might still continue to look to Pitt. To offset this, the Foxite opposition were prepared, in view of his pacific intentions, to temporize with Addington inasmuch as they regarded Pitt’s restoration as the greater evil; in this they were at first at loggerheads with the New Opposition, who championed continued resistance to French revolutionary expansion. Eventually, disillusionment with Addington’s performance was to convince Fox that even Pitt could not be worse for the country; and with Pitt’s champions making their hostility to government increasingly manifest, and the alienation of the Prince of Wales by the King making the reversionary interest a more attractive speculation, the basis was laid for a parliamentary confederation to oust Addington which made nonsense of the results of the general election.

Petitions against the returns of 1802 were presented in 51 cases (six frivolous and five discharged). They resulted in defeated candidates gaining seats on petition for Chippenham (where the right of election was redefined), Glasgow Burghs, Grimsby, Harwich, Kirkcudbright, Stirling Burghs and Waterford; and in elections being declared void, mostly on grounds of bribery, for both seats for Berwick and Ilchester, and one for Boston, Coventry, Durham, Herefordshire, Middlesex, Nottingham, Windsor and Aylesbury (where Bent was unseated for bribery, and the House passed a bill to throw the franchise open to the adjacent hundred in May 1804). Petitions designed to open up the franchise at East Grinstead and Midhurst were found frivolous and the House quashed the wrangle over the election of the returning officer at Taunton. It cannot be said that these changes made much political difference: the Foxite opposition forfeited their gains at Chippenham and Nottingham, but made up for this at Ilchester, despite a further unseating there subsequently. New Opposition gained a supporter at Waterford.

In all, with 145 seats changing hands between 1802 and 1806, there were 29 by-elections contested. At Southwark, Tierney’s re-election when he joined government was contested in 1803. In 1805 a similar fate befell George Knox, the Dublin University Member. The pattern of change increasingly favoured the opposition, old and new, though in one instance (Aylesbury) they were at loggerheads, and at Knaresborough in 1805 they were at first hindered by a curious riot. New Opposition could count on the new Member for Marlow late in 1802; and the old opposition on new Members for Grimsby (1803), Durham, Barnstaple and Okehampton (1804), Malton (1805), Forfar (1805), Tain Burghs (1805) and county Galway (1805). They also had the satisfaction of seeing a member of the government (Lord Castlereagh) defeated for Down in 1805, though they could no longer be sure of a new Member for Coventry, and their doubtful supporter Sir James St. Clair Erskine was replaced by a supposed ministerialist for Dysart. Middlesex see-sawed: Burdett, the opposition Member, was unseated in 1804 and defeated in the ensuing contest; he regained the seat on petition in 1805 and lost it again on petition early in 1806. Once the old and new oppositions came to power in 1806, they made further headway, gaining five supporters in Ireland, one for Cambridge University (vice Pitt, deceased), an active supporter for Haddington Burghs, and in four other cases (Cheshire, Honiton, Reigate and Suffolk) not having to reckon with opponents.

Before the Parliament of 1802 opened, over 80 Members crossed the Channel to sample the Napoleonic regime: most of them were Whigs, following their leader, whose interview with the French dictator was sufficiently notorious to worry some of his friends and outrage his critics. The Foxite opposition, pledged to the blessings of peace, did not at first make any trouble for Addington. In November 1802 the Speaker noted that the ministers’ opponents were principally members of the New Opposition (William Windham, Thomas Grenville, William Elliot, French Laurence, Adm. Berkeley, Lord Temple, Lord Folkestone, Lord Proby, Sir Watkin Williams Wynn and his brother Charles), besides ‘another party’ consisting of Pitt’s rebellious friends viz: George Canning, Sir Henry St. John Mildmay, Sir John Wrottesley, Lord Granville Leveson Gower, Lord Morpeth, William Sturges, William Ralph Cartwright and Sir Robert Lawley. The Foxite role of coming to the rescue of ministers against these guerillas inevitably led to flirtation and talk of coalition, but Whig converts to office were few: Fox always kept his distance, which encouraged his soundest supporters, though he would not stand in their way, to do the same.

The first significant surviving minority list, that of 4 Mar. 1803, on the motion for inquiry into the financial plight of the Prince of Wales, was composed of the same amalgam of the old opposition and Members who looked to the reversionary interest, as that of March 1802. The following 50 Members voted for it who subsequently appeared in none of 17 extant minority lists between November 1802 and April 1804 when Addington fell from power: Alcock, Amyatt, Andrews, Sir Francis Baring, Thomas Richard Beaumont, Thomas Bernard, Joseph Birch, Boucherett, Brogden, Bunbury, Butler of Kilkenny (uncertain which of the two), Nicolson Calvert, Robert Curzon, Charles Dundas, Thomas Erskine, Forester, Gleadowe Newcomen, Thomas Grosvenor, Hilliard, Lord Huntingfield, Edward King, Peniston Lamb, David Latouche, John Lemon, Sir John Lubbock, Macdonnel, Lords Charles and Robert Manners, Lord Mathew, Edward Monckton, Noel, O’Brien, Odell, Oliver, Lord Paget and his brother Edward, Sir Lawrence and Walter Palk, General Porter, Sir Matthew White Ridley, Sir Charles Ross, Sibthorp, Thomas Smith, Lord Charles Somerset, Charles William Taylor, Charles Thellusson, Thomas Thoroton, George Tierney, John Vaughan and Walter Wilkins. (Possibly Hugh Barlow qualified for this list—one of the two Barlows voted on 19 Mar. 1804.) It will be noted that ten of these were Irish Members—Acheson of Armagh is excluded because of a contradiction of his vote on 4 Mar. 1803. The Castle, which added Dawson and Handcock, estimated that 25 Irish Members in all appeared in the minority of 139, while about as many voted with the majority and nine were ‘in England and absent’. Comparing this minority of 139 with that of 103 on a similar question in March 1802, it is noteworthy that even though 26 or more of the 103 were no longer in the House, at least 41 Members voted in both minorities.

There was a largely Foxite muster for the minority of 24 May 1803, when war was imminent: the protest was defeated by 398 votes to 67. On 3 June 1803, when Peter Patten moved a censure on ministers following the resumption of hostilities, for which they were alleged to be ill prepared, he mustered 34 votes only. According to Canning’s analysis, there were 11 Members of the New Opposition (led by Lord Grenville and Windham), five of Earl Fitzwilliam’s Members, 13 Pittites very hostile to Addington and four stragglers. He omitted Holland, John Osborn and William Stephen Poyntz from his calculations, and admitted to doubts about the status of Dillon (listed Pittite) and one straggler, Hippisley (‘either Windham or Pittite, I am not sure which’). Pitt, who had moved gradually from support of Addington towards neutrality with undercurrents of hostility, had mustered 56 votes on the same day, when he divided the House in favour of the orders of the day to obviate Patten’s censure motion. This tactic was condemned by his friend Canning as unlikely to make manifest the growing consensus of opinion that Pitt should resume the reins of government in wartime. Even on a comparison of seven lists, it is impossible to be certain of the identities of the 56, though 39 names appear on all and 14 more on most of the lists. Three Members (Elford, St. John Mildmay and Sturges) voted in both minorities.

By February 1804 Fox and Lord Grenville had agreed on co-operation between the old and new oppositions (Fox numbered the latter at 36 in 1803). An onslaught on Addington ensued in which the Prince of Wales’s friends and, ineluctably, Pitt himself joined. His aloofness at first prevented a merger of forces: his critical motion on the state of the navy, 15 Mar. 1804, was not calculated to draw maximum support from either opposition, but ministers were embarrassed, gaining the day by only 201 votes to 130. After repeated divisions on aspects of home defence in which ministerial morale was sapped, Addington faced a double ordeal of joint opposition on 23 and 25 Apr. when Fox and Pitt in turn assailed him on defence: Fox’s motion was lost by 204 votes to 256 and Pitt’s question by 203 to 240. Addington gave up the struggle. The extent of the muster on both divisions is underlined by the fact that at least 37 Members voted against ministers who had no previous record of doing so in that Parliament; while another 50 or more had not apparently cast any minority votes until the campaign of 1804 began in March.

Many leading members of the tripartite opposition to Addington in the spring of 1804 hoped to replace him with a comprehensive ministry. Pitt, however, who was waiting for the King’s invitation, could not pledge himself to it; and Fox foresaw that he at least would be vetoed by the King, though once more he saw no reason why his friends should not be included. But he had already been subjected in February 1804 to a ‘remonstrance’ from some of them, led by Sheridan and Thomas Erskine, who clearly feared a political alliance that could only lead to Pitt’s return to power; and now Fox’s followers were generally agreed that they could not accept office without him. Moreover, Lord Grenville took the same line; and the Prince of Wales remained unreconciled with both the ministry and the King; while the rump of Addington’s friends, resentful of what seemed to some their chief’s exclusion at the instigation of an unconstitutional coalition designed to force the King’s hand, could be relied on neither to support nor oppose. The King, like his Parliament, saw, regretfully, that Addington would no longer do.

Pitt’s second ministry was therefore rendered vulnerable at the outset: it had no broad basis and, in taking over Addington’s government, inherited the opposition to it. It had to do better to convince a jaded House; yet on the first major issue, the remodelling of home defence under Pitt’s additional force bill in June 1804, the opposition muster was as high as under the last days of Addington’s government, and there was, moreover, the highest attendance since 1741. An analysis of the House in 1804 shows how this came about. After Pitt’s first major push against Addington on his naval motion, 15 Mar. 1804, his lieutenants had already started counting heads. Of that minority of 130 they reckoned 75 were Pittites (excluding the tellers), 27 Foxites, 20 Grenvillites and eight uncertain. Within a day or two a list of the parties was drawn up by them. It breaks down into 106 Pittites, 76 Foxites, 21 Grenvillites (listed as Windhamites, but omitting Windham himself!) and 17 friends of Addington. So only 220 names are involved, but all the more prominent Members included. The logic of the figures was clear: Pitt might be outnumbered by a tripartite opposition, but not if he won over one segment, and Addington’s was likely to be the most amenable. The list of 106 Pittites includes all but 16 back-benchers of the 75 reckoned his supporters on the division of 15 Mar.; the list of Foxites omits four, and of Grenvillites four (if Windham is included). This basic list of active Members was expanded by George Rose and Charles Long in May 1804 (when Pitt was about to resume office) to take in more of the House (as well as the Lords). The result, as Rose reported in his diary on 5 May, was as follows, as far as the likely opposition to Pitt was concerned (the figures in brackets are the uncorrected additions that appear on the list itself).7PRO 30/8/234, ff. 50-56. This left 70 Irish Members and many English quite uncertain.

ROSE’S CALCULATION OF THE LIKELY OPPOSITION TO PITT

	English	Irish	Total
The Prince	29 (30)	12 (12)	41 (42)
Mr Fox	70 (71)	9 (8)	79
Lord Grenville	22	1	23
Mr Addington, including persons who would oppose from former disappointment, etc.	60	8	68
Doubtful persons of whom we have some knowledge, 58; suppose only half of these against			29
Total			240

From hence it followed, that adding only 30 more as against us from the uncertain Members (a sanguine estimate), there would be in the whole a strength of 270 opposed to us at the first onset. That statement Mr Long undertook to convey to Mr Pitt in the evening.

On 7 May, Rose urged Pitt to show these figures to the King to

convince him of the extreme doubtfulness of a government being usefully formed without some other aid; suggesting to Mr Pitt in the strongest terms I could express myself in, the mischievous effect that would be produced by a government being formed by him that could not stand after the overthrow of the former one by the voice of Parliament; that this country must despond, and foreigners despair of us.

On 10 May, however, Rose was assured by Pitt that his list of Foxites and Grenvillites ‘had been made up with more despondency than the case required’; and he noted a week later that ‘subsequent information, perfectly to be relied on, confirms this conjecture’.

The 23 Grenvillites on Rose’s list are (rearranged in alphabetical order) Lord Althorp, Charles Anderson Pelham, George Berkeley, Col. Craufurd, Dent, Dillon, William Elliot, Lord Folkestone, Pascoe Grenfell, Thomas Grenville, Sir John Hippisley, Henry Holland, Lord Kensington, Dr Laurence, Sir John Newport (the only Irish one), Patten, Poyntz, Lord Proby, Lord Temple, Windham, Charles and Sir Watkin Williams Wynn and Sir William Young. Eleven of these had been among the 20 who launched the New Opposition in 1802 against the peace treaty, and all except four (Althorp, Anderson Pelham, Grenfell and Patten) were regular in opposition from 1802 until 1804. Fifteen of them had been marked as Grenvillite on the scrutiny of Pitt’s minority on 15 Mar. 1804; and with the party list drawn up soon after that, in which the Grenvillites are headed ‘Windham’ (and if he is added, muster at 22), 15 names coincide. The additions are Althorp (a new Member), Berkeley, Craufurd, Dent, Grenfell, Newport, Patten and Sir William Young, of whom Berkeley, Craufurd and Newport were called Grenvillite on 15 Mar., when Dent, Grenfell and Patten were reckoned Pittite. The omissions are Thomas Assheton Smith, Bouverie [sic], Bryan Cooke, Frederick John Falkiner, Foljambe and William Hoare Hume, of whom Cooke, Falkiner and Foljambe were reckoned Grenvillite on 15 Mar. Cooke and Foljambe, Earl Fitzwilliam’s nominees, were not listed in May 1804.

The Prince of Wales’s 42 friends, as the names appear on the list, were: Bagwell, Bagwell, Baring, Bennet, Bligh, the two Butlers, Calcraft, Chichester, Curwen, [Elphinstone] Fleeming, Erskine, Fonblanque, [Hely] Hutchinson, Howard, Hurst, Jekyll, Ladbroke, four Latouches, Lloyd, May, McMahon, Morris, Northey, Palmer, Petty, Porter, Raine, Robarts, Rowley, Scudamore, Shakespeare, Sheridan, Shum, Lord William Stuart, Symonds, [ Charles ] Thellusson, Tierney and Tyrwhitt. Of these, 22 (in italics, but only one of the Butlers) had voted for inquiry into the Prince’s claims to a financial settlement on 4 Mar. 1803. Nine of them were regular in opposition: Bligh, Calcraft, Hely Hutchinson, Latouche, Northey, Petty, Raine, Shakespeare and Sheridan. Thirteen of them were Irish Members (not 12 as Rose alleged) and two more, McMahon and Sheridan, Irishmen at large. Five were connected with the Duke of Norfolk, five with the Duke of Northumberland and three with the Marquess of Lansdowne.

Addington’s 60 friends outside Ireland were Charles and James Adams, himself and his brother Hiley, Alexander, Ashley, Baker, Bampfylde, [Hugh] Barlow, the two Bastards, Nathaniel Bond, Bragge, Isaac Hawkins Browne, Buller of Exeter, Bullock, Burland, Nicolson Calvert, Dallas, Dickins, Charles Dundas, Eyre, Francis, Henry and Thomas Fane, Golding, Sir Christopher Hawkins, Sir Richard Hill, Hobhouse, Jervis, Ker, John Henry Leigh, Sir William Lemon and his brother John, Lygon, Markham, James Martin, Middleton, Sir Lawrence Palk, Sir Charles Pole, Reginald Pole Carew, Prinsep, Sir William Pulteney, Sargent, Shuckburgh Evelyn, Joshua Smith, Gabriel Tucker Steward, the two Sullivans, Sir Charles Talbot, Sir Thomas Troubridge, the two Vansittarts, Wallace, Sir John Borlase Warren, Wilkins, Mark Wood, Wyndham, Charles and Joseph Yorke. To these were added eight Irish Members: Archdall, Corry, Crosbie, Sir Charles Hamilton, Thomas Jones, Knox, Lee and Sir Lawrence Parsons; while five more were queried as his possible friends: Lord Dunlo, Hawthorne, Sir John Keane, McNaghten and Charles Stewart. As compared with the list of mid-March 1804, three names have disappeared from the Addingtonian sphere: Abbot (the Speaker), Estcourt and Steele. It will be noted how many of Addington’s friends came from or represented places in the west of England, his own part of the country.

Fox is given 70 friends outside Ireland and eight Irish. His party consisted of Adair, Lord Andover, Anson, Astley, Aubrey, George and Sir Robert Barclay, [Frederick William] Barlow, Edward Bouverie, Burdett, Byng, Sir David Carnegie, Lord George and William Cavendish, Chapman, Clarke Jervoise, Edward and Thomas Coke, Combe, Bryan Cooke, John Courtenay, Creevey, Marquess of Douglas, Charles Lawrence Dundas, George Heneage Lawrence Dundas, Lawrence Dundas, Durand, Fitzpatrick, Foley, Foljambe, Foster Barham, Fox himself, Francis, Giles, Grey, Lord Archibald Hamilton, Harrison, Honywood, Hughes, Hulkes, Hussey, Jolliffe, Johnstone, Kinnaird, Knight, Lambton, Lee Antonie, Madocks, Milbanke, Milner, Peter Moore and his son George, Mostyn, North, Ord, Lord Ossulston, Peirse, William Plumer, Pytches, Ridley, Joseph Scott, St. John, Lord R. Spencer, Lord Stanley, Lord John Townshend, Tarleton, George Walpole, Western, John Wharton, Whitbread and Sir Edward Winnington. The Irish were Caulfeild, Bowes Daly, Falkiner, Hume, George and William Ponsonby, Sneyd and Somerville. It will be noted that two of Earl Fitzwilliam’s Members have been taken from the Grenvillites of the March list and added to Fox, as well as two Irish Members, Falkiner and Hume. The Foxite list of March 1804 had 76 names on it. No longer on it are 21: John Baker, Bampfylde, Bennet, Brogden, Bullock, Calcraft, Sir George Cornewall, Charles Dundas, Fonblanque, Hare (deceased), Henry Howard, James Martin Lloyd, Northey, Lord Henry Petty, Shum, Raine, Lord William Russell, Scudamore, Shakespeare, Trevanion, and among the Irish, Christopher Hely Hutchinson. Added to it are Sir Robert Barclay, Bouverie, Carnegie, William Cavendish, Bryan Cooke, Durand, Foljambe, Foster Barham, Hulkes, Hughes, Hussey, Jervoise, Johnstone, Jolliffe, Ord, Pytches, Joseph Scott and, among the Irish, six of the eight listed (excepting only the two Ponsonbys), i.e. 23 Members. Of the 21 subtracted, 12 were now listed friends of the Prince; Bampfylde, Bullock and Charles Dundas friends of Addington; Cornewall and Trevanion doubtful; and John Baker and Lord William Russell (as well as the deceased Member) not listed among the opponents of government at all. Of the 23 added, only five had been listed as belonging to another group in March (the Windhamites, Cooke, Foljambe and Bouverie, and Hume and Falkiner), though four had then been queried (Caulfeild, Jolliffe, Ord and Sneyd).

How many of the 79 Foxites listed had acted regularly with opposition until May 1804? At least 52 had done so, though the following 27 voted fewer than four times with opposition in 17 extant minority lists: Lord Andover, Anson, Astley, Byng, Carnegie, W. Cavendish, Edward Coke, Marquess of Douglas, Durand, Foley, Giles, Grey, Honywood, Hulkes, Hussey, Jervoise, Jolliffe, Knight, Mostyn, Peirse, Ridley, and among the Irish, Bowes Daly, Falkiner, Hume, George Ponsonby, Sneyd and Somerville. The four names italicized appear in none of the minority lists.

The 58 doubtful Members in May 1804 were Ainslie, Andrews, Atkins, Atkyns Wright, Babington, Beaumont, Blackburne, Brodrick, Browne Ffolkes, three Bullers, Cockerell, Daniel Parker Coke, Cornewall, Ellison, Estcourt, Fane, Geary, Lord Glenbervie, Sir Gilbert Heathcote, Eliab Harvey, Hilliard, Holford, Sir Nathaniel Holland, Joddrell, Kingston, Langmead, Lefevre, Leycester, Loveden, Maitland, Sir Thomas Metcalfe, Lord Milford, Sir Charles Morgan and son, Noel Noel, Walter Palk, Pedley, Sir James Pulteney, Sir James St. Clair Erskine, Ambrose St. John, two Shelleys, Sibthorp, Sir John Sinclair, Thomas Smith, Robert Steele, Thomas Steele, Strutt, Clement Taylor, Trevanion, Tudway, Walsh, George White Thomas, Willett, Hamlyn Williams and Owen Williams.

An analysis of 144 Members who voted four or more times against Addington’s ministry between 1802 and 1804 in 17 surviving minority divisions shows 57 Pittites, 53 Foxites, 19 Grenvillites and nine Prince’s friends, with six unclassified (in the lists of 1804) so acting. The six unclassified were Robert Fellowes, Sir Robert Lawley, Edward Berkeley Portman, Lord William Russell, William Smith and Peter Isaac Thellusson. The 57 Pittites, in all but three cases, appear in the Pittite list of March 1804 as well as being omitted by Rose from his survey of opposition to Pitt in May; the exceptions were Burroughs, Du Pré and Lord Kirkwall. The following 38 voted more often than, or as often as, Pitt in opposition: Henry Bankes, Lord Binning, Robert Haldane Bradshaw, Canning, Cartwright, Codrington, Edward Spencer Cowper, Lord de Blaquiere, the two William Dickinsons, William Dundas, Du Pré, Elford, Charles Rose Ellis, Lord Euston, Ferguson, Lord FitzHarris, Fitzhugh, Foster, Lord Granville Leveson Gower, Gregor, Gunning, Anthony Henderson, Long, James Lowther, John Lowther, Lord Marsham, St. John Mildmay, Lord Morpeth, John Osborn, Lord Porchester, Sloane, Spencer Stanhope, John Charles Villiers, John William Ward, Robert Ward, Wilberforce, Sir John Wrottesley. Lord Morpeth, Sir John Wrottesley and John William Ward voted in the minority quite as regularly as staunch members of the new or old oppositions; most of the others are recognizable as members of the ginger group very hostile to Addington who had pressed for Pitt’s return to power, even when he was unprepared for it.

In late August or September 1804 the Treasury began a more comprehensive analysis8PRO 30/8/234, ff. 60-75. of the state of the House of Commons (as well as the Lords). Omitting 17 vacancies, the 541 British Members were then apparently classed as follows: Pitt 301, Fox and Grenville 132, doubtful 54, Addington 40, Prince’s friends 14, (the Foxite and Grenvillite oppositions having accordingly been amalgamated). The 100 Irish Members were at the same time analyzed as: Pitt 69, Fox and Grenville 12, Prince’s friends nine, Addington one, doubtful nine. The totals on this computation (out of 641 Members then sitting) are therefore Pitt 370, Fox and Grenville 144, doubtful 63, Addington 41, Prince’s friends 23. The aggregate of Members not supporting Pitt amounts to 271, as compared with Rose’s basic figure of 240 in May. Comparison shows 32 more Members attached to Fox and Grenville, 18 fewer attached to the Prince, 27 fewer attached to Addington and 5 more doubtful from May to September. The conduct of Members in the divisions on Pitt’s additional force bill, on which the minority of 181 against 221 on 8 June, new Members in the minority on 11 June, and a cumulative list of opponents on 18 June survive, had undoubtedly been taken into account.

The totals arrived at above do not agree with a count of the names on the lists, which are in themselves not wholly consistent or accurate. The actual number of British Pittites listed is 309. Three names (Abercromby, Gibbs and William Johnstone Hope) look like subsequent insertions and Mills (?Charles) appears on another list. Nineteen or 20 names are queried. Ten more were originally listed ‘doubtful’ and have been transferred to Pitt, though one Member (Holdsworth) emerges as both ‘Pitt’ and ‘doubtful Pitt’; the nine others were Henry Alexander, two Clives, two Grosvenors, Horrocks, Keene, Robinson and West. Twenty-two names were deleted from the Pittite list: Speaker Abbot was removed to a decent neutrality, two were reinserted, two were former Members, no longer in the House; five others (Burland, Philip Dundas, Sir William Erskine, John Maitland and Lord Frederick Montagu) were transferred to no other list; the two Yorkes became ‘doubtful Pitt’; Charles Brooke became ‘Fox and Grenville’; Sir John Borlase Warren and Henry Penruddocke Wyndham became ‘doubtful Addington’; while the other seven (one an Irish Member, anyway) became merely ‘doubtful’.

The actual number of Foxities and Grenvillites listed is 126. Against 11 names a query is raised, and four of these (Hugh Barlow, Sir David Carnegie, Lawley and George Watson) were subsequently placed, along with seven others who appear in the same list (Sir Robert Barclay, George Berkeley, James Buller of Exeter, Sir John Hippisley, George Johnstone, Sir James St. Clair Erskine, John William Ward) in a special category of 15 ‘Persons in Opposition not quite certain’. (Galway Mills, a deleted Fox and Grenville man was also so placed, with three ‘doubtfuls’, Sir John Sinclair, James Martin and Dr Matthews.) We also gather that one Member on the list, Chapman, must be ‘deducted from Opposition’, together with Hon. Thomas Maitland (who was never of it, but listed Pittite anyway) and Lord William Stuart (deleted from this list). Nine names had been deleted from the list: James Martin and Dr Matthews became doubtful Fox and Grenville and ultimately ‘in opposition not quite certain’, as did Galway Mills and Sir John Sinclair (who was at first transferred to doubtful); Lord William Stuart was ‘deducted from Opposition’; John Vaughan and Walter Wilkins were transferred to Pitt and Timothy Shelley to ‘doubtful Pitt’; James Buller of West Looe became ‘doubtful Addington’.

The list of Addingtonians numbered 34, eight of them being queried; six of those queried (Sir Nathaniel Holland, Langham, Langmead, Sargent, Sir Laurence Palk and Walter Palk) and four others (two Sullivans, Lefevre and Nicholas Vansittart) were subsequently placed on a list of 16 of ‘Addington’s friends on whom some impression might be made’, in which they were joined by seven listed ‘doubtful Addingtonian’—not six, because Sir Nathaniel Holland appears on both lists. Alexander Allan had been transferred from ‘doubtful’ to ‘Addington’, but there had been nine deletions from his list: one, Loveden, became ‘doubtful’, but the rest (Bullock, Eyre, Ellison, Sir Gilbert Heathcote, John Heathcote, Sir John Honywood, Charles Mills and Sibthorp) were transferred to ‘doubtful Addington’.

The Prince of Wales was awarded 13 friends, one of whom, Tyrwhitt, was in fact an Irish Member at this time, while another, John Manners, fell into a special category of three ‘Prince’s friends on whom some impression might be made’ (the other two were Lubbock and Andrews, deleted from this list, to become ‘doubtful Pitt’ and ‘doubtful’ respectively).

There were two lists of ‘doubtfuls’. The first consisted of 71 names, omitting 19 deletions and two duplications; it included one Irish Member (Lord Spencer Chichester) and two Members listed elsewhere (Holdsworth and Sir Nathaniel Holland). The second, apart from adding nine Irish Members haphazardly, includes three new British ones (Andrews, John Pitt and ‘G. Tyrwhitt’) and attempts to classify them as ‘doubtful Pitt’, ‘doubtful Fox and Grenville’, ‘doubtful Addington’ and merely ‘doubtful’ (there are no doubtful Prince’s friends listed). The result is 26 Addington (one a duplicate), 25 doubtful (five Irish Members are excluded), 15 Pitt (one a duplicate), five Fox and Grenville (excluding 3 Irish) and two unclassified (Hon. Horatio Walpole and John Atkyns Wright, though a supplementary memo on the doubtfuls places the latter ‘for’ Pitt). The same supplementary list seems to be despondent about Francis John Browne, Isaac Hawkins Browne, William Egerton, Gore Langton, Sir James Graham (Ripon), Holdsworth, Lygon and Savile who had been listed as ‘doubtful Pitt’ and become ‘against’. Of 19 deletions that had been made from the first list of ‘doubtfuls’, five were reinserted on it and one more (John Pitt) on the second list; ten were transferred to Pitt; one (Allan) transferred to ‘Addington’; one was an Irish Member; and one (Thomas Smith of West Looe) a mistake.

The analysis of the 100 Irish Members reveals 11 (not 12) ‘Fox and Grenville’ (one, Falkiner having been deleted and transferred to ‘doubtful’, then to ‘doubtful Pitt’ on the British list); a lone Addingtonian (Hawthorne); seven (and not nine) Prince’s friends (Lord Spencer Chichester and Rowley having been transferred to ‘doubtful’); ten and not nine ‘doubtful’, the three transfers just referred to with that of two Pittites, Mervyn Archdall and Wickham, to the ‘doubtful’ category (Archdall became ‘doubtful Pitt’ on the British list and Wickham ‘doubtful Fox and Grenville’) being offset by the transfer of only four (Chinnery, Hans Hamilton, Oliver, and William Smyth) to Pitt; and 71 (not 69) Pittites. A subsequent list made by the Castle in December 1804 shows 67 pro, 13 con, nine doubtful and ten absent.

Scrutiny of the list of September 1804 therefore yields the following analysis:

	British	Irish	Total
Pitt	309	71	380
Fox and Grenville	125 (1 deducted)	11	136
Addington	34	1	35
Prince of Wales	12 (1 deducted)	719
Doubtful	72 (2 deducted)	10	82
Total	552	100	652
Omitted	6

 

If the ‘doubtfuls’ are added to parties in accordance with the preceding analysis the figures become:

Pitt	380 + 15 + 2 Irish - 8 amended	= 389
Fox and Grenville	136 + 5 + 3 Irish and opposition not quite certain 4 + 8 ‘against’	= 156
Addington	35 + 25	= 60
Prince	19	= 19
Remain doubtful	25 + 5 Irish	= 30
Others	4	= 4
Total		658

 

What had been the turnover, according to the Treasury, since May 1804? The Fox and Grenville party gained 35 in all including two in Ireland: in fact there are 44 new names, nine being replaced, who had leaned to Pitt in six cases, to the Prince in one, become doubtful in one and gone out in one. Of the 44 in question, 16 were new names in any list of 1804; seven others were not in the May lists but were listed Fox in three cases and Pitt in four in March 1804; four were stolen from Addington, four from ‘doubtful’ and no less than 13 from the Prince. The Prince is reduced from 42 to 19 (seven Irish). Apart from losing 13 to Fox and Grenville (from whom he gains one) he loses six to Pitt, four become doubtful and three doubtful Addington; he recruits two new Members. Addington is halved from 68 to 34, as well as losing four out of five extra Irish Members provisionally labelled his in May. There are in fact seven new names on his list (five previously labelled doubtful). His 41 losses consisted of 21 outright to Pitt and six more now doubtful Pitt; three now doubtful; four to Fox and Grenville and one doubtfully theirs; as well as five whose loyalty to him was now in question; and one deceased.

The list of 58 doubtfuls of May 1804 contains only 21 Members remaining doubtful in the list of September: 29 have veered towards Pitt, four to Addington and four to Fox and Grenville. Of 62 (ten being Irish) Members newly listed doubtful, 37 had not been listed in May (though three of them were listed ‘Pitt’ in March); 14 had been Addingtonian in May, eight the Prince’s men and three Fox and Grenville’s.

Of the 309 British Pittites listed in September 1804 (one of whom, Mills, is duplicated in another list), some 43 had appeared in other categories in May 1804, when Pittites as such were not listed: 29 as doubtful, 11 as Addington, two as Prince’s friends and one as Grenvillite. Of the 71 Irish Pittites in September 1804, six had been Addingtonian and four more possibly Addingtonian in May 1804, four then the Prince’s friends and one a Grenvillite. Very few Members listed Pittite in March 1804 and still in the House were not now so listed. It is interesting however that, while the divisions of June 1804 on Pitt’s additional defence bill have undoubtedly been taken into consideration by the Treasury, at least 28 Members (including three Irish) listed Pittite in the autumn had voted in the minority in June. Five of them had queries against their names on the Treasury list. Eleven (about two-thirds) of the ‘doubtful Pittites’ appeared in the same minority.

Having weathered the critical divisions of June 1804 Pitt, although he failed to reconcile the Prince of Wales with the King, was able to dispense with the notion of a broad-based administration thanks to a political reconciliation with Addington over Christmas 1804. Addington was sent up to the Lords and offices were provided for his favoured friends. The rapprochement remained precarious and risked alienating such old friends of Pitt’s as Lords Stafford and Lowther. Pitt’s defence measures remained controversial: on 6 Mar. 1805 the minority mustered 127 on Sheridan’s motion to repeal Pitt’s ‘parish’ bill. What shook Pitt far more, however, was the loss of confidence expressed in the censure on his colleague Lord Melville, 8 Apr. 1805. The Speaker’s casting vote carried the censure when there had been 216 votes either way. Apart from the expected full array of Foxite and Grenvillite opposition (117 including 9 Irish), 14 Prince’s friends, 20 Addingtonians (including seven doubtful Addingtonians), 50 Members who usually supported government (though eight were doubtful Pittites and five had been queried in the lists), seven doubtfuls and eight new Members ganged up on Pitt. It was a humiliation from which he had difficulty in recovering. The resolution of censure was carried to St. James’s by 22 Members (none of them ministers or leading members of opposition, but 14 of them listed Fox and Grenville, three new Members inclined to them, one Prince’s friend, three Addingtonians and one dissident Pittite, Henry Thornton). A crop of public meetings expressing approval of the censure ensued. The select committee proposed by Whitbread for the inquiry into the charges of malversation against Lord Melville (25 Apr.) consisted of nine Fox and Grenvillites, one new Member, eight Pittites, one Prince’s friend and one Addingtonian. The proposal was, however, rejected by 251 votes to 120 in favour of Pitt’s motion for a ballot, and on 30 April Whitbread failed by 219 votes to 86 to substitute his first nominee in place of a balloted Member. Whitbread also failed to carry Melville’s impeachment on 12 June, by 272 votes to 195; Nathaniel Bond (an Addingtonian) carried an amendment in favour of criminal prosecution by 238 votes to 229; but on 25 June, Melville’s friends having become convinced that an impeachment would serve his purpose best, Hugh Leycester carried it. The majority on Bond’s motion has survived and it shows 67 new names as compared with 8 Apr., 33 of the names listed in the latter majority (excluding the Speaker) dropping out, though four of them paired off in the majority. The majority of 12 June consisted of 108 Fox and Grenvillites, 36 Addingtonians (13 doubtful), 60 Members who usually supported Pitt (though six were queried and six doubtful), 13 Prince’s friends, 12 doubtfuls and 11 new Members. The increase in the Addingtonian muster was therefore decisive. Pitt’s negotiations with the Addingtonians could not avert their departure from the ministry beyond the end of the session. Their desertion was demoralizing, but when it was coupled with demands for more offices, they became blackmailers in his eyes. Nevertheless, his command of the House was in a critical case, even if his own integrity remained unimpaired. Fox thought his personal following was about 60 Members, compared with 180 or so who were mere supporters of the government of the day. Even on such peripheral issues as the Duke of Atholl’s compensation bill, Pitt was confronted with a minority composed, 7 June 1805, of 11 supporters of his, apart from 31 Members of the regular opposition, four Addingtonians, three new Members, one Prince’s friend and one doubtful.

In July 1805 the Treasury again took stock of the alignments in the House of Commons.9Add. 38359, ff. 5-13. This time the analysis excluded the Prince’s friends, who were aligned with the Foxites and Grenvillites as ‘Opposition’ tout court. Only the Sidmouth or Addingtonian party was distinguished from friends and foes; while the doubtful Members (108) were classified into Pittites, opposition or Sidmouth, and ten others reckoned ‘nil’. There were seven Members unaccounted for, owing to vacancies and the omission of two Irish members (Bernard and Smyth). The 651 Members were classified as follows: Pitt 328 (plus 62 doubtful); opposition 172 (plus 16 doubtful); Sidmouth 33 (plus 30 doubtful); nil ten. After some speculation about the way that the ‘doubtfuls’ would swing, the Treasury seem to have reckoned on maximum musters of 373 friends against 268 foes, if the Sidmouth party aligned with opposition against them. This situation was far from reassuring. For instance, government had not done as well as it hoped in mustering its Irish supporters that year. An Irish list drawn up possibly in advance of the general survey, from which 13 Members are missing, gives 51 Pittites, 20 opposition and 16 doubtful; in the general survey the Irish count was Pitt 60, with eight doubtfuls; 21 opposition with four doubtfuls; two doubtful Sidmouth; three nil; and two (doubtful) missing. Opposition’s 172 supporters included, apart from the 14 former Prince’s friends added, four former Addingtonians and six doubtful Addingtonians, five former doubtfuls, six former Pittites (two doubtful) and eight new Members. Addington had gained two from Pitt as well as one of Pitt’s doubtfuls; one new Member, two former doubtfuls, and three of his own doubtfuls. Opposition had grown and the Addingtonian party revived, without Pitt’s being able to make any recruits at their expense. Opposition again expected overtures from Pitt that autumn; as it was, the naval victory of Trafalgar was offset by the collapse of Pitt’s continental plans at the battle of Austerlitz and he retreated to his deathbed, never having to encounter the muster of opposition that lay in store for him in the session of January 1806.

Pitt’s friends could not supply his place: the King turned to Lord Hawkesbury, the son of a trusted friend, but Hawkesbury had not the effrontery to accept the premiership. Pitt’s estranged cousin Lord Grenville, allied with Fox and, by way of ballast, with Sidmouth, now took command. Those of Pitt’s friends who expected that Grenville would seek a reconciliation with them by including some of their number in his ministry of ‘all the Talents’ were soon disillusioned and they declined to join him as individuals. The Grenvillites discovered no talents greater than their own, and their supporting infantry, chiefly Foxite and Sidmouthite, was mutually distrustful: the distribution of offices among the three groups inevitably led to jockeying and friction.

Opposition to Grenville’s ministry inevitably arose from the rump of Pitt’s former adherents, but at first there was nothing like concert among them, and no muster. Their opposition to Lord Ellenborough’s being in the cabinet as lord chief justice, 3 Mar. 1806, provided a lively debate, but was lost by 222 votes to 64. The minority, like others that session, included two or three dissident friends of government. The first real test of the government in the House was the repeal of Pitt’s Additional Force Act in April as a preface to Windham’s new plan for a regular army. This was a fit object for opposition according to the terms in which Pitt’s remnant defined their role (in Canning’s words):

to abstain from creating any division of sentiment by questions sought out for that object—to support all the leading measures of government for the carrying on of the business of the country, and especially of the war. But to watch their conduct at the same time—and upon any measure brought forward by them either in derogation from Mr Pitt’s system, or in discredit of his memory, and upon any measure originating with them in itself really objectionable, and felt to be so by the country, and still more by the K[ing]—to feel no difficulty in stating our opinions broadly and plainly, and (if the matter should be of moment enough) to take the sense of Parliament upon them.

The division on the second reading of the repeal bill, 30 Apr. 1806, survives at Althorp. An analysis of a majority of 238 names and a minority of 121 compared with the survey of the House in July 1805 reveals the following classifications:

Majority		Minority
Opposition 114	Doubtful opposition 8	Opposition 2	Doubtful opposition 0
Sidmouth 25	Doubtful Sidmouth 14	Sidmouth 0	Doubtful Sidmouth 2
Pitt 42	Doubtful Pitt 24	Pitt 104	Doubtful Pitt 7
New Members 11		New Members 5	Doubtful 1

 

The two dissident Members of the former opposition were George Johnstone and Gen. Tarleton. Considering that in July 1805 Pitt was supposed to muster 328 friends, it is significant that only 146 of these voted and 30 per cent of them supported government; while of half of his doubtful friends in July 1805 who now voted, more than three-quarters supported government. Government were not particularly happy about the degree of attendance among their own friends and Fox was at this time busily engaged in securing a better muster: on 21 Apr. a minority of 27 on Indian affairs was half composed of supposed friends of government, including two ministers. Subsequently the pig-iron duty was carried by only 119 to 109; the duty was judiciously dropped. It was the only issue, apart from the new military proposals, on which opposition mustered over 100 votes, but, like the American intercourse bill, it encountered the hostility of a powerful lobby outside the House. The Grenville administration looked to a general election to improve their support.

 

THE ELECTION OF 1806

Grenville’s critics had supposed from the start that he would, if possible, seek a dissolution of Parliament at the end of the session of 1806, but as the Parliament had sat for only four years, it would not have seemed readily justifiable. Although by May 1806 government managers in Scotland and Ireland were mapping the likely confrontations at a future election, Grenville procrastinated. In June he was prepared to contemplate a dissolution during the recess, but Fox’s illness and the uncertain state of negotiations for an armistice with France gave reason for pause. The loss of Fox from the political scene, considered inevitable even if he survived his critical illness, made Grenville try the expedient of a rapprochement with the Pittites who were prepared to regard him as Pitt’s natural successor: but secret negotiations with Canning revealed that he was not prepared to admit Pittites to office en bloc, nor would he dissociate himself from his Foxite allies. Grenville saw that he had an opposition to contend with. On Fox’s death in September the government was accordingly reshuffled, Viscount Howick taking the lead in the House of Commons: this meant that the leading spokesman for government would not be re-elected when the next session opened. The breakdown of negotiations with France soon afterwards and the imminence of war between France and Prussia cleared Grenville’s path for a dissolution. The King rejoiced at this news, which followed the removal of an old enemy in Fox. On 2 Oct. 1806 Grenville warned Henry Erskine in Scotland, in strictest confidence, that the dissolution would take place at the end of the month or the beginning of the next. On 12 Oct. he sought the King’s approval for a dissolution on 25 Oct., referring to ‘the increasing ferment and canvass in the country’; the King complained of being left in the dark, but reluctantly assented. There was no time for the intrigue that Whig critics expected Pittite courtiers to launch to get the King to prevaricate: nor did Lord Hawkesbury’s notion (if pursued) to persuade the King in that direction evoke any response. The King did not, however, open his purse to help ministers as previously. Grenville informed Lord Carrington on 13 Oct: ‘The notice is short, much more so than I wished—but it is so because the resolution has been delayed by apprehended difficulties of finance which till yesterday I was not confident of being able to surmount’. (On 10 Oct. Grenville had thought that government’s financial needs would necessitate a recall of the House on 27 Nov.) On 13 Oct. also, Fremantle, secretary to the Treasury, informed friends of the government of the decision.

The reaction was not enthusiastic. From Scotland, Henry Erskine had already warned that government could not expect to do well at such short notice: the ground for challenging Lord Melville’s established hold there, which was his intention, had not yet been laid. From Ireland, the under-secretary, Marsden, alleged, ‘there will not ... be many contests; nor will government increase their strength here by the measure’. There can be little doubt that Grenville hoped for a more amenable House: more than 200 Members had abstained from committing themselves that session. Yet government had not wanted for majorities: it needed more confidence, and the King’s assent to the dissolution was a hint to the bien pensants.

It follows that the election produced little public debate: the failure of negotiations with France did the ministry no harm, rather the contrary, and little was made of it. Their championship (Fox’s dream) of the abolition of the slave trade found echoes in a variety of constituencies and the abolitionist lobby was a powerful one: its supporters sought pledges from candidates on the issue. In the stronghold of slave trading, Liverpool, they secured the return of a friend in Roscoe. In a few constituencies, candidates unfriendly to government espoused the cause of the volunteers, allegedly slighted by Windham’s plan for a regular army. But even in such a large and articulate constituency as Norwich, local issues predominated and Members were judged according to their stance on them. In all, there were 87 contests, ten fewer than in 1802.

In the English counties there were seven contests, one more than in 1802, three of them in the same counties (Kent, Middlesex and Norfolk). In Kent, Sir Edward Knatchbull regained his seat from Sir William Geary, a result not favourable to government. Sir Francis Burdett failed to recapture Middlesex. The Whigs held on to Norfolk, where Windham was returned, thanks more to his colleague Coke’s exertions than his own. Their opponents went on to unseat them, but they were replaced by two Whigs. The other contests were for Dorset, Northamptonshire, Hampshire and Surrey. In Dorset, Lord Grenville officiously supported Morton Pitt and Henry Bankes; the former, not committed to ministers, was returned, but Bankes defeated in an acrimonious battle. Like Dorset, Northamptonshire had not been contested for many years, but here too politics counted for little, though Viscount Althorp, Earl Spencer’s son, who headed the poll, was criticized as a son of a peer and cabinet minister, and Cartwright, who came second, was disliked by the dissenters for his opposition to their pretensions. The Surrey election was curious in that Samuel Thornton, who concentrated his attack on Lord William Russell, a Foxite Whig, rather than on his uncommitted friend Sir John Frederick, gave up when he saw that the latter would be left at the bottom of the poll. Hampshire was the scene (as in 1790) of an all-out struggle between government and opposition in which much ill-feeling was engendered by ministerial interference, notably Lord Temple’s: it poached on what George Rose, the veteran Pittite, had come to regard as his preserve. The ministerialists succeeded, but a parliamentary vendetta ensued on the issue of Treasury interference. The contests tended to reflect a polarization of candidates for and against the ministry. In the 33 other counties there was much less commitment. The new Member for Cornwall, Tremayne, said not a syllable on politics; in Staffordshire, Lord Granville Leveson Gower was asked about his politics, but gave nothing away. Some former Whig county Members who had wavered during the preceding Parliament rallied to the ministry, such as Charles Dundas (Berkshire), Sir George Cornewall (Herefordshire), John Bullock (Essex), Noel Noel (Rutland) and Sir Thomas Charles Bunbury (Suffolk). The ministry gained friends without a contest in Durham, Huntingdon, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Somerset and Yorkshire. Nearly half the English county Members, however, were not particularly committed either way, and opposition might expect support from ten or so, while government might expect it from 33.

Less than half (15 out of 32) of the large English boroughs were contested. Government thereby secured two supporters for Hull, Worcester and, after an unseemly tussle with a radical, Westminster, where Sheridan’s insistence on standing revealed divisions in their counsels. They also gained a supporter at Berwick, Colchester, Dover, Lincoln and Worcester, and, thanks to Lord Grenville’s connexion with Lord Carrington, at Nottingham. These were offset by the return of a known opponent at Dover, Lincoln and Nottingham, as well as at Beverley, Liverpool and Norwich, where they retained one supporter, and at Oxford, where they could count on neither. At Southwark, Tierney, their election manager, was defeated. In the uncontested boroughs, government lost both seats at Great Yarmouth, one at Lancaster and one at Durham; they gained a second supporter at Bristol and Canterbury, and one at Leicester (the Carrington connexion again) and Shoreham. There was no change for London, where the radical presence was so ineffective compared with Westminster as to illustrate markedly its transference of focus over 40 years from the one to the other constituency.

In the 32 medium-sized English boroughs there were just 12 contests. They ensured two ministerial gains at Ipswich and one at Rochester (where embarrassment was created by all three candidates being supporters, and the defeated one Lord Grenville’s cousin), Shrewsbury (voided subsequently), Southampton, and Taunton (offset by polarization in the last two). Government could be less satisfied with the results at Maidstone, Pontefract and Weymouth. There was radical intervention by the veteran John Cartwright at Boston, which showed, if anything, that the bulk of the electorate was still venal, since Cartwright would not purchase a vote; and at Shrewsbury, Thomas Jones was accused of being a Burdettite. In the uncontested medium boroughs, political polarization occurred at Carlisle, Hertford and Newcastle-under-Lyme; ministers acquired a supporter at Aylesbury, Evesham, Grantham, Lichfield, Reading and Sandwich and a foe at Cirencester and Warwick; both Members for Tewkesbury were also foes, by their own account.

The swing towards the ministry was, as usual, most marked in the small English boroughs, in which there were 27 contests, nine of them in the 25 with more than 200 electors. The contests resulted in relatively few gains for ministers, owing to the balance of forces which emerged for instance at Barnstaple, Bridport, Dorchester, Maldon and Milborne Port. Ministers gained a supporter, however, at East Retford, Plymouth, Shaftesbury and New Woodstock, and both seats at Bridgwater, East Looe, Fowey, Hythe, Malmesbury and Tregony; while they acquired both at Horsham following a double return and both at Saltash on petition (losing one at Chippenham). In most cases these were boroughs where the patron who had come to terms with the ministry was subjected to opportunist opposition. Without a contest, and by arrangement with the patrons or their own influence, they acquired the return of supporters at Arundel, Ashburton (both), Bodmin, Bossiney, Brackley (both), Callington (both), Castle Rising, Grimsby, Hastings, Honiton, King’s Lynn, Lostwithiel (both), Midhurst, Minehead, Newport (I.o.W.), New Romney, Old Sarum (both), Petersfield, Portsmouth, Queenborough, Rye, Seaford, Thirsk (both), Wallingford, Wendover (both), Westbury, Wilton, Winchelsea (both), Wycome and Yarmouth (I.o.W.). But these gains were to some extent offset by polarization in some 18 boroughs, which returned opponents, in four cases both Members. In several instances professed supporters of government fought it out, causing the maximum embarrassment. In the university contest, for Oxford, the Speaker’s reliance on ministerial backing was unfavourably remarked upon.

There was only one contest in Wales, for Flint Boroughs, where none of the three candidates was opposed to government and the two unsuccessful ones were both connected with Lord Grenville. But in any case government gained a friend and, on the whole, ministers could be satisfied with the Welsh returns: three sitting Members for counties and a former borough Member (Paxton) returned for a county now rallied to them, as well as the sitting Members for Beaumaris and Cardiff and the new Member for Denbigh Boroughs. Above all, no Member returned for Wales was certainly in opposition, a highly unusual result.

In Scotland, where six counties and six districts of burghs were contested, the election had come too soon for a real confrontation between the Melvillites and the Whigs: the latter felt at a disadvantage, and there were strong protests from those who felt that more co-ordination would have achieved better results. Government supporters returned were fewer in proportion and potential opposition stronger than for any other part of the United Kingdom.

In Ireland, eight counties and four boroughs (including the University) were contested. The Castle’s analysis of the returns showed 71 supporters of the government, 12 in opposition, 15 doubtful, one temporary return and one not classified (possibly by oversight). In other words, the quota of ministerial supporters was much the same as in the preceding Parliament, with fewer known to be in opposition. A further analysis of the 71 supporters shows that 23 were new Members, 17 listed supporters of the parties now in power in the previous Parliament and four doubtful supporters of theirs; 21 were former supporters of Pitt’s administration and three doubtful supporters; and three formerly doubtful.

To what extent had ministers intervened in the election? Lord Grenville’s personal papers indicate that he played a more significant role in the election of 1806 than had Addington in 1802; and that the interest of government was both sought after and applied to a greater extent. This is scarcely surprising when it is considered that Addington inherited most of the weight of the Pitt administration, while Grenville and those friends of his ministry who applied to him were on the offensive. His situation was none the less a delicate one, as he had no particular wish to alienate established interests, unless they were declared foes.

In the so called Treasury boroughs of the Cinque Ports, Grenville compromised at Hastings, New Romney and Sandwich, securing one Member; at Rye he got both; after contests at Dover and Hythe he secured his one nominee, and at the latter acquired a friend. At Harwich, where Lord Sidmouth’s brother was a sitting Member, Grenville prudently left him in possession and relieved the other Sidmouthite Member of his seat, with the promise of another when available. At Queenborough two friends were secured.

In open constituencies where government had some weight through patronage, Grenville could not ignore the claims of known friends even where the sitting Members were prepared to come to terms with administration. The Members for Hull were so inclined but Grenville could not deny the claims of Earl Fitzwilliam, whose nominee was returned as a popular ‘third man’. At Plymouth, Sir William Elford courted government, but he was displaced by Sir Charles Pole, a Sidmouthite with better prospects of the Admiralty interest, since Elford had alienated Lord St. Vincent. The situation was more straightforward in other cases: at Barnstaple, Lord Grenville’s assurance of government patronage secured his friend Lord Ebrington in his seat. At Great Yarmouth government encouraged two friends in their candidature, but could not subsidize them sufficiently to stand their ground; at Ipswich, where Richard Wilson had more to spend, they secured two friends in a contest. At Southampton, where George Rose had long established an interest, they secured one seat, but Rose’s son retained the other. At Westminster a peerage secured Adm. Gardner’s withdrawal in favour of a friend of ministers: but Sheridan’s candidature also led to the withdrawal of Lord Percy and the alienation of the Duke of Northumberland.

In boroughs where private patrons prevailed, Grenville proceeded more cautiously, though the enthusiasm of novice supporters was a source of embarrassment. At Liskeard, where Lord Eliot was challenged by two friends of the ministry, his Members being in opposition, Grenville had to disown his nominees’ conduct in circulating his letter of support to intimidate dockyard employees among the electors. Grenville refused to give a peerage to Codrington, Member for Tewkesbury, who promised support in the Lords in return for making his seat available for a friend; nor would he offer Hodson, Member for Wigan, a baronetcy to make room for Lord Balcarres’ son. He declined to meddle at East Looe and Banbury, where the established family interests were being challenged. Some of his freebooting supporters in office embarrassed him. John Calcraft of the Ordnance assailed George Rose in his borough of Christchurch, attacked a patron prepared to come to terms with government at Shaftesbury, and ousted a friend and relative of Grenville’s at Rochester. At Callington too, Lord Clinton, who had come to terms with Grenville, found himself under attack from an Admiralty placeman.

In other cases, however, Grenville was able to strike peaceful bargains with borough proprietors who inclined to support the government of the day, or expressed a preference for his. Where patrons retained the nomination, there was no guarantee that their nominees would act up to their professions; but others allowed Grenville the nomination by courtesy or private purchase by friends of government. Among prominent borough patrons, the Marquess of Stafford and the Duke of Northumberland were included in the former category and Lords Clinton and Mount Edgcumbe in the latter.

According to Tierney, chief borough-broker for the government, a duty he doubtless took over because Fremantle, secretary to the Treasury, was a novice, much more could have been done to secure seats. On 19 Oct. 1806 he informed Howick:

We lose much for want of candidates, which I am vexed at as there are many openings which in all likelihood will be filled tomorrow or next day by mere bidders for seats without any personal attachment to any party, and men supporting nothing but the government of the day.

Lord Holland, too, recalled:

The general election was very ill managed by the government. In many instances no ministerial candidates were found; in others, not sufficient preference was shown to tried friends over their sunshine supporters who professed attachment to the ministry, but who never felt, and scarcely affected, adherence to our party under any other denomination.

There is no strong evidence that Grenville set out to increase his personal following at the expense of his Foxite allies. He doubtless gained five or six personal supporters, but in all they probably did not exceed 35. Nor did Lord Sidmouth, whose personal following was reduced, occasionally at the expense of a firm friend of the allied ministry, see fit to complain of it. Many of the new Members were not attached to any particular branch of the allied ministry, but to the ministry as a whole.

Grenville set his face against radicals. Burdett, whom the Foxites had supported in 1802, was disowned in 1806, the politically versatile William Mellish being preferred, in conjunction with the Foxite Byng: Burdett was defeated. In Westminster, James Paull the radical candidate was also defeated, though he was able to embarrass Sheridan considerably by his exposure of dubious election practices in a petition against the return. At Southwark, on the other hand, Tierney, a member of government and their election manager as far as close boroughs were concerned, having neglected his constituents and alienated many by his departure from more radical views for the consolations of office, was defeated—though not by radicals.

In the counties, apart from his success in Middlesex, Grenville could claim some credit for the result in Yorkshire where Earl Fitzwilliam’s nominee was returned as a friend, with Wilberforce, who was better disposed than the other sitting Member Lascelles: the latter withdrew in the face of a contest. In Norfolk, Coke’s influence rather than Windham’s heavy-handed manipulation of government interest secured their return: but they had to cede their seats to two other friends of government following a vendetta with their opponents. Still more controversial was the application of the government interest in Hampshire, where Lord Temple’s interference stirred up trouble, because of the implication that government was entitled to select its nominees for a county. One sitting Member, Chute, was a foe; the other, Heathcote, was open to suggestion, but took fright and threw up the sponge. The County Club replaced him and prepared to resist the ministerial candidates by subscription. One of the latter, Herbert, was a peer’s son who had just resigned office. He and his colleague were returned, at great personal expense (over £15,000), only to be accused by their opponents of owing their success to the preponderance of support they obtained from the Portsmouth dockyard area. A Treasury application for support to the barrack master general was the basis of a motion for investigation of the use of undue influence in the election in the House on 13 Feb. 1807. It was defeated by 184 votes to 57. During the debate, a complaint was made by George Rose of government interference against him at Christchurch, which was echoed by John Jeffery (Poole) and by Jenkinson (Dover). By contrast with the Hampshire election, that for Northamptonshire, where a cabinet minister Earl Spencer put up his heir, was not a source of acrimony: there was no suggestion of undue ministerial intervention, but Spencer’s natural weight in the county diminished criticism.

An overall survey of the results of the election of 1806 is rendered difficult by the short duration of the Parliament and the ministry, the fact being that a large number of Members remained uncommitted or doubtful in their loyalties, and a number of others, professedly returned as supporters of the Grenville ministry, went on without compunction to support the succeeding ministry. Some of these were supporters of the government of the day, of whatever complexion; others were critical of the conduct of the Grenville ministry in 1807. Before April 1807 the only noteworthy surviving minority list is that on the Hampshire petition, 13 Feb. 1807. The minority of 57 certainly contains a rump of Pittite opponents of the ministry, but it also includes a number of independent Members.

An analysis of the returns of 1806 has therefore been simplified to three basic categories: government (including Lord Sidmouth’s friends); opposition (consisting largely of Pittites who showed signs of hostility to ministers); and neutrals, a term that characterizes the many Members who played an undecided or waiting game, at least until April 1807.

The result would then be something like the following:

SUMMARY OF RESULTS 1806

	Ministers	Opposition	Neutral	Independent
English counties	33	10	35	2
English boroughs (large)	35	13	15	3
English boroughs (medium)	27	11	27	0
English boroughs (small)	139	31	103	1
Universities	2	0	2	0
Welsh counties	7	0	2	3
Welsh boroughs	6	0	6	0
Scotland	28	14	3	0
Ireland	72	13	15	0
Total	349	92	208	9

 

No such exact result, of course, appears in contemporary sources. Lord Grenville seems to have calculated that he might find 480 to 500 friends, 120 to 130 opposition, with the rest doubtful or absent in the new House: his calculation obviously greatly reduces the neutral category suggested above. On the opposition side, George Rose and Charles Long had some figures to offer, none of them very conclusive. Rose, who expected ministers to gain 20, or more likely fewer than that, concluded that in England and Wales they had gained 29 from opposition and lost 22 to them. Long, who expected ministers to gain about ten seats, thought they had gained 12 in England and Wales, though 11 of their seats were now doubtful; but he adjusted this to 31 gains and 17 losses, and, including Scotland and Ireland, concluded that opposition had lost 25 seats, subsequently adjusting this to 31. These adjustments are indicative of the uncertainty. It was noted that Lord Sidmouth had lost a number of his friends, but this was scarcely surprising in view of his fading stature and was not particularly complained of by him.

There were petitions in 42 instances against the returns of 1806, of which four of those followed up were adjudged ‘vexatious’. Seven (five of them Irish) were not settled at the time of the dissolution of 1807. Seven Members gained seats on petition and two elections were voided. There was a double return at Horsham, which ministers gained in the end. The changes took place at Chippenham, Guildford, Maldon, Penryn, Saltash (both seats) and Thetford; the voided elections were for Norfolk and Shrewsbury (the latter vacancy was not filled before the election of 1807). The cases of Aberdeenshire, Downpatrick, Dublin city, Londonderry, county Mayo, Newry and Westminster were not decided before the dissolution. In one case (Worcester), Bromley, returned as a friend of ministers, took fright at the prospect of a petition and vacated without further prompting, to let in his opponent on a contest. The petition for Guildford also unseated a friend, though this was offset at Maldon and by the two seats for Saltash; by-elections at Minehead, Calne and Marlborough did not bring any comfort to ministers; one contested by-election at Carrickfergus brought in a recruit just before the ministry fell.

Parliamentary support of Grenville’s ministry after the election proved perfectly satisfactory. Opposition remained tentative and ill-organized and early in 1807 Grenville was encouraged by signs of wavering among his opponents. Although it was not a party question, the ministry’s support for the abolition of the slave trade, which had been agitated in the House for nearly 20 years, was decisive in February and March 1807, when only 16 Members (including tellers) opposed the second reading of the bill and only 18 (in all) supported a five-year delay. The latter diehards included a minister (Windham), five or six Sidmouthites and several others who were not considered foes by ministers. The swing of opinion on this issue had been a gradual process: Wilberforce and the group of Members often referred to as the ‘Saints’ from their stance on this and other moral issues had persevered, and at last found a ministry pledged (at Fox’s instigation) to assist them. Lord Holland had classified as many Members as he could according to their attitude to the issue as ‘staunch friends’ (172), ‘friendly’ (69), ‘adverse’ (100) and the rest doubtful. (These figures represent revisions of his first count.)

Grenville’s resumption of negotiations with Canning with a view to detaching a small group of opponents was, however, the most significant indication of his hopes of stabilizing his position. As in Pitt’s case in 1801, Grenville’s ministry foundered suddenly, not for want of parliamentary support, but from want of cohesion in its relationship with the King. Again, the issue was the Catholic question: but there the similarity ends. George III had with some reluctance consented to the extension to Great Britain of the Irish Act enabling Catholics to be officers in the armed forces up to the rank of colonel, but when it was clear that the ministry intended to make further strides in the direction of Catholic emancipation, the King demurred. When Grenville, weakened by the knowledge that Lord Sidmouth and his friends would also desert, contemplated retracting to preserve the ministry, the King passed to the offensive and required a pledge that the issue would not be raised by ministers again. This demand was refused and gave the King his cue ‘to look about him’ for a new ministry. It also enabled Grenville to relinquish the reins honourably, despite the divisions in his cabinet: his refusal to give a pledge made the King’s victory a Pyrrhic one. The abuse of the royal prerogative became the war-cry of the outgoing ministers: the King’s freedom of action when the establishment was threatened (simplified to ‘No Popery’) was the counter-slogan of those who eclipsed them.

The infirm Duke of Portland, a figurehead in the coalition ministry 25 years before, now became a figurehead in the prerogative ministry of 1807. This was stage-managed by Lords Eldon and Hawkesbury. The ministry was composed principally of Pitt’s friends and pupils who had held office in 1804 but been excluded from office in 1806. In the House of Commons the lead fell to Spencer Perceval, at one with the King as a fervent friend of the Established Church, with George Canning, Viscount Castlereagh and Lord Hawkesbury jockeying for prominence on the front bench. Lord Melville was not restored and Lord Sidmouth, though eager to stay in, was left out in the cold. Lord Wellesley’s brothers were recruited. Perceval was at once assailed on the question of his accepting the duchy of Lancaster for life for financial security, 25 Mar. 1807, and by an adverse vote of 208 to 115 obliged to accept it during pleasure: ‘a very bad beginning for a new ministry’, as Charles Yorke put it. The outgoing ministry concentrated their efforts, however, on assailing the King’s conduct and the allegedly unconstitutional process of their own eclipse by the newcomers to office. On 9 Apr. 1807 (after the Easter recess) Thomas Brand’s censure motion on behalf of opposition (duplicated in the Lords) was defeated by 258 votes to 226: this was a setback for them, as they had rallied their friends and were quite confident of mustering 250 votes and humiliating the new government by a defeat. The new ministry, which had evidently counted on 208 opponents, could scarcely rejoice for long either at such a narrow victory, even if they could be sure that Lord Sidmouth and his friends had deserted their former colleagues, and though they had ensured the support of Wilberforce and the ‘Saints’ by safeguarding the passage of the abolition bill through the Lords. The opposition minority as listed (and corrected) in the Morning Chronicle has 227 names (‘we know not whom to expunge’): 217 names (as well as the tellers and ten Members who paired off in the minority) are certain. The other nine Members have to be picked out of 13 names, two of which (Fellowes and Moore) should probably be ruled out; four very probably did vote (Viscount Bernard, Boddington, Tower and John William Ward), which would leave five to choose out of the following seven: Benyon, Charles and James Butler, Sir John Dashwood King, John Randoll Mackenzie, George and Nicholas Vansittart. (Of the last two, Nicholas seems much more likely to be the voter.) At least 60 county Members, possibly two more, voted in the minority and two paired, the English counties being represented by 26 Members as well as one queried and one paired, the Scottish by 11, the Irish by 17 (as well as one queried) and the Welsh by six (as well as one paired). The rest were English borough Members, except for six Scots (as well as one queried and one paired), eight Irish (plus three queried), four Welsh, and both Members for Cambridge University. Members for close English boroughs outnumbered those for open English boroughs voting in the minority in the proportion of three to two. On 15 Apr. opposition tried again, on the same issue, William Henry Lyttelton being the mover: on a smaller division, they mustered a minority of 196 votes against 244. This minority (no list is known to have survived) probably included the fresh votes of Sir Charles Burrell, Edward Coke, Newton Fellowes, Joseph Foster Barham, John Meade, Lord Milford, William Mills, Charles O’Hara, Timothy Shelley and James Stewart of Tyrone (three Irish and one Welsh county Member). It was a sign of the turn of the tide that some 31 Irish Members had at least rallied to the new ministry in these divisions, together with many other fair-weather friends of the outgoing ministry and others who had bided their time.

 

THE ELECTION OF 1807

As soon as the Duke of Portland’s ministry was formed, an early dissolution was expected and indeed urged by some of its members. On 5 Apr. 1807 Lord Buckingham (Lord Grenville’s brother) wrote:

I am well aware of the difference which a dissolution with the cry of Church and King may make but if we can return to Parliament with 150 or 180 voters be assured the ministry never can stand such a battle. One of the strongest symptoms of dissolution is the bestowing on Buller a seat at the Admiralty for the purpose of fighting Saltash.

On 22 Apr. Edward Loveden wrote, ‘A dissolution seems certain after the 20th May’. The same day Lord Hawkesbury informed the new viceroy of Ireland, the Duke of Richmond, of ‘an important secret’: ‘the expediency of an immediate dissolution of Parliament’. He added:

The public current runs so strong with us at the present moment that there is much danger in suffering it to subside, and there are no inconveniences attending a dissolution at this time which are not more than compensated by the advantages belonging to it. The question is not yet decided, but if it takes place before the parliamentary business is completed, it must be carried into effect on Monday or Tuesday next. I wish therefore you would lose no time in looking about you and making any arrangements which will not lead to divulging the intention.

Next day the Duke of Portland announced that there was no going on with ‘only a sure majority of twenty-three’. On 24 Apr. Lord Hawkesbury wrote again, by express:

I can now positively inform you that the dissolution of Parliament is finally settled, and that the prorogation will take place on Monday. The intended measure has fortunately been known to very few individuals and the secret has consequently not yet transpired. It has naturally occurred to all the world that a dissolution would probably take place at the end of the session, but I am confident that there was not the least idea in either House of Parliament this evening that their existence was limited to any day in the ensuing week or fortnight, and we shall I hope therefore reap every advantage that can be expected to be derived in so short a time, from previous knowledge and preparation. The dissolution at this moment will be attended with some inconvenience to individuals in the interruption it unavoidably affords to the private business depending in Parliament, but if it had been delayed we should have lost all the advantage arising out of the present favourable impression in the country and we should have precluded ourselves in the interval from the state of the House of Commons, from proposing many measures which the exigencies of the country might require.

Portland wrote for the King’s consent on 24 Apr. and received it next day, when government circularized its confidential friends. Parliament was duly prorogued on 27 Apr. 1807, the commissioners stating that prorogation had been delayed so as to cause the minimum inconvenience from the standpoint of public business. Dissolution followed on 30 Apr. The more moderate of two drafts by Perceval for the King’s speech was adopted, appealing to ‘the sense of his people, while the events which have recently taken place are yet fresh in their recollection’, and inviting the electors to testify to ‘their determination to support [the King] in every exercise of the prerogative of his crown’. Perceval himself had been willing to use stronger language, as he had already done on his re-election at Northampton the month before, praising the King for taking ‘so firm and necessary a stand for the religious establishment of the country’. To his mind, it was the King against the aristocracy. The slogan of ‘No Popery’ had been raised then and it was again raised against the dismissed ministry during the general election campaign, which was prefaced by an abundance of loyal addresses to the King approving his conduct, in many cases unavailingly opposed by the friends of the late ministers.

The opposition failed to produce any other issue to vie with the King’s stand against Catholic relief during the election campaign. They were not surprised by the dissolution. Its timing did, however, prevent them from making the capital they wished out of the findings of the finance committee, whose report was to have been read on the day of prorogation: it was intended to furnish them with the slogan ‘No Corruption’ as an answer to ‘No Popery’. Ministers themselves in a manifesto ‘To the electors of Great Britain’, which appeared in the press on 28 Apr., disparaged their predecessors’ military plans and failures and dwelt on the foisting of Catholic relief on the King by ‘cabinet junta’. No election in this period contains as many references to one issue as do the addresses of the candidates in 1807 and there was widespread pamphlet warfare. Sydney Smith’s Letters of Peter Plymley was the choicest product on the opposition side, where Henry Brougham came to the fore as director of election propaganda. The new ministry felt vindicated by the result, which apparently exceeded their favourable expectations. Opposition admitted unexpected losses and blamed Treasury influence and a corrupt electoral system for their setback, despite which, so the Morning Chronicle optimistically announced on 22 June, 250 Members in the new Parliament, listed by name, would support opposition. (Next day the number was increased by one.) The point that the Morning Chronicle was particularly anxious to make was that 182 (presumably 183 with the next day’s addition) of those now returned had voted against the ministry on Brand’s or Lyttelton’s motion in April, their conduct being accordingly endorsed by their constituents; another 68 had not voted on either motion or were new Members (26 falling into the latter category). Owing to the faults in the list, these figures may be amended to 179 and 64 respectively (including 27 new Members), leaving out of the question doubts about some votes for Brand’s motion: 164 had voted for it beyond reasonable doubt, four more may have done so and ten others presumably voted for Lyttelton’s motion only. Two Members who may have voted for Brand’s motion (Benyon and Sir John Dashwood King) do not appear in the list of 22 June. The list was evidently the work of Tierney and Fremantle, former secretary to the Treasury. At a public dinner to boost their morale held by opposition after the election, 137 Members, as well as 43 peers, were present. The list published, which is incomplete and contains a few obscurities, includes just 11 or 12 new Members and five absentees on the April divisions: the rest voted in the minority in April.

Eleven of the English counties were contested at the election of 1807, a number matched only in 1818 during this period. Nevertheless there was no change of Membership in 30 of the 40 counties, contested or not, even if this was made up for to some extent by shifting attitudes among the re-elected Members. In the contests the opposition, not surprisingly, lost seats they had gained in 1806 for Hampshire (both) and Huntingdon (both, though one Member switched allegiance). They also lost one for Northumberland, Surrey and Durham. In compensation they gained one in the Bedfordshire contest. In Lincolnshire and Middlesex they successfully resisted a bid by government supporters to snatch both seats. Likewise in Yorkshire, in a mammoth contest, Lord Milton succeeded in beating Lascelles for second place. They had no success in the contests for Somerset and Sussex. In Dorset, where politics had little to do with the contest, Henry Bankes failed in his second bid for a county seat, being branded a disturber of the peace. Generally, the ‘No Popery’ cry was raised against the opposition candidates. Among Members re-elected, many of those who had maintained a neutral attitude towards the government in the election of 1806 were better disposed to the new administration and some who had been well disposed in 1806 would not now commit themselves to opposition (e.g. Davenport of Cheshire and Blackburne of Lancashire) or were neutralized (Lord Granville Leveson Gower for Staffordshire); while several new Members insisted on their independence (e.g. Sebright of Hertfordshire and Lord Percy, who was ousting Viscount Howick, leader of the Whigs in the Commons since Fox’s death, in Northumberland). In all, government might expect support from some 47 county Members, with 24 inclined to opposition, eight independent and one neutralized.

Seventeen of the large English boroughs were contested. The opposition thereby lost a Member for Colchester and York, as well as for New Shoreham. At York, Sir Mark Sykes did not trust ‘No Popery’ alone to defeat Lawrence Dundas, and spent freely. The unsuccessful candidates at Beverley, Canterbury and Coventry were opportunists, in the last two cases nabobs, and the Liverpool contest was accidental. That for London was stopped by the death of the fifth man. Friends of government did not succeed at Dover, Great Yarmouth, Leicester and Southwark. A wavering Member was unseated at Norwich, where political opponents were returned. An advanced Whig failed to get in at Nottingham, which remained compromised, and the same occurred at Preston. At Westminster there was a Radical triumph, Burdett and Lord Cochrane ousting Sheridan. Without a contest, opposition surrendered a seat at Berwick, and at Bristol and Hull suffered a change of allegiance by one Member. By and large, opposition fared better in these boroughs than anywhere else, though they failed to obtain a majority of Members for them. They could count on a supporter from Chester, Coventry, Dover and (until he was ejected by the patron) Great Yarmouth, and in 20 of the boroughs held their ground.

Half the 32 medium-sized English boroughs were contested, the highest proportion since 1790. As a result, ministers gained a supporter at Grantham, where there was an all-out struggle between the leading interests; at Evesham, where they went on to lose him on petition; at Rochester and Sandwich, where, however, they failed to dislodge John Calcraft on the Ordnance interest, and two at Ipswich, where there was an all-out contest in which government had a role to play. They gained one at Shrewsbury where, admittedly, the Whig Bennet had had his election voided shortly before the dissolution and, by a switch of allegiance, the fourth Member for Weymouth. Opposition gained one at Tewkesbury and at Pontefract and had hopes of one of the sitting Members for Maidstone. They failed to carry a second supporter at Boston, where John Cartwright’s radical intervention was again a failure. Without a contest, they could now expect support from both Members for Hertford and one for Warwick, while government could count on the second Member for Southampton and on one (by a switch of allegiance) for Leominster. At Lichfield the patronal interest of Lord Stafford, which returned politically opposed Members, resisted an independent challenge; at Stafford a second Whig was defeated, as also at St. Albans, where Earl Spencer withdrew on the failure of Viscount Duncannon. The opposition freely blamed their defeat on ‘No Popery’ at Ipswich, Southampton, St. Albans and Shrewsbury.

Twenty-five of the small English boroughs were contested in 1807, nine of them among those with more than 200 voters. Whether or not there was a contest, the opposition lost supporters at Barnstaple, Grimsby, Malton, Okehampton, Shaftesbury and Wootton Bassett, and gained one only at Abingdon, in the larger category. In the smaller category (fewer than 200 voters), owing to the switch of allegiance of borough patrons anxious to support the government of the day, and of a number of Members (such as Lord Sidmouth’s friends, the Prince of Wales’s, and the Duke of Northumberland’s) they lost much more ground: both seats for Ashburton, Brackley, Callington, East Looe, Fowey, Harwich, Hythe, Lostwithiel, Malmesbury, Newport (I.o.W.), Queenborough and Rye; and one for Bletchingley, Bodmin, Dunwich, East Grinstead, East Retford, Hastings, New Romney and Wilton. Government inroads in the Cinque Ports constituencies, Lord Hawkesbury being warden since Pitt’s death, were very marked. At Wootton Bassett the noble patrons were overthrown by a local attorney, while at Malton, Earl Fitzwilliam was temporarily deprived of one nominee. The Duke of Newcastle, Lords Clinton, Mount Edgcumbe, Powis, Lonsdale, and the Buller, Holmes and Barne families, patrons with available seats, rallied to the new government. Lord Carrington did not, and the 2nd Marquess of Lansdowne failed to unseat a Whig Member for his borough of Calne, where a threat of revolt deterred him. The contests in these small boroughs had little political content, as usual, and were largely concerned with electoral control. Banbury was again fought for by Dudley North and William Praed, both friends of the deposed administration. The contests for Christchurch, East Retford, Malmesbury and Minehead, were opportunist. The battles for Abingdon, Banbury, Barnstaple, Bridgwater, Chippenham, Grimsby, Guildford, Horsham, Maldon, Malmesbury, Okehampton, Saltash, Seaford, Shaftesbury and St. Ives, even with a modicum of topical politics injected, were nothing new. Poole and Grampound now joined the fray.

Cambridge University was contested and Lord Henry Petty, outgoing chancellor of the Exchequer, defeated, but ministers had to be content with one of the two Members, as Lord Euston clung to his seat.

Only three Welsh constituencies were contested, Carmarthenshire, Flint Boroughs and Pembrokeshire. The ‘No Popery’ standard was raised in each case, but only in Carmarthenshire, where Paxton withdrew, did it have any success. The tripartite contest for Flint was very keen, but the result involved no political change; and the ailing Lord Milford held on to Pembrokeshire, with the help of his friends, when the Owen of Orielton interest was revived against him. In consequence, government cannot have derived much comfort from the Welsh returns: a slight majority of Welsh Members remained either in opposition or uncommitted.

In Scotland, there were 15 contests, seven of them for counties. Lord Melville and his friends regained some of the ground they had lost in 1806 owing to the uncertainties of their standing with the Grenville ministry: but opposition remained stronger than at any election in this period before 1806.

Ireland returned only 22 new Members in 1807. There had been 14 contests, six of them for counties. Two forecasts in the Duke of Portland’s papers are incomplete; one gives government 41 supporters out of 65 predicted returns, the other, lacking the result of five outstanding contests, gives ministers 37 county and 24 borough Members, 61 in all, 24 decided enemies, and ten ‘feeble enemies’ who ‘may perhaps be had’. The accompanying list is incomplete as far as that claim goes, listing 30 county and 12 borough Members friendly to government, with the addition of unnamed Members for six boroughs, 23 opposition Members (22 named), three ‘feeble enemies’ and four queried. The Dublin Evening Post on 11 June 1807 congratulated opposition on securing 42 Members (listed, and 30 of them county Members) who could not be bought, and added the names of five others favourable to Catholic relief. In a few cases this list was optimistic. In July 1808 Chief Secretary Wellesley’s analysis of the Irish Members showed 62 favourable to government and 38 in opposition: the latter might, on his showing, be disappointed or misinformed as to the conduct of Viscount Bernard, Sir Edward O’Brien and Thomas Cherburgh Bligh. Moreover Lord Boyle, returned in two places in 1807 and thus listed twice by the Dublin paper, sat for neither, and was replaced by one friend and one foe, while Dawson (Member for Monaghan) had meanwhile died and been replaced by a ministerialist. In short, ministers did not do particularly well in the elections: the Dublin Evening Post claimed they were thwarted in eight counties and one borough, but they could soon work on their ‘feeble enemies’ to redress the balance.

Overall, the result of the election of 1807, in which there were 102 contests, 15 more than in 1806, was much as follows:

SUMMARY OF RESULTS 1807

	Ministers	Opposition	Independent	Doubtful	Neutral
English counties	47	24	8	0	1
English boroughs	242	128	18	7	10
Welsh counties	4	6	1	1	0
Welsh boroughs	9	12	1	2	0
Universities	2	1	0	0	1
Scotland	27	13	1	4	0
Ireland	57	40	0	3	0
	388	224	29	17	12

 

This may be compared with a Treasury analysis, seemingly compiled on 10 Mar. 1808,10Add. 38363, f. 65. which gives pro 378 (England 288, Scotland 31, Ireland 59); con 256 (England 204, Scotland 12, Ireland 40); hopeful ten (England eight, Scotland two) and doubtful 14 (England 13, Ireland one); and concludes by awarding government two-thirds of the hopefuls and one-third of the doubtfuls, giving a final breakdown of 389 pro and 269 con.

On 22 June 1807 the Morning Chronicle published a statement of ‘the complexion of the new Parliament’, prepared for opposition by Fremantle and Tierney, their election managers. The newspaper was duly lectured by the ministerialist papers about the impropriety of so doing, but the enterprise was the almost inevitable result of the chief issue on which the general election had been fought. The Morning Chronicle claimed:

With the ‘recent events yet fresh in their recollection’ the people have returned 182 of the very Members who voted for one or both of the motions approving of the conduct of the late ministers; with the ‘recent events yet fresh in their recollection’ the people have in 68 other places chosen, as their representatives, gentlemen totally unconnected with his Majesty’s new government; such of them as were in the last Parliament not having supported it on either of the two great questions before mentioned, and such of them as are elected for the first time, not having been called upon at their elections to profess, nor in fact having professed any attachment to, or confidence in, the present administration.

The newspaper concluded that ‘more than 50 Members’ who ‘may have voted with government on Mr Brand’s or Mr Lyttelton’s motion’ were ‘far from being partisans, or even friends of ministers’, but did not venture to list them.

Several points must be made about the Morning Chronicle lists. Of the 63 who were unquestionably either absent or did not vote on Brand’s and Lyttelton’s motions, or were newly elected, only 26 fall into the latter category; in fact one should be added, as Robert Lawrence Dundas, a new Member, was wrongly listed among the 182. In other words, 37 members of the previous Parliament ‘totally unconnected with his Majesty’s new government’ had disappointed the Whigs in the crucial divisions in April. They were Robert Adair, Bagenal, John Baker, Bampfylde, Berkeley, Lord Boyle, Sir Martin Browne Ffolkes, Clements, Edward Charles Cocks, Denis Bowes Daly, Richard Dawson, James Fitzgerald, Lords Charles and William Fitzroy, Gen. Grosvenor, Christopher Hely Hutchinson, Sir Samuel Hood, William Hussey, David Latouche, John Lemon, Alexander Mackenzie Fraser, McMahon, Richard Martin, Lord Milton, Lord Newborough, Sir Edward O’Brien, John Palmer, Sir Charles Pole, George Ponsonby (co. Cork), Edward Berkeley Portman, Richard Price, Lord Royston, Sir Marcus Somerville, Lord William Stuart, Thomas Tyrwhitt (Plymouth), Lord Walpole and Walter Wilkins. It was certainly out of the question for some of these, who were on active service abroad, to have attended: but excuses such as the Irish spring assizes sounded less convincing. It will be recalled that in the interval of six days between Brand’s and Lyttelton’s motions opposition seem to have recruited only ten more of their friends, three of them from Ireland.

The list of 182 staunch supporters, to whom one (James Macdonald) was added next day after being accidentally omitted, was faulty: in it were seven duplications, one non-Member (George Anderson Pelham) and one new Member, as already stated. The two lists should accordingly have numbered 173 and 69, 242 in all, to which, as the duplications referred to were due to Members being returned for two places, seven replacements should be added, making 249. This figure was over optimistic. The list includes a number of Members who were in fact neutral, doubtful or independent, and generally did not vote with opposition again until 1810. Nor, until 1810, did opposition muster more than 196 votes in any division.

In point of fact, opposition had done a little better than George Tierney anticipated, at least on paper. Writing to Viscount Howick on 11 May 1807 he had maintained that though ‘our friends make long faces and appear a good deal cast down ... we shall return two hundred’. From a letter of 18 May it appears that the opposition expected only 45 supporters from Scotland and Ireland. On that day Tierney sent Howick an abstract of the elections, as yet incomplete. It has not been found, but included a ‘doubtful catalogue’ in which ‘those marked X seem to me likely to vote with us, and, if so ... our whole strength in the new Parliament will be formidable’. Writing to Lord Grenville next day to send the same abstract, he concluded: ‘our total number in the new Parliament will be 210’. This was precisely what Lord Grenville had forecast (government 360, opposition 210, doubtful 88). Lord Auckland, whose estimate of opposition Members was ‘a clear 200 ... exclusive of Lord Sidmouth’s party, which his friends state to be from 30 to 40: and a doubtful and speculating party which could be stated at less than from 50 to 60’, assured Lord Grenville, 25 May:

there will be a weight of abilities, numbers, and public opinion very sufficient to annoy and expose a weak government. But it will not be sufficient to create a strong system, and unless the plan of attack shall be well prepared, and pursued with concert, activity and energy, people will not go to town in July merely to watch for events and circumstances.

On 30 May Fremantle informed Lord Grenville:

Lord Ponsonby says we are sure of a return of 38 in Ireland, already 16 are secured in Scotland, so that it is impossible in the most moderate way to calculate our numbers at less than from 216 to 220 without the Prince of Wales or Lord Sidmouth. The ministers are much disappointed with their returns and I know that some of them have expressed this.

In fact, as William Adam admitted to Grenville, writing from Scotland the same day with ‘a compte rendue of Scotch elections’, their expectations were ‘cut short by four’ and one desertion. On 1 June, Lord Grenville wrote:

on the whole our friends expect about 220 exclusive of Sidmouth’s and I really think it cannot be put below 210. This with a flying squadron (or rather two) of little less than 100, leaves to government not much [more] than 350 upon paper—a force much too small for the exigencies of their situation. And I hear accordingly that they are disappointed and uneasy at the returns.

Ministers were anxious to play down any insinuations of government interference in the elections. Applied to for money to lubricate Irish elections, Lord Hawkesbury informed the viceroy, 28 May:

We are very hard pressed here upon the same subject, and under the circumstances under which Parliament was dissolved, our means of immediate supply are very scanty. The savings of the Civil List which go into the King’s privy purse are certainly his private property, and at his disposal, but it is very material that we should be able to say in Parliament if necessary that no public money has been expended in either country in the elections.

The King was reported to have contributed £12,000: he had bestowed nothing on the previous ministry. There was, it seems, only a slight and adventitious diminution in the number of seats—over 30—purchased at this election, more than half of them through government agency. Opposition were able to purchase fewer seats, though Tierney organized a ‘lottery’ for the purpose. The price of such seats was now commonly quoted as from £5,000 to £6,000. Evidence of direct government interference in 1807 is slighter than for 1806, except in Ireland, and does not apply to more than 40 seats. Opposition found little to complain of in this respect: they could scarcely complain of the abuse hurled at them by newspapers friendly to the government, such as the Morning Post and Courier, since their own Morning Chronicle, the Globe and the Pilot retaliated in kind in an election conspicuous for press warfare.

Radicalism continued to attract a vociferous minority. In 1806 radical candidates had contested Boston, Westminster, Southwark, Honiton and Okehampton and had secured seats at the last two, as well as undermining Tierney at Southwark. In 1807 Boston, Bristol, Grampound, Okehampton, Preston and Westminster were their scenes of activity. At Boston and Bristol they got nowhere; at Preston, Joseph Hanson secured substantial support from the weavers, but was no match for the entrenched interests; at Grampound the Cochrane brothers were returned but deprived of their seats on petition; at Okehampton, Wardle was successful, but he ousted Bateman Robson, the quite as radical sitting Member. At Westminster, Burdett insulted Paull, the previous radical candidate, thus provoking a duel, but was returned in conjunction with Lord Cochrane at the expense of Sheridan. The Westminster result was ominous: government had fielded no candidate and the Whig opposition was discredited. The radicals, though at logger-heads, were organized through Francis Place’s committee and Burdett’s return was achieved at the minimum of expense. Cochrane, on the other hand, relied on more conventional methods and it looks as if ministers regarded his return as the lesser evil, when they could not tempt Sheridan.

As a result of controverted elections, the opposition gained a seat at Evesham and Malton and lost one at Grimsby, and both at Horsham; while the radical Cochranes forfeited their seats at Grampound. The double returns for Saltash and Chippenham were settled in favour of ministerialists and one (Banbury) in favour of a Whig. The number of constituencies involved in petitions against the returns was 37. Twenty-eight were followed up: four were successful outright, and three led to voided elections. Only three were found frivolous.

During the course of the Parliament of 1807, several by-elections provided political changes, though there were in England and Wales only 16 contests for some 150 vacancies. In 1808 the opposition lost a supporter at Great Yarmouth, as well as at Abingdon, but regained Malton and gained a friend for Bath; while at Grampound two ministerial gains were upset on petition. In 1809 opposition gained supporters at Poole and St. Albans, but ministers strengthened themselves at Pembroke and Okehampton. In 1810 opposition secured a famous victory in causing Charles Philip Yorke to give up his re-election for Cambridgeshire, but, in Essex, division in the opposition camp let in a ministerialist. Opposition gained a friend for Brackley, while new Members for Callington and Malmesbury could not be counted on by ministers. In 1811 opposition gained friends for Shrewsbury and Wootton Bassett and ministers a friend for Cambridge University and Abingdon. In 1812 opposition gained friends for Boston, Barnstaple, Cambridge University and Northumberland; while ministers reinforced themselves at Aldeburgh, Bodmin, Lewes and Plymouth. In Scotland three out of six contested by-elections gave new supporters to opposition in Renfrewshire (1810) and Ayrshire (1811), though ministers could not count on a friend for Ross-shire (1809). In uncontested by-elections ministers could no longer count on the new Member for Caithness (1811) though they had hopes of the replacement for Anstruther Easter the same month and subsequently gained a friend for Kincardine. In Ireland the three contested by-elections made no difference: but ministers otherwise gained friends for Monaghan and Youghal (1807), Kilkenny (1809) and county Down (1812), while opposition had to be satisfied with a friend for Galway (1811).

Although opposition boasted of the number of supporters they had secured at the election of 1807, the fears of several of their leading men that it would be difficult to muster them were warranted. The amendment to the address, 26 June 1807, which was to have been a demonstration of their strength—it was decided upon and circulated beforehand without reference to the contents of the address—was defeated by 350 votes to 155; while Whitbread’s censure motion of 6 July was defeated by 322 to 136. It was not enough to blame these resounding opposition defeats on dog days. The majority of the whole House had, on the first division, rejected their case. Lord Grenville’s vision of rationalizing the monarchy so as to make George III chief magistrate of the republic was shattered. Then there was the question of unity and leadership: Viscount Howick succeeded to his father’s peerage before the year was out and, in the absence of an obvious choice for his successor, the chief priests and elders of the party fixed upon George Ponsonby (not then in the House), an uninspiring if respectable Irish Whig, to be their spokesman: a choice that could not please the former leader’s ambitious brother-in-law, Samuel Whitbread. Centrifugal tendencies appeared: Whitbread himself became willy-nilly a focus for the hopes and instigations of a Whig group called ‘the Mountain’, an analogy with the forceful party in the French revolutionary assembly which commanded from the heights. The radicals, making up in vociferousness and enterprise for what they lacked in numbers, acted as sharp-shooters and drew some support for their motions, ultimately driving the bien pensants into the same lobby as ministerialists. Issues capable of promoting cohesion in opposition were hard to find: abuse of the prerogative was dead; the state of Ireland and Catholic claims would not yet do; nor, yet, would the commercial embargo imposed by the orders in council; and certainly not Indian affairs. The success of the expedition to Copenhagen muzzled those who criticized its morality, though Lord Sidmouth, spurned by government for office, added his contingent to the opposition minority. Early in 1809 the controversial convention of Cintra which halted the allied offensive in the Peninsular War provoked a sizeable minority and a noticeable drop in the ministerial vote, but soon afterwards ministers weathered the scandal exposed by an equivocating radical Member, Gwyllym Lloyd Wardle, of the Duke of York’s mistress Mary Anne Clarke’s efforts to manipulate army patronage. In this crisis it was Wilberforce and his synod of ‘Saint’ whose moral outrage shook the ministry, and Spencer Perceval, hitherto somewhat outshone by George Canning, his colleague at the Foreign Office, who displayed the forensic eloquence that held the malcontents at bay. The Duke of York’s resignation as commander-in-chief, a humiliation for the monarchy, prevented further mischief, but the whole issue of corruption now came to the fore. A charge raked up against Lord Castlereagh of promising an East India Company cadetship to procure a seat in Parliament for a friend was defeated by only 216 votes to 167, 25 Apr. 1809. A motion indicting for irregularities the commissioners for prizes seized from the Dutch was lost by only 102 votes to 77, 1 May 1809. On the other hand, the House was less sympathetic to vague or extreme attacks on corruption: Lord Folkestone’s motion for a committee to investigate abuses generally was defeated by 178 votes to 30 (17 Apr. 1809) and William Alexander Madocks’s motion charging Perceval and Castlereagh with corruption in their interference with the return and conduct of Members of Parliament proved indigestible and was rejected by 310 votes to 85. Madocks, not satisfied with instancing the case of Quintin Dick, returned Member for Cashel at ministerial instigation who was supposed to have resigned his seat under pressure because he could not bring himself to vote with ministers, had raised the question of Treasury intervention in certain elections. Nevertheless, ministers thought it prudent to come to terms with a bill proposed by John Christian Curwen to reform obvious abuses at elections, June 1809. Although the bill, as amended by Perceval, was assailed for its inadequacy by the ‘Mountain’, it was a declaration of intent against venality of seats and votes, to which lip-service was subsequently paid. Radical proposals for a more general reform of Parliament were ruled out, Burdett’s motion of 15 June 1809 being rejected by 74 votes to 15.

Opposition divisions of opinion were more or less in the open: the want of cohesion in Portland’s ministry was a matter of speculation and intrigue. The duke was now an ailing cypher and the succession in dispute. Canning overplayed his hand in a bid to demote Castlereagh, which led to their both resigning and fighting a duel, and Perceval, after a shrewd canvass of his colleagues, succeeding the duke as prime minister in October 1809. The internal weaknesses of the ministry having been thus exposed, a bid to recoup their strength was inevitable. Overtures to the opposition leaders, Lords Grenville and Grey, were not taken seriously by them and it was to the outlawed Lord Melville that Perceval turned when he settled instead for a reshuffle of the ministry. Meanwhile the failure of the Scheldt expedition, which Castlereagh had been active in promoting, demoralized the new team. Ministers resisted an inquiry, urged by opposition as an amendment to the address, 23 Jan. 1810, by a majority of 96. On 26 Jan. Lord Porchester carried a motion for inquiry by only nine votes, but further defeats were suffered by ministers on 23 Feb. and 5 Mar. 1810 when they resisted the production and scrutiny of Lord Chatham’s confidential apologia to the King on his conduct of the expedition. On the latter division the opposition majority was 33. Yet on 30 Mar., Porchester’s censure motion was not carried: those who had joined the opposition on previous divisions were not, so they now indicated, prepared to see the overthrow of the government.

The five divisions involving the Scheldt expedition on 23 and 26 Jan., 23 Feb., 5 and 30 Mar. 1810 are of peculiar interest because both majority and minority lists were published, and because the issue, in exposing the vulnerability of the ministry, inspired an opposition analysis of the whole House. On 23 Jan. opposition failed to carry inquiry, in amendment to the address, by 263 votes to 167; on 26 Jan., however, Porchester’s motion for inquiry was carried by 195 votes to 186. On 23 Feb. and 5 Mar. opposition again carried their points with regard to Lord Chatham’s confidential reports on the expedition (on 5 Mar. by 221 votes to 188), but on 30 Mar. Porchester’s censure motion (the principle division that day) was defeated by 275 votes to 227. It seems that about 70 Members changed sides during the course of the five division dates: 31 changed between 23 Jan. and 26 Jan., thus giving opposition the majority; 14 more added their votes to opposition between 23 Jan. and the division of 23 Feb., all but three having voted with ministers on 26 Jan. Nine Members who had supported ministers in January joined opposition on 5 Mar., while two more reversed their vote of 23 Feb. by joining opposition on that date (one other, however, reverted to ministers). By 30 Mar., 44 Members who had changed sides had reverted to ministers, four having done so in previous divisions. Two Members, Henry Bankes and Gen. Gascoyne, pursued a line all their own, but it cannot be supposed that individual impulse governed a number of the others. Canning deliberately manipulated his ‘little senate’ and all 11 of the adherents attributed to him by the Whigs at that time changed sides, but not in the same pattern: Canning, although in the wilderness, was thus able to boost his importance. Castlereagh and the three attenders of the five supporters attributed to him by the Whigs also varied their vote, but almost in the same way: like the Canningites they reverted to government on 30 Mar. Of Lord Sidmouth’s contingent of eight (as the Whigs reckoned), two never appeared in support of government, while the six others supported only on 23 Jan., with the apparent exception of Henry Bowyer, whose line was evidently his own.

It will be noted that the number of Members voting on 30 Mar. had risen to 502, and government benefited not only from malcontent Members reaffirming their loyalty or abstaining from opposition when the existence of the ministry was at stake, but also from a muster of previously absent supporters: at least 25 of their supporters on 30 Mar. had not previously turned up, and another ten had not done so since 23 Jan. Opposition were rather disappointed: William Henry Fremantle at first hoped for an opposition muster of 238 plus 31 doubtful, excluding Castlereagh, Canning and the ‘Saints’, against government (228 plus 28 doubtful) but subsequently settled for 240, though he noted ‘I fear their numbers increase’. On 29 Mar. he calculated, ‘including pairs’, 289 ‘for them’, 252 ‘for us’, adding that ‘perhaps 30 may not vote at all’. Five hundred and nineteen Members appeared that night, which Fremantle rightly forecast would prove ‘too many for us’.

Partly with a view to forecasting the result of the division of 30 Mar. 1810 and partly with an eye to their prospects of future support if the government crumbled, a coterie of Whig activists meeting at St. Alban’s Street (Brougham, James Abercrombie and James Loch among them) drew up an analysis of the House of Commons which, from internal evidence, was completed between 19 and 24 Mar. 1810. Apart from the Speaker and one vacancy (presumably Westbury) the analysis divides the House into 11 categories: present opposition (214), hopeful (53), government (82), doubtful (117), against opposition (143), Sidmouth (8), Perceval (12), Canning (12), Castlereagh (6), Wellesley (4) and no party (5). There were inaccuracies: the total given was 657, omitting one Member, while the actual names listed fall short of the totals in the case of present opposition (212 listed), government (81 listed) and doubtful (115 listed). Moreover, two Members were listed twice (Francis William Grant and ‘T. Wood’, though doubtless Mark Wood was intended in the ‘against opposition’ list, as Thomas Wood was fairly listed under Castlereagh’s name), and one (Pedley) was no longer in the House; nor was Richard Ramsbottom (succeeded by John Ramsbottom). Occasional errors in initials or distortions in surnames occur. The names omitted altogether were George Ponsonby (co. Cork) and Frederick Cavendish Ponsonby (co. Kilkenny) who would bring the opposition total up to 214; and William Eliott Lockhart, Thomas Sherlock Gooch, Arthur French and Richard Tucker Steward, who would bring the government total up to 82 and the doubtfuls up to 117, as well as accounting for the missing Member. The vacant seat (Westbury) was filled by John de Ponthieu on 24 Mar. and he voted with opposition on 30 Mar. The list was scrutinized by Fremantle and Lord Temple and the former informed Lord Grenville of an amended version of it they had drawn up:

You will see the government counted at 303, but in the summing up I deduct three which were included in our original list of 214 viz. Vansittart, Madocks and Lord Walpole two of whom are given to parties and the other to opposition [sic]. It is impossible to give the opposition (as you thought) 250 certain supporters, without parties etc. etc.

On 1 July 1810 the original list, purloined from the Whigs by the treachery, so they supposed, of their copyist Stephens, was published in the Satirist as an indictment of a Whig conspiracy:

Had not the conduct of the plotters, with regard to Sir Francis Burdett’s business, excited the disgust and awakened the true patriotism of our friends, the representatives of the people would never have been apprised of their honourable classification by the St. Alban’s Street Committee.

The Satirist added:

We are certain that the six gentlemen in the ‘hopeful’ and the sixty in the ‘doubtful’ lists who disappointed the opposition on the division relative to the Walcheren question, will be cautious how they encourage the hopes, and excite the doubts of conspirators in future.

The Satirist in fact listed 55 ‘doubtfuls’ who voted with government and five who voted with opposition (not 60 who voted with government); moreover, two of its 55 do not appear in other lists of the majority and one ‘doubtful’ in the minority is omitted; and even its list of six ‘hopefuls’ who voted with government is inaccurate, and should be five.

Of the 212 names actually listed ‘present opposition’, all but 40 appeared in the minority on 30 Mar., 12 of the latter at least having paired. Of the other 28, three never attended and 19 were not reliable: so only six of their regulars did not muster for opposition. Fifty-five Members not listed opposition voted with them on 30 Mar.: 29 of them had been categorized ‘hopeful’; and all five ‘no party’ (i.e. radical) Members joined them, along with six Sidmouthites, seven doubtfuls, seven ministerialists and one new Member. Of the 53 listed ‘hopeful’, opposition got 29, ministers got five, the rest did not vote. Of the 115 actually listed as ‘doubtful’, 53 supported ministers, six opposition, and the rest did not vote (one, Pedley, not being in the House anyway). All the eight Sidmouthites except Bowyer supported opposition. Of Perceval’s dozen, all except Sir Thomas Plumer mustered for government, though Robert Pemberton Milnes was accidentally shut in. Canning’s dozen by and large rallied to ministers and all except Sloane (absent) of Castlereagh’s six. Three of Lord Wellesley’s four (excepting Lord Valentia, who was absent) supported ministers.

Of the 143 Members listed ‘against the oppositio’, none voted for opposition, certainly; and all except 29 seem to have voted with ministers. Of these 29, six paired and five more were reckoned sure supporters, had they not been unavoidably absent; most of the rest were poor attenders and there is no reason to suppose that government accidentally lost the support of more of its regulars than did opposition (about a half-dozen). Of the 81 listed government, only 55 voted for ministers. At this point it should be emphasized that the Whig list was not merely a prediction of the Walcheren division: its subdivisions indicate that ‘against the opposition’ was the category in which (together with Perceval’s own following) partisan support of the Perceval ministry was to be expected; while those listed ‘government’ were supporters of the ministry of the day and likely to transfer their allegiance at any change. Therefore while none of those listed ‘against the opposition’ supported opposition, seven of those listed ‘government’ (Edward Synge Cooper, John Cotes, John Fane, Isaac Gascoyne, Abel Ram, Abraham Robarts and Robert Shaw) did so; only four are known to have paired off with ministers; and of the 15 others who did not vote, only one was specifically mentioned as a sure supporter, if he had been present. Had opposition been in a stronger position, one might have expected more desertions from the ‘government’ category. By and large, the opposition list was a very accurate one: the Satirist itself admitted that it provided an exact prediction of the minority on 30 Mar. The attendance factor necessarily affected its validity. Seven of those listed ‘hopeful’ never appeared in any opposition minority list known for that Parliament; the same is true of 51 in the ‘doubtful’ category. The Whigs had to list three supporters who, they well knew, would not attend for them. The only categorization that seems wholly inept was that of Henry Bowyer as a Sidmouthite; in other respects, the categories display some subtlety. For instance, of the 107 Members in 102 surviving lists who voted 25 times or more with opposition, 97 appear in this list of 1810 as ‘thick and thin’ opposition. One other (Bennet) was not yet in the House, one not listed (George Ponsonby junior) and three were ‘no party’ (Burdett, Folkestone and Wardle). Three were ‘hopeful’ (Biddulph, Henry Thornton and Sir John Sebright—an interesting classification as Biddulph appeared in 38 minority lists out of 102, Thornton in 30 and Sebright in 25: if Sebright’s categorization showed normal restraint, Biddulph’s suggests that he narrowly escaped being branded ‘no part’, if anything; Thornton’s can be explained by reference to his occasional votes with government and his connexion with Wilberforce and the ‘Saints’, a pressure group not formally recognized by the Whigs in their categories). There was one ‘doubtful’ Member, Thomas Babington, also a ‘Saint’, who voted no less than 43 times with opposition; and one Sidmouthite, Charles Adams, more zealous in opposition than his fellows, though also capable of supporting ministers.

At least 222 Members of the Parliament of 1807, to judge from 16 relevant surviving division lists and notes on pairing, never voted with opposition and always voted, if at all, or intended to vote, with ministers; 56 of them, however, appeared in one minority list, when Canning carried the Catholic relief question on 22 June 1812. Apart from that division, another 67 Members of that Parliament appear as voting only once with opposition, three of them with an opposition majority. Of the 222, 21 were not in the House in March 1810 and two (excluding Mark Wood) not listed then. Of those that were listed, 107 (including Francis William Grant and Mark Wood) were ‘against the opposition’; 49 ‘doubtful’; 28 ‘government’; nine ‘Perceval’; four ‘hopeful’; one ‘Wellesley’; one ‘Castlereagh’. Of the other 67 who voted only once with opposition, five were not in the House in March 1810; 18 were ‘against the opposition’; 22 ‘doubtful’; 13 ‘government’; three ‘Perceval’; one ‘Castlereagh’; one ‘Wellesley’ and four ‘hopeful’.

The Satirist referred to ‘Sir Francis Burdett’s business’ as having undermined solidarity in opposition ranks and this was undeniably true. Burdett’s defiance of the House of Commons, denying it public confidence as long as it was unreformed, embarrassed the opposition: the more conservative Whigs clung to the privileges of the House against what they regarded as an appeal to democracy. At the same time, many hesitated to make a popular martyr of Burdett, particularly when a flood of petitions on his behalf threatened. The whole episode was a blow to the self-esteem of the House. The number of Members personally attached to Burdett scarcely exceeded a handful, but he could always find support for radical motions from the Whig ‘Mountain’. Such Members as Brand, Combe, Creevey, Cuthbert, Ronald Craufurd Ferguson, Lord Folkestone, Hanbury Tracy, Christopher Hely Hutchinson, Lyttelton, Madocks, William Maxwell of Carriden, Parnell, Wardle, Western and Whitbread were frequent fellow travellers; and on the motion for committing Burdett to the Tower, 5 Apr. 1810, the minority was 152 to 190.

Against this background, Brand’s motion for parliamentary reform, 21 May 1810, was not particularly successful. It was defeated by 234 votes to 115. The supporters of reform were for the greater part (at least 57, possibly 59) county Members (17 or 18 Irish, six Welsh and one Scottish) as well as two more who paired in favour (one English and one Welsh): but it was either shunned or positively opposed by the more conservative Whigs. The majority included the Hon. James Butler, Bryan Cooke, James Cocks, George Eden, William Elliot, William Frankland, Pascoe Grenfell, Lord George Grenville, Sir James Hall, Hon. William Howard, Viscount Mahon, Richard Martin, Charles Mills, William Mills, Lord Milton, Lord Morpeth, Lord Porchester, Abel, George and Samuel Smith, Lord Templeton, Thomas Thompson, John William Ward, Sir George Warrender and Sir Watkin Williams Wynn—25 Members listed among their regulars by the Whigs, nearly half of them Grenvillites. The minority included 63 steady voters with opposition and 32 of the more frequent voters with them and only two of their stragglers, as well as the radicals and only a dozen independent voters (namely Sir Charles Burrell, Sir John Dashwood King, William Gordon, Sir Charles Hamilton, Hobhouse, Richard Long, Manning, Portman, Robarts, Henry Thornton, Sir Henry Vane Tempest and Wilberforce).

A printed list of Friends to a Constitutional Reform dated March 1811, and found among the Whitbread papers with manuscript additions, includes the following 68 MPs: Robert Adair, William Adam, Sir John Aubrey, Sir Charles Bampfylde, Robert Myddelton Biddulph, Hon. Thomas Brand, Henry Brougham, Sir Francis Burdett, George Byng, Lord Cochrane, Thomas William Coke, Henry Christian Combe, Thomas Creevey, John Christian Curwen, James Ramsay Cuthbert, Gen. Ronald Craufurd Ferguson, Richard Fitzpatrick, Thomas Foley, Daniel Giles, Henry Grattan, Sir William Guise, Joseph Halsey, Lord Archibald Hamilton, William Hanbury, Charles Hanbury Tracy, Christopher Hely Hutchinson, William Honywood, Col. Henry Howard, Robert Hurst, William Hussey, Thomas Kemp, Malcolm Laing, Ralph John Lambton, Charles Lemon, John Lemon, Sir William Lemon, Benjamin Lester Lester, Col. McMahon, William Alexander Madocks, [Henry] Martin, Montague Mathew, William Maxwell, Sir Thomas Miller, Sir William Milner, Sir John Newport, Charles Noel Noel, William Ord, Henry Parnell, Sir Arthur Piggott, Frederick Cavendish Ponsonby, George Ponsonby, George Ponsonby jun., Francis Pym, Sir Samuel Romilly, Lord William Russell, Sir Henry St. John Mildmay, Sir John Sebright, Richard Sharp, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, William Shipley, William Smith, Mq. of Tavistock, Henry Thornton, Thomas Tyrwhitt, Gwillym Lloyd Wardle, Charles Callis Western, Samuel Whitbread and William Wilberforce. The names of Owen Williams, Viscount Folkestone, Pascoe Grenfell, William Lewis Hughes, Lord Ossulston, Richard Mansel Philipps and John Wharton were added as ‘names to be introduced’. Nearly two-thirds of these, if already in the House in May 1810, voted for Brand’s motion. The list of March 1811 also includes 14 former and seven future Members, four or more unsuccessful Whig candidates, and 11 peers, namely Lord Grey, the dukes of Bedford, Devonshire and Norfolk, Lords Holland, Moira, Lauderdale, King, Stanhope, Thanet, and Saye and Sele. A list of members of the more radical Hampden Club, dedicated to parliamentary reform, in May 1814 includes the following nine Members: Sir Francis Burdett, Lord Cochrane, Gen. Ronald Craufurd Ferguson, Sir William Geary, William Honywood, Robert Knight, William Alexander Madocks, Hon. William Maule and Richard Philip Scudamore, as well as such future Members as William Heygate, John William Drage Merest, Robert Waithman, William Williams and Thomas Wood, and former Members Walter Ramsden Fawkes and John Bettesworth Trevanion.

Brand had returned to the fray on 8 May 1812 to ask the House’s leave to introduce reform in four stages: the enfranchisement of copyholders in counties, prevention of bribery, shortening the duration of parliaments, and redistribution of seats. The debate was badly attended and the reformers got the worst of it, mustering only 88 votes against 215.

An issue calculated to draw some support from independent Members was the campaign for the rationalization of places, sinecures, perquisites and pensions in the interests of economical reform associated largely with the name of Henry Bankes, himself a prominent independent Member at this time. In 13 surviving opposition divisions on the subject between 1807 and 1812, some 290 Members at one time or another espoused the cause, though 99 of them voted only once and some 17 Members appear to have changed their minds at some stage. Canning and his friends thought fit to add their votes to opposition on two of these occasions (17 May 1810, 4 May 1812). Some 54 Members were sufficiently enthusiastic to vote five or more times for more efficient regulation: 43 of these were listed ‘thick and thin’ by the Whigs in 1810 and a new Member since then, Henry Grey Bennet, may reasonably be added; of the rest, five were Whig ‘hopefuls’ in 1810 (Biddulph, John Ingram Lockhart, Sebright, Henry Thornton and Tremayne), three ‘doubtful’ in 1810 (Henry Bankes, Babington and George Johnstone), one ‘no party’ (Lord Folkestone) and one ‘Sidmouth’ (Charles Adams). By far the most persistent among the supporters of regulation were Whitbread, who apart from being the most assiduous voter with opposition in that Parliament, missed none of the surviving divisions on this subject, and Henry Martin; but George Ponsonby, the opposition leader, George Tierney, Richard Sharp, James Macdonald (who held a place for life), James Abercrombie, Henry Bankes, Babington, Alderman Combe, Creevey, William Lamb, Peter Moore, Sir John Newport and William Smith were also keen. About a sixth of the enthusiasts were Members of Lord Grenville’s connexion, though somewhat embarrassed by the sinecures held by Grenville and his family, and on that account a butt of the Whigs of the ‘Mountain’. Ministerial resistance to the regulation was supported (in four surviving divisions) by some 197 Members, only 44 of whom voted three or four times, and of the latter only a handful did not hold office or place. Parliamentary inquiry had shown in 1808 that there were then 84 Members of the House holding some office of profit with a place in Parliament (of whom just 11 appear to have been inclined to opposition). In debate much was made by opposition of this vested interest in preserving the status quo. Certainly, as divisions on this subject were regularly so low, the number of placemen told against opposition prospects, but did not rule out their succeeding in certain circumstances. Their greatest triumph came on 24 Feb. 1812 when Bankes carried his resolution for the abolition of the paymastership of widows’ pensions, awarded at the Prince Regent’s request to his aide Col. McMahon, by 115 votes to 112. This was the highest count of votes on the question, and opposition had the accession of 16 Members on this occasion who appear in no other minority on the subject, as well as many others who did so very infrequently: government likewise had its count swollen by support from the Prince Regent’s friends and the Duke of Northumberland’s. On 4 May Bankes won a further (temporary) success in carrying his sinecure offices bill against ministers, the Canningites joining forces with him.

The 17 Members who changed their minds or vacillated on the subject were George Bellas Greenough, James Brogden, Augustus Cavendish Bradshaw, John Egerton, Arthur French, Thomas Graham, Eliab Harvey, Henry Arthur Herbert of Kerry, Lethbridge, Leycester, John Ingram Lockhart, Richard Martin of Galway, Myers, Claude Scott, Sheridan, Henry Smith and William Sturges Bourne. Thirteen of these went over to ministers, and three to opposition: John Ingram Lockhart voted so frequently with opposition on the subject that some doubt must be cast on the attribution to him of one vote with ministers on 7 Feb. 1812 sandwiched between hostile votes by him—there were two ministerialist Lockharts in the House as well. But apart from Cavendish Bradshaw and Sheridan, who veered towards the Regent’s line, none of the other ministerial recruits on the question had joined opposition minorities more than once. The influence of Canning may have swayed the three who on one occasion (4 May 1812) joined opposition.

George III lapsed into insanity in the autumn of 1810 and, while Perceval’s ministry at first postponed the crisis by adjournment, a Regency became inevitable. As in 1788, ministers were confronted with an opposition campaign to give the Prince of Wales as little restriction as possible while Regent, which ran counter to their own proposals. Opposition scented a return to power under the Prince Regent’s aegis; government had to be content with a year’s grace. Opposition pressure reached its peak on 1 Jan. 1811 when Lord Gower’s amendment to the fifth resolution for the Regency was carried against ministers by 226 votes to 216. On this occasion the regular opposition were joined by a batch of Members who looked to the rising sun: they included Miles Peter Andrews, Charles John Brandling, James Dawkins, Viscount Jocelyn, John McMahon, George Pocock and Gen. George Porter (whose only vote with opposition during the Parliament this was), Canning and 12 Members attached to him (George Bellas Greenough, Lord Binning, Blachford, Canning of Sligo, Lord William Charles Cavendish Bentinck, Dent, Ellis, Huskisson, Jolliffe, Robert Holt Leigh, Lord Granville Leveson Gower and William Taylor), four nominees of the Duke of Northumberland (Bennet, Brogden, Morris and Earl Percy), Castlereagh and one of his friends, and an assortment of over 25 independent and wavering Members, including those who boasted the Prince’s friendship. On 21 Jan. 1811, however, when Ponsonby contested the household clause of the Regency bill, opposition, who attempted a muster, were defeated by 212 votes to 190: their irregular support was falling away. Neither then nor on the expiry of the Regency restrictions a year later was opposition cabinet-making of any avail. The Regent had come to terms with Perceval’s ministry and the speculation or fear that he might change his ministers became his trump card. Perceval had weathered yet another crisis and the turn of the tide in the allies’ favour in the war against Napoleonic France increased public confidence in him, but when his career was ended by an assassin’s bullet on 14 May 1812 he embodied too much of the courage of the government for his loss not to shatter the ministry.

Lord Liverpool stepped into the breach, only to be rejected by the House on 21 May when Stuart Wortley’s motion for an address to the Regent for a more efficient administration was carried by 174 votes to 170. The failure of Perceval’s administration to repair the damage caused by the rift in the cabinet in 1809 played a crucial role in this débâcle. Perceval had regained Castlereagh and, not long before his assassination, Lord Sidmouth and his friends, but he had never propitiated Canning and he had alienated Lord Wellesley, who had resigned office. Canning and Wellesley now became the focus for an alternative administration: their difference from the government of the day was explicit on two questions—they believed the time had come to grant Catholic relief and they called for a more vigorous support of the allied offensive, particularly in Spain, where Wellesley’s brother Wellington was campaigning successfully on inadequate resources. Although Stuart Wortley’s motion was carried by the support of the Whig opposition, its function was to pave the way for Canning’s return to office. A breakdown of its 174 supporters with the tellers shows 141 opposition regulars plus 12 Canningites and six known Wellesleyites plus the following assortment: Sir John Anstruther, 2nd Bt., Bartholomew Bouverie, John Cotes, John de Ponthieu, Henry Augustus Dillon, Henry Drummond, Lord Forbes, Eliab Harvey, William Jacob, Northey, Pochin, Albany Savile, Sebright, Staniforth, Swann, Trench and Stuart Wortley himself. An analysis of the ministerialist 170 (with the tellers) shows that 127 were in the habit of supporting the ministry. Of the other 45, only five had appeared as Whigs in 1810 and only seven were in the habit of voting with opposition (Charles Adams, Babington, Brogden, Henry Arthur Herbert, Shaw Lefevre, Henry Thornton and Wilberforce). With reference to the Satirist list of 1810, it may be seen that the 172 ministerialists on 21 May 1812, apart from 16 new Members and two omitted by oversight in 1810, consisted of 66 then listed ‘against the oppositio’, 21 listed ‘government’, 32 listed ‘doubtful’, 11 listed ‘hopeful’, nine listed ‘Perceval’, five listed ‘Sidmouth’, four listed ‘Castlereagh’ and one listed ‘Canning’. The five listed opposition in 1810 were Cavendish Bradshaw, Sir Charles Pole, Shaw Lefevre, Nicholas Vansittart and Lord Walpole, three of whom were converts. It is known that some leading ministerialists were accidentally shut out of the division of 21 May.

In the negotiations for a new administration that followed, the Whig leaders Lords Grey and Grenville backed out over the nominations to the Prince’s household, a pretext that received adverse publicity, while Canning and Wellesley failed to win over Liverpool’s cabinet to their programme and were thus unable to proceed: a final bid of the Regent’s to form a coalition under his friend Lord Moira in the first week of June ended in confusion. Lord Liverpool was thus recalled: the experiment had shown that, though he was not a popular choice, his custody of the former ministry would be the least objectionable. He was vulnerable: ministry had to surrender at once on the orders in council, which had been under attack from a mercantile lobby backed by opposition. He still had to reckon with Canning and Wellesley, particularly when Canning carried a motion for Catholic relief on 22 June with surprising ease: but the failure of his negotiations with them rebounded to his credit—he would not sacrifice Castlereagh to Canning for the benefit of the latter’s debating power in the leadership of the House of Commons, and Wellington, the ministry’s military arm, would not sacrifice his successes to his elder brother’s political ambitions. Liverpool relied on a dissolution to strengthen his hand in the House. Had he, like Perceval, taken a stand against Catholic relief, the election would have been a rowdy one: as it was, with members of his own cabinet led by Castlereagh favourable to relief, he preferred neutrality, which disarmed his opponents.

By 1812 Catholic relief, the issue that had been forced underground by the King’s veto in 1801 and again shelved in 1807, had once more come to the surface of debate. Although the Whig opposition under Fox’s leadership had intended to raise the taboo subject in the House following Pitt’s fall from office, it was not until May 1805 that it was introduced, by Henry Grattan, brought into Parliament by Earl Fitzwilliam for the purpose. On that occasion (14 May) the reception of the Irish Catholic petition for relief was defeated by 336 votes to 124, and the Irish Members divided 44 or 46 against and 28 in favour. Several more Irish Members voted in favour of Brand’s motion against the dismissal of the Grenville ministry on their Catholic relief plan, 9 Apr. 1807, than against it. On 25 May 1808 when Grattan again presented an Irish petition for relief, it was defeated by 281 votes to 128. The minority included about 40 Irish Members. When in the previous month the grant to the Catholic college at Maynooth had been debated, the minority of 58 against 93 had included 17 Irish Members, 12 of them county Members, and the majority only seven. On 1 June 1810, when Grattan again presented a petition, it was defeated by 213 votes to 109. The Irish Members divided 32 for the petition and 23 against. On 31 May 1811 when Grattan renewed the petition, it was defeated by 146 votes to 83: the Irish divided 32 in favour of the petition and 14 against. The swing in favour was undeniable, and on 4 Mar. 1812, when Lord Morpeth introduced his motion critical of the Irish administration, ministers found it difficult to separate the question from that of Catholic relief. The minority of 135 against 229 included 28 Irish Members, exclusive of several pairs. On 24 Apr. 1812 Grattan moved for a committee to review Catholic disabilities and mustered 215 votes against 300, an aggregate indicative of the increasing number of Members who took sides. At least 44 Irish Members were in the minority, as were the Canningites. On 22 June 1812 Canning displayed his strength as an advocate of Catholic relief, drawing in his own friends and other old and new supporters of the question, which he carried by 235 votes to 106 (including a dozen Irish Members). It will be observed that this was an aggregate vote of only 341 compared with 515 on 24 Apr.; and Canning was opposed only by convinced opponents of relief when he moved for legislation next session.

The fate of the Catholic bill in the Parliament of 1812 may conveniently be examined here. On 2 Mar. 1813 the House authorized the consideration of the subject by 264 votes to 224, and it gave leave for a bill on 9 Mar. by 186 votes to 119. After the failure of an evasive motion of Sir John Coxe Hippisley’s on 11 May (by 235 to 187), this bill passed its second reading on 13 May by 242 votes to 203. On 24 May, on the Speaker’s amendment, the first clause was defeated in committee by 251 votes to 247, whereupon the bill was given up.

On 25 May 1813 Lord Grey wrote to Lord Holland: ‘The bill ... has been lost by the immediate exertions of Carlton House’; and on 27 May he wrote to Lord Grenville:

Your brother will have told you of the undisguised and indecent canvass made by Carlton House for the late division. The Prince said publicly at his table a day or two before that nobody would vote for the question who did not wish to endanger his title to the crown.

He thought the Prince Regent must be ‘as mad as his father’; and added that the Orange Club were meeting at Lord Yarmouth’s that day under the presidency of the Duke of York to celebrate victory. It was chose entendue between the Whig leaders that the Prince would dish them whenever he could, since he had done so on the expiry of the Regency restrictions the year before; and it was also a commonplace of theirs that the Prince’s inamorata Lady Hertford (Lord Yarmouth’s mother) was as protestant as Nell Gwyn. In short, the defeat of the Catholic bill was seen as the result of a court conspiracy. The exclusion of Lords Grey and Grenville from the Regent’s levee shortly afterwards was its logical conclusion. As early as 13 Jan. 1813 Grey had informed Grenville that he was ‘by no means sanguine’ about success, ‘the knowledge ... of the Prince’s declared oppositio’ being among his reasons.

Sir Robert Heron, another disappointed Whig, whose maiden speech had been in favour of the bill, commented on its fate:

The delay has given time for our opposers to recover from their panic; and, certainly, they have made good use of their time. The Prince has made every possible exertion to defeat the bill, and the most profligate intrigues have been carried on. Many Members, who before supported, have now voted on the other side; but probably the delay could not have been avoided ... The Court determined to try its strength on the first clause.

One Catholic lady, Lady Jerningham, informed another, Lady Bedingfield, after a visit from another disgruntled Whig Member of Parliament:

Henry [Dillon] has just come in, is quite enraged at the loss of the bill, he says all of his party are so, and think it is entirely owing to the Prince having personally canvassed everybody he could think of yesterday morning: that our enemies absolutely huzza’d when they got the majority.

Yet another Member, Richard Wellesley, wrote his condolences to Lord Grenville on 25 May, assuring him ‘that the loss of the question must be entirely attributed to a very unusual and very shameless canvass against it, on the part of the friends of the Prince Regent’. This court canvass had certainly been little in evidence earlier in the month. In fact on 9 May another Whig stalwart, Francis Horner, quoted to Lady Holland the statement of the attorney-general (Sir William Garrow) that he supposed that the supporters of the bill would ‘all fall out in the committee, but that he should leave us to ourselves’. Horner commented that there could be ‘no very eager and determined opinion at Carlton House against the bill, for Garrow is the mere creature of the Regent’. Yet another Whig commentator, William Henry Fremantle, wrote to Lord Grenville on the day of defeat:

The debate on the Catholic bill was not well sustained by us-though it was a great surprise the majority against us. The two Members who changed by order of the Prince of Wales just made the difference—Lord Graves and B[erkeley] Paget and therefore the appointment of the former to a lord of the bedchamber has legislated for 4 millions of the King’s subjects.

The Whig allegations are enshrined in Henry Grattan junior’s life of his father, in which he says the bill was thrown out as follows:

Lord Ormond, one of the lords of the bedchamber, was dissatisfied at not being allowed to nominate to the shrievalty of Kilkenny, a right his family had long exercised, and which was now given to Lord Desart. He accordingly resigned his situation. The Prince gained four Members over, and got Lord Graves to turn the question: and said, that if the bill came to the Lords, he would create six peers to throw it out.

Evidence of a canvass for votes is glimpsed in a letter of George Canning to his ally Lord Wellesley on the eve of the division (24 May 1813):

The Carlton House committee give out that they shall beat us tonight. I have no fears-but the contest will be a close one and we could not afford to spare a man. Their calculation I am told is 291 We, 283 They. Majority for us 8 but 13 doubtful [of] whom they hope to get 13 turning the majority for them by 5. The calculation is quite extravagant (I think) as to amount of Members on either and both sides. 510 is the largest division on record—since the Union as well as before.

Canning’s last statement was not correct. Speaker Abbot whose diary showed, as Lord Holland put it, ‘some talents for detail’, noted that there were 520 Members present upon call on 24 Apr. 1812, when Grattan’s motion for Catholic relief was defeated by 300 to 215, the five not counted being the tellers on either side and himself. ‘Of the 520’, he noted, ‘there were in the House 420 when the division was called and 100 came down from Bellamy’s rooms and also from the Coffee House etc.’ (He could not resist adding, ‘about 60 from Bellamy’s and 20 from the Coffee House’.) He noted that 509 had been present for the question on the Walcheren expedition in 1810, and 510 on the address in 1807, which would be the occasion referred to by Canning. Before the Irish union, which raised the Membership from 558 to 658, the largest division was 508 on the Silesian question in 1741, as was noted by this indefatigable Speaker.

Canning’s letter indicated that the political calculators were undaunted by the size of the House, even on an ostensibly neutral question. This was not novel: seven years before, on a parallel question, the abolition of the slave trade, an attempt had been made to categorize as many Members as possible (Canning, an early lobbyist for abolition, had even copied his successful resolution in favour of Catholic relief in June 1812 from the one that prefaced the abolition of the slave trade six years before). More evidence on forecasting is provided by a letter from Robert Peel, Irish chief secretary, to the viceroy, the Duke of Richmond, on 26 May 1813, in which he wrote of William Holmes, the Sligo brewer’s son who was a born whipper-in:

Holmes was extremely active in managing our friends, and did it without any appearance of being employed by any part of the government. He knew the House perfectly well and the manner in which almost every man in it would vote—indeed I may [say] every man of those who did vote or paired off. We should have had a majority of 40 at least on the report. Several of our friends have arrived since the last division.

In the body of that letter, Peel, doubtless prompted by Holmes, had this to say of the decisive division:

We had in the House at the time of voting 501 persons, 251 against the clause, 247 for it, 2 tellers and the chairman. 19 on each side paired off, 19 persons that were in town did not vote, 31 are serving in the Peninsula and in other places, 19 absent from illness, which will account for 608. It would perhaps not be difficult to account for the remaining 50 Members. Many no doubt are absent from the same cause which prevented those in the list above made out from voting. Many who had voted for the second reading voted with us:—Lord Graves, Paget, Methuen, Needham amongst the numbers—I believe 10 in the whole, which would of course make a difference of 20 in the votes.

Such fine calculations were out of the question when the debate on Catholic relief opened on 25 Feb. 1813, and there was then universal doubt as to the outcome of a division. On the eve of the debate Charles Philip Yorke and Henry Bankes promoted a meeting of Members hostile to Catholic claims at the King’s Arms in Palace Yard. According to the Speaker about 30 met and requested Bankes to take the lead in opposing Grattan’s motion. The choice of Bankes was significant, as he had voted with Canning in June 1812 for relief, though probably not from conviction, for he was indebted to Canning for support in his campaign against sinecures. The Irish secretary commented, 25 Feb. 1813:

It is contrary to all general principles to employ as a leader a deserter from the enemy’s camp, but it is justifiable in this case, I think, as well as politic, and it will greatly encourage all relapsed and relapsing Protestants.

‘Protestant’ Bankes’s friend and ally Wilberforce, leader of the small squad of ‘Saints’ in the House, was in a dilemma. On 5 Feb. 1813 he noted in his diary

I am reading on Catholic emancipation,. and thinking too. I grieve to see so much prejudice. Talking the question over with friends, one, though a most able man, not knowing that dissenters may sit in Parliament. I am very doubtful which way right. Lord, direct me, all the religious people are on the other side, but they are sadly prejudiced. It grieves me to separate from the dean, and all my religious friends, but conscience must be obeyed. God does not direct us to use carnal weapons in his cause.

On 22 Feb. 1813 he wrote to a friend ‘My opinion is far from made up’, but he disliked the talk of protestant Members acting on behalf of Catholic voters when they had ‘little or no real religion themselves’ and posed a rhetorical question that showed he was coming to a decision: ‘Where can be the wisdom of retaining the prison dress, when you have set the men at liberty?’ Since 1 Dec. 1812 petitions had been flooding in to both Houses for and against. The first hostile one to the Lords was from the University of Cambridge, Oxford following suit. Similar petitions came in from the clergy of the various dioceses, from corporations of cathedral cities and a few others, and from the Protestants in many Irish counties, as well as the French Protestants of London. A city of London petition was signed by 60,000. There were over 150 in all. The few hostile English and Welsh county petitions were challenged by the Whigs and in some cases there were counter petitions. Petitions in favour were chiefly from the Irish counties and boroughs, from the Irish and English Catholic bodies, and from various groups of protestant dissenters, themselves in quest of relief; moreover, Charles Butler, a Catholic lawyer, published an address to the Protestants of Great Britain in favour and the Catholic board did likewise.

On 25 Feb. 1813 the debate began in a low key. Grattan, who had entered Westminster in 1805 to move for Catholic relief, had no surprises for the House; he had already been drafting a bill since December 1812, and after the courtesy extended to two maiden speeches, one each way, Bankes opposed the motion, as planned. Then came the speech in favour of relief from an Ulster presbyterian, William Conyngham Plunket, which electrified the House. John William Ward wrote:

This lawyer that the Irish have sent over is a most formidable fellow indeed. Since the great men—the giants of olden times—Pitt, Fox and Windham died, I have hardly heard anything equal to it. Canning, indeed, is his superior in all that is ornamental, in grace, in wit, and in the power of pouring forth beautiful, long and correct periods, but in argumentative dexterity and promptitude, in force, in dignity, and in what, when combined with other merits is itself a merit of the highest order, rapidity, Plunket appears to me the first of living men. Then he has such an air of honesty and earnestness, which convinces you at every sentence that you are listening not only to a consummate speaker, but to a wise and good man. It is indeed a most enviable lot for a man still in health and strength, and not much passed the meridian of life, after having realised a large fortune by the honest exercise of his talents in an honourable and laborious profession, to appear in such an assembly, to plead such a cause in such a way. Then he carries the House completely with him. Even his adversaries praise his moderation. I wish ... [Sir Samuel] Romilly would take a leaf out of his book. He gives us the principe, the whole principe, and nothing but the principe. This frightens country gentlemen unnecessarily, and makes them ready to oppose every proposal originating in him, however just or reasonable in its own nature. He sets about things in a foreign, and (which terrifies the squire) philosophical way. Plunket is all English and parliamentary. Unluckily he has too much to do in his court to stay among us. Reputation is a fine thing, but a man with 14 children can’t give up eight thousand a year for the sake of putting a few more feathers in his cap.

One more comment on Plunket’s role, this time from James Mackintosh:

Plunket’s speech ... has made more impression than any speech since Mr Sheridan’s in 1787 ... It is, I believe, the only speech which is certainly known to have determined the votes of several individuals ... the direct and sole cause for the votes of two Scotchmen A. and F. The last is enthusiastic in his admiration for Mr Plunket, and in his zeal for the Catholics, whose cause seems [sic] in winter likely enough to have been ruined by the coalition of the Court, the parsons, and the mobs, against all men of sense in the country. The majority in the House of Commons in their favour was more influenced by speaking than any other in modern times, and as the Catholics are now a little temperate in their language, we have sanguine hopes of success.

Mackintosh’s claims were somewhat exaggerated. Other speeches in the same period were credited with swaying individual votes, and it must be conceded that a speech on an open question was more likely to do so than a party political plea. But Plunket certainly ignited the debate. The following day there were disturbances in the public gallery, which was filled to excess. There had been eight speakers the first day; there were 12 more, chiefly Irish, and three maiden speakers on the second. When the debate was resumed on 1 Mar. there were 15 more and the further provocation of a speech in favour of relief from William Wellesley Pole, Peel’s predecessor as Irish secretary, which infuriated the Irish government. On 2 Mar. there were nine more speakers (making 44-26 for and 18 against relief—in the four days of debate). Some speakers indicated that their support was conditional; one, Wilbraham Bootle, admitted that he had become hostile to relief since the year before; George Rose had the effrontery to inform the House that Pitt would have opposed the motion had he lived. Both Canning and Castlereagh affirmed their support. Further adjournment was prevented, and the division that ensued favoured relief by 40 votes. There were 493 Members present at 4 a.m.

The debate had undoubtedly favoured the Catholics. On 26 Feb. 1813 Viscount Lowther had informed his father, the Earl of Lonsdale:

I think the House will be near equally divided, each side anticipate a majority of 50. Those who are for considering the question in a committee possess such an advantage in public speaking that the voices of the true Protestants are drowned. I am sanguine enough to believe that we shall be in the majority. 500 Members are expected to divide.

By 1 Mar. Charles Long could inform Lord Lonsdale ‘it is supposed it will be carried for the committee by a small majority’, and next day Lord Grey assured Lord Grenville that the committee would ‘certainly be carried’, adding ‘then our difficulties begin’. One of Lonsdale’s nominees in the House, Robert Ward, had to be prevented at the last minute from voting for relief, when he was informed of Lonsdale’s ‘decided opinion’ against it which he had ‘communicated ... to Mr Long and had sent Henry [his son] to London purposely to vote against the question’. Ward went away rather than vote against relief. ‘I do not believe’, Lowther informed his father on 4 Mar., ‘the Irish Members are at all inclined to make any concessions to the Catholics. They give their vote to please their Irish Catholic constituents, but will go no further.’

The sincerity of Irish Members’ votes was certainly at issue. Chief Secretary Peel gave his views to the Duke of Richmond on 3 Mar. He had expected a majority of 60 in favour, but thought that Canning’s speech had not been effective in gaining votes as expected, and Dr Patrick Duigenan, the pathologically anti- Catholic Irish panjandrum, had not damaged his side’s prospects by speaking. In fact, Bragge Bathurst had been the only ‘Protestant’ who spoke at length, and he spoke late and was not listened to. Another leading Protestant, Sir William Scott, Lord Chancellor Eldon’s brother, spoke early ‘but the House was not very full then’. Peel could not resist concluding ‘I never heard a more convincing speech against going into a committee than that which Lord Castlereagh made for going into it’. He then turned to the conduct of the Irish Members. Since 1801 no section of the House had been so closely vetted as the Irish contingent: their conduct was under constant Castle scrutiny. Peel went on to list 39 who voted for Grattan’s motion and 27 against. His list of 39 includes one Irishman who sat for an English seat, and three who do not appear in published lists, though he may well have been right about them. The list of 27 includes one Irishman sitting for an English seat and another who does not appear in published lists, though Peel seems to have realized this and crossed them out lightly in his letter. ‘Many’, he added, ‘must have paired off.’ The fact was that Irish attendance was always under par in that month because so many Members insisted on attending the Irish assizes. Peel had called for a full attendance in February, but he did not get it, particularly when Grattan’s motion came on two weeks later than originally anticipated-the news detained in Ireland a number of Members who came over after the Easter recess. Even so there were some shocks for Peel. Colthurst, whose defeat of Christopher Hely Hutchinson at Cork had been hailed as a protestant triumph, both spoke and voted for Grattan’s motion.

Mr Hare’s vote surprised me much. Mr Cotter did not vote at all because he was afraid the Catholics would outbid him in the sale of an estate which he particularly wished to purchase. He does not wish to have this known, and very naturally I think.

Charles Powell Leslie of Monaghan was not so shabby: his ‘gratitude’ for favours rendered secured his vote against the motion. Leslie was one of the majority of Irish county Members who at the general election had had to come to terms with the increased registration of Catholic freeholders, a feature that had been combined with more contests in Ireland than in any other part of the United Kingdom. That some Irish Members’ votes on the issue were dictated by fears for their electoral security was a commonplace. Of Gen. Hart it was reported that he would vote for the motion, ‘but he is quite sure it can come to nothing.’ On 2 Mar. Peel reported of Denis Browne of Sligo that he

made a curious confession the other night ... that he should vote and speak perhaps for a committee, but that he should be very sorry if we went into it. By such votes is Ireland to [be] kept in a ferment and agitation while the shop of grievances as Sir William Scott calls the committee, is open, and hopes are to be raised, which those who raise them will be the first to disappoint.

On hearing this, the Duke of Richmond commented, 7 Mar.:

As to D. Browne’s fear he will not much like the fighting part which perhaps this precious committee may give him. Please God if we are obliged to draw the sword the committee gentlemen shall have their full share of it, if I can catch them.

The viceroy was equally scathing about others: ‘that fool Sir Eyre Coote I see has joined the Catholics’. When Coote justified himself by reference to Irish Catholic military assistance in the West Indies, the duke disparaged it: ‘about 3 officers and 100 men. Certainly not more.’ He wrote off Thomas Bernard’s desertion as a grievance about a job. He had to be reassured that the ‘C. Jenkinson’ who was in the majority was not Lord Liverpool’s brother Cecil but his cousin Charles. William Wellesley Pole’s ‘desertion’ was what irked him most, and Peel soon found himself digging in the Irish Office for evidence of Pole’s previous sworn enmity towards the Catholics. It existed, but took a month to find. The fact was that since Perceval’s death, Pole had decided to join forces with his pro-Catholic brother Lord Wellesley, and this did him no harm in the Queen’s County. Lord Sidmouth, the Home secretary, whose clique were opposed to relief, sought to console the viceroy, 5 Mar. 1813:

After the second day’s debate, our friends held a desponding language: but the opposite party were not confident to the very last; and even now they are not in spirits ... In the committee the Speaker will take the field, and I am convinced that henceforth there will be much contention and little progress.

On the other side, however, Francis Horner, normally the most sober of all observers, was decidedly in spirits; he wrote to his friend Hallam, 7 Mar.:

When we recollect the diffident language that we held about the Catholic cause, before the debate came on, the advantages secured by the late vote seem immense. We thought for certain that some ground had been lost since the resolution of the last Parliament, whereas it is now manifest that we were gaining ground all along and that the progress of temperate conviction has been steady and unremitted. What an illustration of the benefits of continued discussion, through Parliament and the press, where the great interests of justice and liberty are the subjects of controversy, and what a pride it is for England to have such a controversy leading slowly but surely to the truth, and to one of the most signal ameliorations of government in favour of civil freedom, during the terror and darkness in which the rest of the world is involved. I look with great anxiety to the committee ... to do good you must give all.

On 9 Mar. Grattan’s resolution that a bill for Catholic relief be brought in was committed to the whole House and carried by 186 votes to 119. By then many of the Irish contingent had gone off to their assizes. Sir John Newport told Charles Williams Wynn that ‘some of the anti-Catholics have gone without pairs and have declared their intention not to give any further opposition till the bill shall be brought in whereas all our friends are paired’. The Irish secretary noted with dismay that Perceval’s kinsman and successor as Member for Northampton, Lord Compton, went away without voting. The House was evidently much thinner. The Speaker, this being a committee in which Henry Wrottesley took the chair, now expressed his opposition to the bill. He had already informed the prime minister two days before that he objected not to the admission of Catholics to the military and legal hierarchy but to Parliament and political office,

because that must either very soon carry with it an admission to all the civil offices in the state, or render a Roman Catholic leader in Parliament a most dangerous enemy to the constitution and the everlasting head of a violent faction.

Wilberforce now spoke in favour of the bill and was, he reported, ‘well received’: ‘But I did not feel at home, and rather lost the thread of my argument’. Dr Duigenan at length fulminated against the bill. Castlereagh and Canning staked their claims to have a say. The only snag was the dissent of Sir John Coxe Hippisley, a veteran supporter of relief, who objected to the means proposed, and promised to place an alternative before the House, a line that was seconded by Lord Desart, an Irish peer. The bill was framed during the Easter recess, and on 27 Apr. Hippisley gave notice of his motion for 11 May. On 30 Apr. Grattan introduced the bill. Canning promised additional clauses. Hippisley called for postponement in favour of his own proposal. Hiley Addington, Sidmouth’s brother, suggested that those who had voted for the committee were not pledged to the principle of the bill. Grattan in reply stated that the House had sanctioned the principle by its resolution. He moved the second reading on 11 May. On that date Hippisley obtained precedence, through prior notice.

Hippisley proposed a select committee of 21 to investigate the Catholic case by reference to the ordinances of their church and their interpretation of their civil rights and duties. This was to be a prelude to ‘concession by restriction and regulation’ to safeguard the protestant constitution; and a preventive to precipitate action where half-a-million of the King’s subjects were concerned, only £5,000 of whom had formally taken the oath of allegiance since 1791. Armed with ‘a trunk of papers’ he denied that he was launching a theological discussion, but he treated the House to a discourse on ecclesiastical history which showed off his knowledge of the Vatican viewpoint. Hippisley’s motion dismayed the eager partisans of the bill. Lord Melgund complained, 11 May:

Hippisley, after having represented the pope for so long in this country, is going to do everything in his power to mar the success of the measure because it is not introduced in the precise manner which suits his taste.

Grattan led the opposition to him, but Canning, whose additional clauses to the bill were intended to soothe all anxiety about Catholic loyalty, dealt the coup de grace. Horner reported that his speech was ‘full of rough jokes against Hippisley that left the House in a roar of laughter against that mountebank for a full hour’. Castlereagh spoke in favour of the bill. This was a great point: fears that the old animosity between him and Canning would be revived were allayed. In fact, the threat that the construction of the bill entrusted to Grattan would be prejudiced by a quest for political credit by the political chieftains supporting it proved largely illusory. Canning approved Grattan’s adjutant Plunket as ‘far the most moderate and the most practical of all his tribe’. Plunket found Castlereagh ‘very reasonable and tractable’ in his demands. So the friends of relief presented a united front. As a further reproach to Hippisley, Canning in his speech quoted Lord Liverpool as saying ‘let the House decide upon the principle, and I won’t be shabby enough to dispute with you the details’; and he accused opponents of the bill of taking shelter behind Hippisley’s motion. This motion was defeated by 235 votes to 187 and Canning’s three clauses were thus secured. It seems that he had been prompted to them by Sir John Newport’s negotiations with the Catholic bishop of Waterford and had secured Wilberforce’s assent to them in advance, so yet another conciliation took place.

Their majority of 48 was comfortable enough for friends of the bill. Horner noted that ‘six of our voters were shut out accidentally’ and claimed ‘there were one or two persons in the division, Scotchmen, whom Abercromby regards as a sign that the Court is giving way: particularly old Ferguson and General Wemyss, who changed last night from their former votes’. Sir Samuel Romilly whose habit of going to bed early and rising in time to vote for late divisions had caused him to arrive too late on 2 Mar. to add his vote to the majority, this time did so. Sydney Smith, the Whig wit, remarked:

I was very much pleased with Canning’s additions to Grattan’s bill; they are very wise, because they give satisfaction to the great mass of fools, of whom the public is composed, and who really believe there is danger in conceding so much to the Catholics.

Thomas Grenville wrote sleepily to his brother Lord Grenville next day:

Canning’s was an admirable speech, though his attack on Hippisley was breaking a fly upon the wheel; but the lead which the admiration of the House gives him must make him the great feature of it. Castlereagh’s speech seems intended to commit himself irrevocably to the general measure; though he has reserved details, and may urge them inconveniently. If he does not absolutely turn tail, the bill will be carried.

John Blackburne, Member for Lancashire and a Sidmouthite, admitted that Canning’s speech was the best he had ever made—‘he carried with him the mass of junior Members who all called out for liberality towards the Catholics’. Opponents of the bill were already looking to the House of Lords to come to their rescue. It does not seem that opponents of the bill were agreed that Hippisley’s motion was one in which they should test their strength. Richard Ryder informed Charles Philip Yorke the day before that Bragge Bathurst was for supporting Hippisley, but he preferred to await the division on the second reading. When that took place, on 13 May, Hippisley was allowed to move for some papers, but if this was a sop to him, it failed: he now promised opposition to the bill. Duigenan opposed the second reading. Charles Grant junior, in a set speech, warned the House that ‘the affections of Ireland’ were at stake and placed the issue in its context in the battle for freedom in Europe. Wilberforce thought Grant’s speech ‘beautiful’ but that he stated his case ‘too elaborately’ (13 May). The House was impatient with Sir Frederick Flood and made him sit down, which led to two hours of Castlereagh, who seems to have been anxious to secure more attention for his reservations about details of the bill. Ponsonby, the Whig leader in the House, set his mind at rest. Hippisley was shouted down; and so, till order was restored, was Ryder, an opponent of the bill, as was the next speaker, Peel. Wilberforce then allowed himself to be swept away by animosity about Hippisley’s conduct. He regretted it afterwards: ‘professing to act from higher principles, I ought to be more affectionate, and gentle, and meek ... but for the weakness of my eyes could shed many tears’. Canning wound up the debate with a compliment to Castlereagh which papered over the cracks. The second reading was carried by 245 votes to 203, a majority of 42. The Duke of Richmond was not pleased. ‘If the present bill passes’, he wrote to a negligent Irish attender, ‘Ireland will be no country for Protestants. I cannot, however, suppose it will pass into a law.’ Nevertheless, on 15 May, the friends of the bill met at Ponsonby’s house, Castlereagh being present, and ‘came to a perfect understanding’.

The committal of the bill pro forma on 17 May went smoothly. There was even time for Hippisley to move for more papers of antiquarian interest. On 19 May Canning’s additional clauses were passed as read, and he promised that they would appear in print the next day. Castlereagh, who had been allowed his say about them, concurred. Plunket gave his blessing to the bill as it now stood and went off to Ireland with the glad tidings. There were but two voices for delay (Lockhart and Ryder). The full bill ‘To provide for the removal of the civil and military disqualifications, under which his Majesty’s Roman Catholic subjects now labour’ was printed next day.

On 24 May the committee of the House considered the bill after a call of the House. James Abercromby taking the chair, the Speaker led the opposition by moving that the first clause—admitting Catholics to Parliament and therefore to political power—be omitted. Whitbread in reply was not cogent, though he made the most of the Speaker’s concession that Catholics were entitled to military promotion, and of Irish support for the bill. He also amused the House by referring to Ryder and Yorke as the Gog and Magog of protestantism. Sir John Nicholl next opposed the clause. He addressed his speech not to the junta of supporters of the bill who had sunk their differences as to its details, nor to the resolute opponents of the bill, but to the undecided, on whose possible anxieties about the future of the protestant religion and monarchy he played. Hippisley had his own line: he supported the clause, but not where it stood in the bill. Nevertheless, he would not negative the clause. Vansittart, chancellor of the Exchequer, the only Sidmouthite who had ever spoken favourably to Catholic claims, opposed the clause; the moment was inopportune. His inconsistency was disguised by a low tone of voice which prevented his speech from being fully reported. Wilberforce missed his chance to speak. There were alarmist speeches against the bill from Bankes (who warned that 100 Irish Catholic MPs would proceed to restore the property taken from the church at the reformation), Yorke, Bragge Bathurst and Manners Sutton. Castlereagh and Canning stood by the bill: ‘contrary to their usual manner, the first was argumentative, and the last animated and decisive’. Shortly before 2 a.m. the House divided, and the clause was lost by 251 votes to 247. Ponsonby announced that without the first clause the bill was not worth having and moved that the chairman leave the chair.

The jaundiced Whig allegations about the Prince Regent’s intervention against the bill at this stage have already been quoted. The only person who actually claimed credit for the defeat of the bill was John Milner, the Catholic bishop, who on the eve of the debate and in defiance of the wishes of laity had circularized MPs that the Catholic hierarchy must deplore it. The Speaker had referred to this in moving his amendment. John William Ward, a Canningite, took a more whimsical view:

On our side Lord Kensington was confined to his room by a violent attack of the gout, and on yours, some stout healthy young Whigs, who never were ill before, fell sick upon this occasion: Lyttelton and Fazakerly, for instance. Then one of your principal grandees, the Duke of Bedford, has continued to reduce his parliamentary interest this session to nothing, by returning to his three seats, a minor, an absentee and a bankrupt: Lord George, who is beyond seas, Lord John who ain’t of age, and Lord William, who can’t show his face for debt.

In other words Ward was inclined to attribute the failure of the bill to a chapter of accidents, rather than the immediate intervention of Carlton House.

The divisions on either side on 2 Mar. were published by the Courier and the Morning Chronicle, and subsequently in Hansard and in a pamphlet printed by Stockdale. The newspaper lists had, as usual, been subsequently amended and, as usual, doubt remains about some votes. No list survives of the division of 9 Mar. Only the Courier produced a list of the division on Hippisley’s motion of 11 May, and that only of the minority in favour of it, which it misleadingly labelled the minority against the second reading. To this list of 187 names it proceeded to add others who had voted against the second reading. The Morning Chronicle published the majority alone in favour of the second reading on 13 May. The division of 24 May on both sides was published in the Morning Chronicle and the Courier, and in Hansard. Although over half the House were clearly steady supporters or steady opponents of Catholic claims, there were at least 60 patterns of voting behaviour. Defining regular supporters of relief as those who voted for it on 2 Mar., 13 May and 24 May, it appears that 185 Members (including 28 Irish Members) did so, giving one of the latter, Denis Bowes Daly, the benefit of a doubt; another 20 voted twice and paired once in favour, seven pairing on the first, four on the second (including one Irish Member) and nine on the third division; also one Member voted once in favour and so paired for the last two divisions, and one Member (James Abercromby) voted twice in favour but was chairman of the committee of the House on 24 May. This gives an aggregate of 207 in favour. Defining regular opponents of relief as those who voted against on 2 Mar., 11 or 13 May and 24 May, it seems that there were 147 (including 23 Irish) as well as ten who voted twice and paired once against relief, one on the first, two on the second and seven on the third occasion, which gives an aggregate of 157 hostile. A total of 364 Members were thus committed zealously one way or the other. There were another 86 Members who voted or paired in favour of relief on one or two of the three occasions in question, and who are not known to have changed their tack. Twenty-two of those voted only on the first; another 22 did not vote on the first, but did so on the last two occasions; 14 voted on the first and third; eight on the last only; six on the first two only; two on the second only. Another three voted once and paired once, including Romilly who was shut out on the first, and, as we know from his diary, voted in the unrecorded division of 9 Mar. Six Members paired twice, and three paired once. As to pairs, of course, our knowledge cannot be complete or entirely reliable.

There were another 107 or 108 Members who voted or paired against relief on one or two occasions and are not known to have changed their tack. Thirty or thirty-one (the doubtful vote is Lord Huntingfield’s) voted on the last occasion only. Twenty-six voted on the first and last divisions; 17 voted on the first only. Eighteen voted either on 11 or 13 May and on 24 May, but not on 2 Mar. Six omitted to vote on the last division and one on the first and last. Another three voted once and paired once; two paired only, on two occasions; and three paired only on the last. Our aggregates now stand at 293 favourable to relief and 264 or 265 hostile; and a little over 100 Members have still to be accounted for. These include the neutrals. Information about them is inadequate; but the Morning Chronicle ventured to list 17 (two of whom are doubtful) and we may reasonably add Cotter, the Irish Member of whom Peel complained. The Morning Chronicle also listed eight Members who, it claimed, were neutral during the debates, though no reason is given or supplied by the Members themselves. One of these (Dowdeswell) may certainly be queried. So at least 23 Members were neutral or became so. As to absentees, the Morning Chronicle listed 13 as ‘absent favourable’ on the first and last divisions, only one being so on the first only, and he died. Otherwise there were 32 Members altogether absent, though two constituencies (Galway and Weymouth) accounted for four of them as petitions against the return had not been decided, and most of this category were officers fighting in the Peninsula or elsewhere. In fact only six seem to have been deliberate absentees, three of them applicants for long leave of absence. At least one Member (Col. Charles Palmer) arrived back from Spain in time to vote on the last division.

There remains the apparently vital category of those Members who changed sides. There were 31, from which the neutral Members previously mentioned have been excluded, but they fall into as many as 17 categories. Three of them seem not to have voted in the last division: Sir John Hippisley, whom we have quoted as saying as much, and Lord Lovaine had voted for on 2 Mar. but against on 11 May and took no further part, while Gen. William Thornton was hostile on 2 Mar. and 11 May, but switched on 13 May. He seems to have been precipitated into some kind of religious crisis, for he subsequently became obsessed with the doctrine of transubstantiation. Three other Members changed their minds only in supporting Hippisley’s motion and were otherwise regular supporters of relief, namely Lord Desart, Robert Abercromby and Ranald Macdonald. Of the remaining 25, one switched to favourable on the second occasion, and remained so (Thomas Maitland); two switched on 24 May after voting against on 2 Mar. (Protheroe of Bristol and Sir Robert Williams of Caernarvonshire, who was torn between his inclinations and his Grenvillite connexions and would apparently have preferred to pair); and one (Ramsbottom of Windsor), after voting for Hippisley’s motion on 11 May, voted for the bill on 24 May. That leaves 21 Members whose change of mind led them to join the hostile majority of 24 May, or rather 19 because two (William Draper Best and Joshua Smith) paired on 24 May after allegedly voting for on 2 Mar. Four (Adm. Fish, Gen. Hart, George Peter Holford and William Eliott Lockhart) had already changed their minds on 11 May; Henry Fawcett changed his mind on 13 May; four more voted against on 24 May after voting for on 2 Mar., and not voting in between; one changed his mind between 13 and 24 May (William Dickinson). Paul Methuen of Wiltshire voted against on 2 Mar., for on 13 May and against on 24 May. James Ferguson voted against on 2 Mar., for on 11 May and against on 24 May. William Brodrick voted against on 2 Mar. and 11 May, for on 13 May, and against on 24 May. Charles Harvey and John William Lubbock voted for on 2 Mar., against on 11 May, for on 13 May and against on 24 May. Finally, Berkeley Paget, Richard Hare (soon to request and obtain a peerage for his father) and Gen. Needham voted for on 2 Mar. and 13 May, but against on 24 May, while Lord Graves paired in favour on 2 Mar., voted in favour on 13 May, but apparently voted against on 24 May. Ludicrously enough he at first did not appear in lists, although we have already met with his name and that of Berkeley Paget in specific complaints of the Prince Regent’s interference. Berkeley Paget’s volte face merits attention, as there are three other pieces of evidence bearing on it. He defended an anti-Catholic petition from his Anglesey constituents on 11 Feb. 1813, or at least would not permit it to be discredited. Secondly, in a letter from Thomas Grenville to Lord Grenville we learn:

Lord Uxbridge [Paget’s brother] has writ to Lauderdale to say that he knew nothing of the vote of any one of his Members, and had not said the smallest syllable to anyone of them on the subject of the Catholic question.

Thirdly, Berkeley Paget’s vote on this occasion had acquired sufficient notoriety for it to be talked of many years later: in 1826 it was still a prickly subject upon which the Duke of Clarence could taunt him. Lord Graves, incidentally, was Paget’s brother-in-law and certainly became a lord of the bedchamber in 1813. On 27 May 1813 the Courier denied the imputation in the Morning Chronicle that he was one of ‘three or four near connections of Lord Uxbridge who voted against the clause’.

If these two men had not been swayed by the Prince Regent, and according to William Henry Fremantle they were the only ones who were, the result on 24 May would presumably have been a tie, with Abercromby as chairman giving his casting vote for the clause. There is no concrete evidence of any of the other 11 Members who switched their votes on 24 May being canvassed by the Prince Regent. One, Sir William Lemon, was an independent Whig who seems to have been impressed by his Cornish constituents’ hostility to Catholic claims. Methuen of Wiltshire was a critic of the Regent’s treatment of the Princess of Wales, who at the time this bill was being debated had never been more popular in public opinion. The others were generally well disposed to administration, but only the three Irishmen were of the type that might be described as returning to the fold.

On a question of intense Irish interest, the contribution to the result of the 100 Irish Members must be noticed. On the whole, 54 of them were pro-Catholics by vote or pair; 31 were anti-Catholic; six were absent; two neutral; one ineligible; and six changed their minds. Of the latter, three (Gen. Hart, Adm. Fish and George Peter Holford, an English carpetbagger) gave an indication of it on 11 May; the other three (Henry Bruen, Richard Hare and Gen. Needham) gave none. What is more to the point, though, is the number of supporters of relief who failed to vote on 24 May; the more so as the 54 out of 100 Irish Members who at any stage supported relief without actually voting against it subsequently, correspond precisely to the percentages of the House as a whole that favoured the Catholics on 2 Mar. and 13 May. Only 40 of the 54 voted on 24 May, and there was only one newcomer among them. The absence of Henry Grattan can only be explained by his having acted as teller: he had spoken in the debate. Robert Latouche disappeared. We know that Plunket had gone to Ireland, anticipating success. Augustine Fitzgerald fell ill and Lord Henry Fitzgerald had been ill since the recess. Castlereagh’s half-brother Charles Stewart had gone abroad. David Latouche, John Meade (Castlereagh’s colleague), Charles Stewart Hawthorne, Viscount Forbes and Francis Aldborough Prittie (Ponsonby the Whig leader’s son-in-law) had not voted since the recess. Perhaps some of them paired: but the degree of absenteeism was disastrous where there was least excuse for it. There was nothing like it on the other side; only three fell off among Irish opponents of relief, and there were two voters to offset this. If desertions on the third reading were not on the Irish scale in the case of the Welsh, supporters were no longer in a clear majority. Lord Kensington fell ill; Walter Wilkins paired this time; Richard Price and Sir Robert Williams exchanged sides and Thomas Wyndham and Sir John Owen fell away on either side: but there were two new anti-Catholic voters, as well as Berkeley Paget’s conversion. The Scottish Members favouring relief remained in the majority, though there were absentees favourable who might have swayed the result. Most of the new voters against the bill on the last division (there were 31) were necessarily English Members. These 31 were not matched on the other side, as there were only eight new friends of the bill; and while six on either side voted on the first two occasions but not on the last, absentees on the last two occasions were greater among supporters of relief, 22 to 17; and among absentees on the second occasion who now returned to the fray, foes of the bill outnumbered friends by 26 to 14. There is no evidence that the 31 new enemies of the bill who turned up on 24 May were mustered recruits: no more than six of them were place holders. Many might fairly be described as backwoodsmen and infrequent attenders generally well disposed to government who had played a waiting game and now saw their chance to put a stop to the proceedings. Peel’s claim that more were available has already been quoted. Nevertheless, the Morning Chronicle in its not altogether reliable analysis of the débâcle, 1 June 1813, concluded:

It appears ... that 318 Members of the present House of Commons have given their decided opinion in favour of the principle of the Catholic claims—that 27 Members have declined resisting those claims—and that, therefore, supposing all the remaining Members to be opposed to them (a supposition for which we know there is no foundation) a majority of the House of Commons remains committed in their favour ... We have only to wish the Morning Post and its admirers joy of what it terms its glorious majority !!!

This is an admission that friends of the bill did not muster. Lord Grenville must have thought so, for he wrote to Lord Grey, 25 May 1813:

I think not a moment should be lost in manifesting a determination to bring the question again before the House of Commons even in this session of Parliament. This is necessary both to stop the foolish triumph of fanaticism in the country, but still more with a view to Ireland. There can be no hopes of averting the utmost extremity of evil there, except by teaching them that we consider their cause not lost, but rely, on the contrary, on the certainty of success, which we may indeed pretty surely reckon upon when such a question is carried by court, church and government, by a majority only of four.

He suggested a fresh bill with a new title at once, but if this alarmed ‘timid friends’ and would be hampered by poor attendance, then Grattan must announce it for next session, otherwise the Catholics ‘will abandon themselves once more to the Democrats’. Grey in his reply (27 May) found his doubts about the prospects of another attempt that year confirmed by George Ponsonby and William Elliot: ‘We could not hope for a good attendance and division even of our friends, under the recent impression produced by the loss of the bill; and some of them indeed are already gone to Ireland.’ Grenville concurred, and doubted if anything could be done in the Lords either, though the Duke of Norfolk managed to carry a bill to exempt Irish Catholic officers serving in England from the penalties against Catholics (53 Geo. 3, c.128).

The failure of the bill did have some of the consequences in Ireland feared by Lord Grenville. Grattan was gloomy:

I fear that all is now over; emancipation will come too late. The Prince will not forgive the Catholics the resolutions they passed [this refers to the resolutions of the Catholic committee of 1812 which lamented that the Regent was under ‘the fatal witchery of an unworthy secret influence’]. The 40 s. freeholders will be struck off. It is a thing that I have long foreseen; something calamitous will occur. The worst of the delay is, that the people will fix on some other question.

He declined the chair at a dinner given on 10 June by the Friends of Religious Liberty, attended by members of both Houses, and including the Regent’s brothers the dukes of Kent and Sussex. The latter spoke and denounced the Orange lodges.

The day after the defeat, the Irish Catholic bishops met and condemned the security clauses, as Dr Milner had done. Owing to mishaps in the past, the promoters of the bill had avoided parleying with the hierarchy and had been encouraged by lay Catholic support, which was zealous enough to snub Milner and procure the Vatican’s temporary endorsement of the bill. Now the rift between Catholic hierarchy and laity became manifest; and the pope’s release from Buonaparte’s custody in March 1814 was to strengthen ultramontane feelings. So 1814 proved an unpropitious year for reintroducing a relief bill in Parliament; and in the next few years, an adamant Catholic hierarchy, a new style of intransigent leadership of the Irish laity by Daniel O’Connell and disunity among its parliamentary friends increased the difficulties of promoting the subject. Not until 1819 did the Catholic relief petition again come near to succeeding in Parliament.

The failure of the bill did nothing to promote more conciliatory attitudes at Dublin castle. The chief secretary, although he had the feeling that ‘the tide in favour of the Catholics had reached its height, and will begin to subside’, informed the viceroy, 26 May 1813:

We must keep a good lookout for there will be ... much triumph amongst those who look for separation. No expense should be spared in procuring information, and if the secret service fund is not sufficient we need have no scruple in looking to other funds.

Subsequently Peel thought (29 May) ‘a strong protestant feeling is making very rapid advances in the country’. Orange lodges were springing up, and Charles Williams Wynn ineffectually attempted in the House to put them down later that session. The Duke of Richmond, who was about to leave Ireland, wrote on 14 July 1813:

We are going on tolerably well here. The Orange lodges which met of course on the 12th were attacked in one or two places at Belfast, the Catholics attacked the house in which two lodges were held. The Orange men were then obliged to defend themselves and have killed two.

George Eden visiting Ireland in September wrote:

[Grattan] talks of bringing on the Catholic bill again but with little hope of success—the greatest difficulties arise from the Scullys, O’Connells and other violent Catholics who have made a party in the country by which their own importance is raised at the expense of everything good. If about a dozen of the most violent men on each side of the question could be sewed up in sacks and thrown into the sea this country would soon lose the first cause of its unhappiness. It is wretched to see every society divided by it and every encouragement given by government to these divisions—and the poor people take the impression from the rich and have the same feeling.

It was also unlikely that the political scene at Westminster would allow of a junta so favourable to Catholic relief for a long time. Lord Grey had remarked of Lord Castlereagh’s concluding speech in favour of the bill (to Lord Holland, 25 May 1813) ‘he seemed to me to take ground for not resigning, expressing the pain which he felt in differing with his colleagues and his cordial agreement with them on all other points’. It appears that the ministerialist dinner of 28 May 1813 omitted the scheduled toast to ‘the Protestant Ascendancy’ only because Castlereagh was present. Soon afterwards he went to the Continent. Canning disbanded his party at the close of the session of 1813, ending his alliance with Lord Wellesley, and a rapprochement with government was only a matter of time. Whatever role the Prince Regent may have played in May, the Speaker, already thanked by the archbishop of Canterbury for his services, was gratified to see him ‘repeatedly nod assent’ to his prorogation speech in the Lords on 22 July, ‘and especially to the passage about the Roman Catholics’. This ran:

But, Sir, these are not the only subjects to which our attention has been called: other momentous changes have been proposed for our consideration. Adhering, however, to those laws by which the Throne, the Parliament, and the Government of this country are made fundamentally Protestant, we have not consented to allow, that those who acknowledge a foreign jurisdiction, should be authorized to administer the powers and jurisdiction of this realm; willing as we are, nevertheless, and willing, as I trust we ever shall be, to allow the largest scope to religious toleration.

Horner remarked of the Speaker’s harangue that it was

more like the panegyrics which the French government pronounces upon itself by the mouth of a senator or tribune, than the propriety and reserve that ought to be adhered to by the president of an assembly really free. That part of it which refers to the Catholic question, considering the numbers of the vote and the circumstances under which it was notoriously procured, is out of all decency.

The Speaker was told as much at the time, and though he easily survived a disapproving motion in the House on 22 Apr. 1814, he was made to feel that he had gone too far: no prorogation speech again ventured on this ground.

An obscure by-product of the failure of the relief bill was Lord Rancliffe’s notice of a motion of 27 May for reform of Parliament ‘founded on the proof of corruption which this night afforded’. Sir Robert Heron commented, ‘Satisfied with the opportunity it gave him of stating his grounds, he probably will not proceed further at a time when there would not be the slightest hope of success to the measure’. Rancliffe did not pursue the promised motion on 11 June. What ground had he? Taking the stances of Members as a whole, the county Members ranged themselves as follows:

	For Relief	Against	Absent	Neutral	Changed
England	30	39	5 (2 favourable)	1	3 (favourable to hostile)
Ireland	37	18	6 (2 favourable)		3 (favourable to hostile)
Scotland	14	10	3		3 (2 favourable to hostile)
Wales	6	3		1 (absent)	2 (one either way)

 

In the aggregate, county Members were favourable by 87 to 70, but with nine gains for the other side and only two by friends of the bill. As for borough and university Members:

	For Relief	Against	Absent or Inactive	Neutral	Changed
England	173	176	23 (6 favourable)	11	28 (only five in favour)
Ireland	17	14	1 (vacant)	2	2 (becoming hostile)
Scotland	6	4	2 (1 favourable)	2	1 (becoming favourable)
Wales	4	4	3 (1 favourable)		1 (becoming hostile)

 

In the aggregate, borough Members were favourable by 200 to 198, but of another 32 changing sides only six were favourable.

If one takes the 33 populous English boroughs (with more than 1,000 voters), the usual result was a compromise: 32 Members were hostile, 28 favourable, three neutral, two absent favourable, and three changed sides (two becoming hostile). Looking at those boroughs which had fewer than 200 electors and may be classified as close, the result was: pro 108, con 102, neutral 11, absent ten; five changed sides (four becoming hostile), which was so nearly equal as to give Lord Rancliffe no grounds for complaint.

As for the political complexion of friends and foes of relief, it would be commonplace but not very helpful to say that most of the friends were Whigs in opposition, and most of the foes ministerialists. The Treasury list of 1813 contains 446 names of persons whose support they counted on, or hoped to get, with doubts about some and some replacements for Members who had vacated their seats soon after the election. Without at present contesting the accuracy of this list suffice it to say that of the 446 names on it, 269 appear only as opponents of Catholic relief (though six of them became neutral), 102 of them appear only as supporters of relief with the exception of three who voted for Hippisley’s motion, 24 did not vote, 19 were abroad, 13 neutral and 19 changed sides (all except one turning hostile). Of the 102 supporters, 23 were Irish Members and ten Scots. The members of the government friendly to relief were Lord Castlereagh (together with his friends), Charles Arbuthnot of the Treasury, Lord Palmerston, John Wilson Croker and Sir George Warrender. Of the new Members of the House after the 1812 election (including those returned at by-elections up to May 1813 and excluding some 50 who were returned after sitting previously), 68 were favourable to relief, 52 hostile, ten changed sides (three in favour), three neutral and 15 inactive (of whom four were reckoned absent favourable). Incidentally, only 45 of these did not appear on the Treasury list. The average age of the regular opponents of relief in 1813 was 46; that of the regular supporters of relief 43. Fifty-nine of the supporters were aged 35 or under, but only 37 of the opponents fell into that category: that is, about a third and two-fifths respectively. So there was something in John Blackburne’s allegation about junior Members being swayed by Canning. Of the 106 diehards who had opposed Canning’s motion of 22 June 1812, 84 remained in the House and all except one absentee and two converts (Lord Dufferin and Sir Robert Williams) remained hostile in 1813, though two or three appear to have wavered momentarily (Lord Compton, Ferguson, Wemyss). Of the 215 Members who on 24 Apr. 1812 supported relief, 54 were no longer in the House in 1813, otherwise, apart from five absent favourable in 1813, and two absent (both Pagets), only three changed their tack: Philip Gell, Sir John Hippisley and Richard Price. Hippisley made his line clear; Gell was hostile throughout in 1813; Price switched his vote on 24 May.

Francis Horner had written prophetically on 20 May 1813 to Lord Holland, regarding the need to combine the Catholic and dissenting causes:

For myself, I would rather, I own, have given the Catholics that farther step, though one ahead of the dissenters, for it seems that we can hardly expect to obtain our object of complete toleration by regular approaches, or by skilful management of parties, but that we must scramble for it and make the most of lucky moments, and take as much for any description of sectaries as the accidents or humour of the day will let us have.

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the friends of Catholic relief had failed to take advantage of an opportunity which would not easily recur.

Of the unsuccessful motions to promote Catholic relief in 1815, 1816 and 1817, it may be noted that 87 Members (including 21 Irish), most of them Whigs, supported all three, and at least another six achieved the same effect by pairing. Another 65 or 66 (17 or 18 of them Irish) voted twice out of the three times for relief, with at least 12 more pairing to the same effect. On the other side, 132 Members (24 of them Irish) appeared in the two surviving hostile majorities of 1816 and 1817, and there were also 18 pairs. It is clear, moreover, that this majority still had a reserve to draw upon: 104 Members and four pairs in 1817 had not voted in 1815 or 1816, compared with only 58 and five pairs on the other side. Changes of mind still occurred, though there was by now little novelty in the debate: about a dozen Members varied their votes.

In the Parliament of 1818 the question was tried on 3 May 1819, and narrowly defeated (243 votes to 241). Only the Irish Members votes appear to have been listed. Ninety-one out of 100 voted. As one paired and two were shut out (all three hostile), only six Irish Members were absent; and the number favourable to relief (57) was a record—though one of these votes (by Viscount Forbes) was in fact disallowed because he came in too late. The Dublin Evening Post (11 May 1819) reported that of 576 Members they could account for (including 20 pairs) there were 14 sure friends of relief absent as against nine sure opponents. The Irish votes in 1819 included 14 new Members favourable, as well as two not in the preceding Parliament, and one ‘convert’ (Bruen). Thirteen new Irish Members were hostile. Four of the six absentees were new Members, and the other two look like tactical abstentions. (Between 1805 and 1817, 79 Irish Members had voted solely in favour of relief, 59 solely against it, and 21 had changed their minds, 11 in favour of it, seven against and three others vacillating.)

To summarize the divisions on the Catholic question between 1805 and 1819:

DIVISIONS ON THE CATHOLIC QUESTION: ALL MEMBERS

		ALL MEMBERS
	For Relief	Against Relief	% for (of those voting)	% for (of whole House)
14 May 1805	124	336	27	18
25 May 1808	128	281	31	19
1 June 1810	109	213	34	16.5
31 May 1811	83	146	37.5	12.6
24 Apr. 1812	215	300	42	32.6
22 June 1812	235	106	69	35.7
2 Mar. 1813	264	224	54.1	40
11 May 1813	235	187	55.6	42.1
13 May 1813	242	203	54.38	36.8
24 May 1813	247	251	49.6	37.7
30 May 1815	147	228	39.2	22.3
21 May 1816	141	172	45	21.4
9 May 1817	221	245	47.4	33.6
3 May 1819	241	243	49.8	36.6

 

DIVISIONS ON THE CATHOLIC QUESTION: IRISH MEMBERS (excluding pairs)

	For Relief	Against Relief	% for (of whole House)	% against (of whole House)	% voting
14 May 1805	28	[46]	22.5	13.7	74
25 May 1808	40	?	31	?	?
1 June 1810	32	23	29	10.8	55
31 May 1811	32	14	38.5	9.5	46
24 Apr. 1812	44	?	20	?	?
22 June 1812	?	12	?	11	?
2 Mar. 1813	[52]	28	19.7	12.5	80
11 May 1813	?	28
13 May 1813	39	?	16	?	?
24 May 1813	39	32	16.2	12.7	71
30 May 1815	36	?	24.5	?	?
21 May 1816	36	29	25.5	16.5	65
9 May 1817 51	[31]	23	12.7	82
3 May 1819	57	34	23.6	?	91

 

brackets indicate doubts about one or two votes.

 

THE ELECTION OF 1812

The following circular was issued to the confidential friends of government by Lord Liverpool, 18 Sept. 1812, from Fife House:

As it may be convenient to you to be apprised as soon as possible of the intention of the Prince Regent’s government to dissolve Parliament, I lose no time in making this communication to you, in confidence.

You will easily understand that circumstances might arise which would render it necessary to defer the intended purpose, even at the last moment; but if the state of affairs should remain unaltered, it has been determined that Parliament shall be dissolved in the course of the last week in this month, or of the first week of October.

Dissolution took place on 29 Sept. 1812. The last days of the old Parliament, which was prorogued on 30 July, had been taken up by Liverpool’s bid to win over Canning and thus strengthen his government. Canning’s friends’ insistence that he should not cede the leadership of the Commons to Castlereagh ruined this negotiation. As the Irish viceroy the Duke of Richmond commented, ‘To Canning it can’t signify one farthing what lead is given him in the House. The superiority of his speaking will put him in his proper place.’ Charles Arbuthnot, patronage secretary, who was particularly anxious to conciliate the two men, wrote to Huskisson, 1 Aug. 1812:

It is calamitous for the country that Canning and Castlereagh cannot act together. There seems on each side so little approximation to cordiality that I am at last bereft of hope; and without pretending to prophecy, I have no other expectation than to see the country cursed with a succession of weak governments.

We may be destroyed, but if we stand, we cannot be strong. The opposition could not, in my judgment, form a government which would satisfy the country; and unless the Prince should change, that party will not enjoy his confidence.

To Canning’s powers I render every tribute. But I do not think that without us, or without the opposition, he could form a government capable of standing, and though he may not have the means of building for himself, he may have power sufficient to assist materially in destroying the work of others.

Canning himself ridiculed in advance the notion of the Prince Regent’s acting as peacemaker: he informed Huskisson, 1 Aug. 1812, that he had roundly assured the Duke of Cumberland that ‘upon C[arlton] House I could have no reliance: not for want of goodwill there (as I believed), but for want of power’. The Regent’s feelers duly failed: on 17 Aug. Arbuthnot reported to Huskisson, ‘the Prince liking an easy life has ceased to mention the subject’.

Canvassing for the next election was by then well under way. On 23 Aug. Sir John Sinclair wrote ‘it is very currently reported that Parliament will be dissolved in October’, and on 25 Aug. Lord Grey informed Lord Fitzwilliam from Howick:

I fear that the reports of a dissolution are very prevalent, and much credited. The victory [in Spain] certainly will operate as an encouragement to it. But here it has produced much less enthusiasm than I should have expected. The real truth is that the present taxation is so heavy that nothing that does not hold out the hope of some relief in that respect will produce any great sensation.

Reports of dissolution had reached Ireland by mid-September, though canvassing had been going on there for some time. The new chief secretary, Robert Peel, sought advice from Arbuthnot at the Treasury:

I should like ... to know in what way the Treasury will act between the holders of boroughs and the candidates for seats in Parliament. I presume you will have nothing whatever to do with the receipt of money, and that you will be very careful even in hinting to a person the mode in which he might secure his return where a pecuniary consideration is to be given for it.

By 21 Sept. George Rose knew that dissolution would take place ‘about the 29th’. Lord Liverpool wrote to Lord Harewood on 21 Sept.:

Will you forgive me now for reminding you that Mr de Ponthieu, the Member for Westbury, votes constantly with opposition, and that it is of the utmost importance upon the present occasion and under the present circumstances that every exertion should be made by our friends to secure the return of persons who may be favourably disposed to the government.

Similar hints to other friends of government followed, and not only the Whigs, but also the Canningites, had to expect to be opposed. One satisfaction Liverpool could not give to veteran friends: a retirement peerage. The Regent had proscribed new creations. Baronetcies, too, had to be pruned. Pocket borough seats were not going down in price: Crespigny, patron of Aldeburgh, asked 10,000 guineas for the two seats and claimed he could get £12,000 from the Whigs for them and 14,000 guineas from the Wellesleys: in the end he seems to have got 6,000 guineas each. With reference to the effect of Curwen’s reform bill, John Wilson Croker commented, 28 Sept. 1812, that it was

not quite the expert nostrum that people supposed. I always thought and shall I believe always think that the effect of such measures of reform as this one was must be to throw the boroughs into the hands of mere adventurers, who will stick at nothing to get in, to the exclusion of those who have any scruples.

Lord Liverpool was anxious for ‘all official persons’ to be elected for places ‘to which no imputation can attach under Curwen’s Act’. At Liverpool, Canning declined any expense and was financed by subscription, as was his rival Brougham, whose Birmingham friends offered to raise a fund with a view to presenting him with a borough if Liverpool failed him.

In Great Britain, at any rate, the election did not involve much controversy over what might be supposed to be the leading issues of the day. A candidate for Yorkshire, Stuart Wortley, informed his supporters that he was resolved ‘to go to Parliament free to follow the dictates of his own judgment, but declining publicly to avow his sentiments, inviting at the same time any personal enquiry as to his politics’. He was accordingly asked

his opinion of a reform of Parliament, of a general peace, of a more extended toleration embracing the Catholics, and of the state of affairs with America and how far this country should concede to obtain an adjustment of differences with that republic. His answers were in substance that he thought a reform of Parliament unnecessary—that the question of peace depended upon circumstances, that he would present any petition for peace but would not pledge himself to support it—that he would vote for inquiry as to the state of Ireland but could not admit of any change that would alter the State maxim of Church and King—and that he hoped America would be disposed to accommodate the subsisting difference with her.

In Berkshire, the radical candidature of Hallett encouraged his Whig competitors to pay lip-service to reform. From Pontefract, the Whig Lord Pollington reported, 30 Sept.: ‘The cry of no popery has been attempted, but I am glad to say has hitherto completely failed.’ Liverpool does not seem to have had to complain of a Whig campaign against his ministry: he was irritated far more by Lord Wellesley’s adherents. He assured the Duke of Wellington that while he would be content to come to terms with Wellesley Pole, it would not be easy to do so with Lord Wellesley, if only because of ‘the violent and scurrilous abuse of the government collectively, and of the members of it individually which the Indians are constantly emitting in the paper devoted to his party’. Charles Arbuthnot commented, 8 Oct.: ‘Some of Canning’s friends will be thrown out, but Lord Wellesley will add to his numbers. This is owing to the influence of Lord Wellington’s name, and it is what I had feared.’

At Ilchester, Sir William Manners returned George Philips of Manchester, ‘a man of great property there in trade’. He commented, ‘Manchester and its 100,000 inhabitants, will thus have a representative by the means of Ilchester and its now only fifty electors, every one a tenant’. He added:

A curious dialogue, I am told, took place at the election between my son and the alderman, who is returning officer of Grantham. ‘Where is your member, Mr Manners?’ ‘In my pocket, Sir, and here he is’, handing the card over to him of his name and address, which I had given him. Mr Smith was immediately elected after much laughing.

Many military officers serving in the Peninsula were returned in absentia. Ministers and opposition ransacked the country for boroughs for their men of talent: ministers had to resort to Irish boroughs and Chief Secretary Peel received funds, though inadequate ones, to secure seats from Irish patrons. Liverpool would dearly have liked to win over the Duke of Norfolk to get his borough seats. The Whigs fared less well: Francis Horner, William Lamb and Tierney failed to find a seat, while Brougham, George Eden, Romilly and Sheridan were defeated. This led to recriminations, it being suggested that party grandees looked after their own connexions at the expense of men of talent. The Duke of Devonshire’s reaction: ‘poor Tierney, Romilly, Sheridan, Wm. Lamb, Brougham! Why don’t we all subscribe to buy boroughs for them, there are plenty to be had.’ Earl Grey the Whig leader was less flippant, particularly when William Lamb sent him a fierce letter on the subject: he wrote to Earl Fitzwilliam, 15 Nov., of his fear that the exclusion of Tierney, Romilly, Brougham, Horner and Lamb would

create a very general impression that the members of our party are not so supported, as their conduct and their talents would entitle them to expect. The general effect of this upon an opposition party, and of the comparison which William Lamb draws of the advantage which attends an adherence to the administration, or even to Wellesley and Canning cannot fail to be most injurious.

On 15 Oct. 1812 Henry Goulburn reported to Peel in Ireland:

The elections here go on favourably enough though there are many drawbacks—the worst is that Sir L. Holmes has given his seats to Ld. Wellesley, and Buller has sold him his—the former on a promise of a peerage, the latter for reasons not known. We stand at present govt. 201, opposition 117.

Charles Arbuthnot had this to write to Peel, 15 Oct.:

We think here that we are going on very well upon the whole. We have unaccountably lost some seats which might have been sure had not the candidates blundered cruelly, but on the other hand we have gained where we had no right to expect success, and Long says that he never remembers a dissolution where the popular elections were so in favour of government.

From Ireland Peel informed the premier soon afterwards that the results in uncontested elections were ‘quite as favourable as we could have expected’: at the time of writing there were 24 ‘good friends’ returned for 34 boroughs.

No contest in 1812 matched that at Liverpool for debate: even so it is a curious comment on the obliquity with which public issues were presented that the pièce de résistance of the election was Brougham’s ‘volley of declamation into the memory of the immortal Pitt’, together with Canning’s reply to it. Canning, whose speeches were rushed into print, wrote on 17 Oct.: ‘I am just come in from my chairing—the splendour and intoxication of which there is no describing to you’. In Yorkshire, where a contest was averted by Stuart Wortley’s withdrawal, Lord Milton (himself an avowed opponent of parliamentary reform) reported, 18 Oct.: ‘the joke is that I am the sole Member for the county of York, and that Lascelles is Member for the borough of Leeds. Indeed I am confident the freeholders never would have chosen him.’ At Oxford, the Whig George Eden’s defeat was primarily a blow to the Duke of Marlborough; Eden wrote to his father on 18 Oct.:

I see a very great wish to ascribe the failure at Oxford to my politics which were, however, known before the proposal of standing was made to me—but I do not think that they had much to do with my ill success. I never was challenged with them by any freeman of Oxford.

John Wilson Croker was not pleased with the election results, so he wrote to Peel, 26 Oct. 1812:

the elections are not, I am informed, as favourable as had been calculated, and, strange to say the object which some folks state as the chief one in the dissolution, viz. the taking the government boroughs out of Canning’s hands, has totally failed in spirit tho’ not in the letter, for he and Lord Wellesley will not have fewer than 40 votes in our House ... Some very odd things have taken place in Cornwall and none of the odd things have been to our advantage; upon the whole, I hear it whispered, that the dissolution will avail us nothing.

Yet on 31 Oct. Croker reported the spirit of the opposition ‘at this moment’ as ‘very low’. Lord Grenville, on the other side, commented, 27 Oct.:

In general I am told we shall not in point of numbers see much difference in this Parliament from the last, but we have lost respectable and valuable friends whose places will not easily be supplied.

Canning is supposed to have gained most and I suppose he confidently expects to see Castlereagh strike to him in the course of the session.

From Shropshire, Liverpool’s half-brother Cecil Jenkinson informed him, 29 Oct., ‘I am very sorry that there was no means of kicking Bennet out of Shrewsbury, except him and Cotes, who very seldom votes against government, I do not believe we have an insecure vote in this county’. Lady Bessborough, au contraire, 29 Oct.:

Ministers have no right to crow as they do—we have lost little in numbers and they have gained nothing—some things have gone crossly—and some places have been lost by the timidity, others by something worse in our friends. Such are Carlisle and Berwick, the latter of which Ossulston might have had almost for going there, and entirely for a small sum of money which I think he must have known those anxious to see Tierney in for Knaresborough would have assisted him in procuring, but he likes to be brought in for his beaux yeux and not even to employ them in looking about for a place.

At Weymouth, where the proprietary interest prevailed after a rowdy contest exacerbated by growing anomalies in the franchise, the mob ‘announced to all the successful candidates that they were one and all to be tumbled over the bridge’. George Eden who had proceeded from Oxford to Roxburghshire to witness his friend Lord Melgund’s success wrote:

A Scotch election appears a little extraordinary to me after an English contest. No music, no cockades, no huzzaing, no hissing, no noise, no mobs. About 147 gentlemen have votes. Gilbert says that he has 78 and his opponent 69 but that five of Gilbert’s might be absent and it is hoped two or three of Don’s. If this calculation be correct the issue is certain but the overturning of a coach or the want of post horses at a single inn may turn the election. [In fact Lord Melgund succeeded by eight votes—66 to 58.]

On 1 Nov. 1812 Liverpool summed up the election results to Robert Peel:

Your report on the state of the elections in Ireland is very satisfactory, and more than meets our most sanguine expectations. We have been very lucky in our popular elections in England. In some of our boroughs we have been disappointed. The result appears to be that the Burdettites lose considerably, the opposition lose in numbers and they lose for the present Romilly, Brougham, Tierney, Horner and William Lamb. Canning loses seven, Lord Wellesley gains nearly as many. We shall gain in England the difference of between thirty and forty.

This was doing well, but Henry Goulburn informed Chief Secretary Peel that better might have been achieved, 14 Nov.:

You have gained honour and I only wish that Arbuthnot had done half as well in England. Entre nous it has been most infamously mismanaged and there have been no candidates found for places the most devoted to our interests, which are consequently now filled by opposition men.

Yet Tierney, for opposition, had complained the month before ‘that neither opposition nor government have been able to find candidates for the places offered to them, and in many towns the electors have been left entirely to themselves to manage their own concerns in their own way’. Hence the likelihood of some ‘strange’ new Members ‘on whom neither ins nor outs can rely’. John Goodwin, a freelance Whig agent, had assured Earl Grey on 1 Nov.:

I know not whether Perry [editor of the Morning Chronicle ] has received instructions not to reply to the ministerialist papers asserting how many we have lost by the dissolution, but of this I am sure, that so far from losing, we have now an increase in the English returns generally, and in regard to the counties our success has been in the highest degree flattering to you, by having driven five ministerial men from the field and elected your particular partisans in four instances viz. Western, Gore Langton, Sir Gilbert Heathcote and Methuen—and Lord Grenville’s nephew Neville ... As for the boroughs, I maintain we had quite the best of it, for though at Bristol Romilly was beaten, yet your lordship will have perceived Mr Protheroe was under the necessity of declaring himself a Whig to save his election ... You were really too delicate in trying to get boroughs or I have no doubt we should have collected several straggling seats.

Goodwin added ‘my calculation on the balance of the returns are [sic] as under’:

Whig returns where Tories sat		Tory returns	Q[uer]y how
Berks	Newcastle-upon-Tyne	St. Albans
Calne	Nottingham	Aldborough	Beverley—Forbes
Chippenham	Poole	Appleby	Bridport—Best
Essex	Retford	Barnstaple	Callington—Rogers
Fowey	Rutlandshire	Castle Rising	Downton— Bouverie
Grantham	Shaftesbury	Cricklade	Lancaster [sic]
Grimsby (2)	Somersetshire	Launceston
Guildford	Southampton	Liverpool
Horsham (2)	Stafford	Maidstone
Hythe	Wilts	Malmesbury
Leominster	Winchester	Pontefract
		Seaford
		Tregony (2)

 

Goodwin was disposed to add Charles Calvert (Southwark) to the list of gains. He wrote:

It may perhaps be advantageous to the party that Brougham is out, for had he carried his election for Liverpool, his vanity would have led him to consider himself head of the opposition and I can tell you that would have lost us many country gentlemen, amongst others Coke and his party who were disgusted with his presuming consequence last session.

Comment on Goodwin’s bare and sanguine analysis is superfluous, but on 24 Dec. 1812 he elaborated on it by informing Grey of an analysis of the whole House he had compiled from which

it appears we have lost three votes on the whole returns ... government have lost 41; if we are allowed to reckon the Wellesley and Canning party as being composed of Members who sit for boroughs which in the last Parliament elected representatives on the government recommendation and who are now equally adverse to ministers as we are; it is very true Canning mustered 8 of his present supporters in the last Parliament, but they [have] been returned to the present from the Tory ranks if we except Rose Ellis and Ward ... who certainly sat for two of our seats on a former occasion.

Goodwin’s list, which has not been found, included Whig ‘doubtfuls’, and 19 ‘neutrals’ who ‘will vote as often for us, as against, or otherwise not attend’.

Four English counties were contested in 1812, compared with 11 in 1807. They were Berkshire, Devon, Essex and Surrey. In each case the defeated candidate had radical support. Samuel Colleton Graves stood no chance in Devon, but in Berkshire where William Hallett opposed two Whigs, in Essex where Montagu Burgoyne opposed a compromise between the other two candidates, and in Surrey where Sir Thomas Turton opposed two ministerialists, there was some excitement. Hallett’s candidature forced the retirement of the veteran Member George Vansittart, and he made much of Richard Neville’s aristocratic and sinecurist connexions, but was no match for him: both of Hallett’s opponents paid lip-service to the cause of parliamentary reform. In Essex, Burgoyne, who had contested the by-election of 1810 for opposition, failed to induce the orthodox Whig, Western, to join forces with him. In Surrey, Turton’s connexion with Southwark radicalism made him the strongest of these four challengers, but he was decisively beaten. Despite radical intervention, the Whigs thus regained a seat for Essex and gained one for Berkshire. Without a contest they gained one for Durham in Lord Darlington’s son, Viscount Barnard, and one for Somerset on the restoration of Gore Langton. Moreover, ministers could no longer count on one of the Members for Devon, Rutland, Shropshire, Staffordshire and Wiltshire, though they gained a sure supporter for Cheshire, Dorset and Yorkshire. The following four counties were now represented by two Whigs: Bedford, Berkshire, Cornwall and Norfolk, while two ministerialists represented Cheshire, Dorset, Hampshire, Huntingdon, Leicester, Monmouth, Nottingham, Oxford, Surrey, Warwick and Westmorland. It cannot be said that the movement, in the wake of the Whig victory in Cambridgeshire in the by-election of 1810, to rouse the yeomanry to political action in the surrounding counties, achieved any success. In Huntingdonshire, George William Leeds, the champion of the independent freeholders’ association, backed down. In Hampshire, William Cobbett harangued the freeholders on the hustings, but a show of hands excluded him. In Middlesex the radicals could not field a candidate.

In the 33 large English boroughs (in which Maldon must now be included following the grant of a new charter in 1810), there were 17 contests, as in 1807. The Whig opposition, who prided themselves on their respectable showing in this kind of borough, were left licking their wounds. At Bristol their champion Romilly was defeated and at Liverpool Brougham and Creevey, while at Canterbury and Oxford they could no longer count on even one voice. At Chester the Grosvenor interest had to be content with one seat, after fighting all-out for both. More radical candidates were beaten off at Berwick, Colchester, Leicester, London, Preston and Southwark. Opposition lost their Member for Hull, and at Coventry ministers gained one without a contest. Ministers lost one at Nottingham, certainly, and could no longer count on one at Beverley, Lancaster and Worcester, but the results generally satisfied them. The most turbulent election was undoubtedly that for Liverpool, where in an all-out contest remarkable for the number and quality of the speeches delivered by the candidates as well as for the number of visiting politicians, Canning, joined with Gen. Gascoyne, kept Brougham and Creevey at bay. Brougham’s successful championship of the revocation of the orders in council a few months before made him a formidable candidate, with Creevey as his passenger. His defeat convinced him that, under the unreformed system, not even a populous constituency like Liverpool could be regarded as representative, still less as free from corruption. Had Brougham stood singly, he might have been returned: elsewhere, too, the Whigs could blame their own mismanagement for defeat. In London, Aldermen Waithman and Wood were rivals for the support of the more radical electors; at Bristol, Romilly’s lack of connexion with local interests damaged him. Roscoe’s candidature at Leicester was without his foreknowledge and he was not present.

In the 32 medium English boroughs there were 16 contests, as in 1807: they produced few changes. Ministers gained one supporter at Maidstone, St. Albans and Sudbury, however, and opposition one at Leominster and Southampton while they lost one to an unknown quantity at Stafford, where Sheridan was rejected. Opposition held on to Hertford and Boston and the ministerialist Lord Exeter to his nominees at Stamford. Lord Stafford ceded a Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, his nominee being defeated, but politically it made little difference; nor did it at Cirencester where Lord Bathurst’s son ousted Joseph Cripps. At Carlisle, opposition could no longer count on one of the Members, Curwen withdrawing under a cloud and letting in Fawcett whose politics were less certain. To compensate for this, opposition snatched a seat at Grantham, where there was a vacuum. At Reading, Shrewsbury, Southampton and Taunton, radical candidates got nowhere. At Pontefract, opposition lost a seat, only to regain it on a vacancy soon afterwards. Weymouth was the scene of an acrimonious contest owing to the vagaries of the franchise. The Johnstone trustees carried the day, but had to secure the election of fresh nominees following the exposure to the House of the irregularities that prevailed at elections. A campaign was started to reform the four-Member borough by means of legislation.

There were only 20 contests in the 138 small English boroughs with fewer than 500 voters (Maldon no longer being counted in this category). Nine of the contests were in those boroughs with more than 200 voters: Abingdon, Arundel, Barnstaple, Bridport, Grimsby, Lewes, Penryn, St. Ives and Shaftesbury. As a result of them, ministers gained supporters at Barnstaple, Bridport and Penryn, and opposition at Grimsby and Shaftesbury, while ministers could no longer count on one of the Members for St. Ives. In the same category, ministers seized Okehampton without a contest, as well as the second seat for Wootton Bassett; while the opposition could no longer count on one of the Members for Ilchester. The 11 contests in the 113 boroughs with fewer than 200 voters were for Aldeburgh, Camelford, Grampound, Haslemere, Helston, Hythe, New Romney, Seaford, Totnes, Tregony and Winchester. (Bath, where a radical intruder was refused a poll, has been excluded.) As a result of four of these contests, in Cornwall, ministerialists seized Camelford from the Duke of Bedford, as well as Tregony, and gained one at Grampound, but were thwarted at Helston where, however, the Duke of Leeds’s intervention became the subject of parliamentary scrutiny and a move to reform the borough. Ministers could also now count on both Members for Aldeburgh, but on neither for Winchester, and the opposition could no longer count on both for Seaford and Wareham. The radical challenge to Lord Lonsdale at Haslemere got nowhere. Without a contest, ministers could now count on additional supporters at Appleby, Chipping Wycombe, Devizes, Hedon, Hindon, Launceston, Malmesbury, Newport (Cornwall), Old Sarum, Plymouth, Poole, Stockbridge and Wallingford; but could no longer count on either Member for Newport, Petersfield or Yarmouth (I.o.W.), or on one Member at Bossiney, Bury St. Edmunds, Callington, Lostwithiel, Newtown and Saltash, while opposition gained supporters at Ashburton, Callington, Chippenham and East Retford, but could no longer be sure of one at Woodstock. There was no change in the university representation.

In Wales only one county was contested (Pembrokeshire), and ministers thereby gained a friend in Sir John Owen. No less than six of the 12 boroughs were contested, but the only change occurred at Denbigh, where a ministerialist once more gained the seat. The contests for Pembrokeshire, Pembroke, Haverfordwest and Carmarthen were linked, Lord Cawdor for the opposition being involved in all of them. In Scotland nine counties (the maximum in this period, also reached in the 1790 election) and five districts of burghs were contested. Lord Melville had died the previous year and his son and heir proved a less adept commander of the ministerial forces: contests were not averted, as in his father’s time, by diplomacy. Ministers failed in Ayrshire and Renfrew and lost Roxburghshire, but won Stirlingshire, without a poll. In the burghs, ministers gained a friend for Linlithgow Burghs without a contest but could no longer count on the new Member for Glasgow Burghs, which were contested.

In Ireland there were nine county contests and nine borough contests. Thanks to the current debate on Catholic relief and the growing Catholic electorate in many counties and (as the freeholder element) in boroughs, the election generated more excitement than it did in Britain. In the counties, where the registered electorates now often exceeded their English counterparts, ministers gained supporters for Carlow, Cork and Galway and, without a contest, for Kerry and Meath, but could no longer count on one Member for Monaghan or Queen’s County. In the boroughs, ministers gained Members for Carrickfergus and Cork in the contests, which otherwise caused no change. Opposition gained a Member for Trinity College, without a contest. The Castle counted on an overall gain of two to six friends, but the viceroy commented: ‘I fear, however, many of the county Members feel obliged to vote for the Catholic claims, tho’ I know several of those who wish heartily against them’.

The overall result of the election of 1812 has been estimated as follows:

SUMMARY OF RESULTS 1812

	Ministers	Opposition	Doubtful	Independent	Neutral
English counties	44	29	4	3	0
English boroughs	249	118	23	15	0
Universities	2	1	0	0	(Speaker)
Welsh counties	5	5	1	1	0
Welsh boroughs	7	4	1	0	0
Scotland	29	9	4	3	0
Ireland	64	30	4	2	0
Total	400	196	37	24	1

 

The ‘doubtful’ category above includes adherents of Canning and Lord Wellesley. Canning’s ‘little Senate’, as he was wont to call it, had been a force in Parliament since 1796: in that Parliament he had about ten Members in his coterie, largely an extension of his Christ Church set at Oxford. In the Parliament of 1802, when Canning proselytized on behalf of Pitt’s restoration, the group rose to 14; in the Parliament of 1806 there were 11, and in that of 1807, 17 in all, though Canning’s controversial departure from office in 1809 damaged his standing with some of them. On the eve of dissolution in 1812, the Treasury credited Canning with 14 followers: George Bellas Greenough, Lord Binning, Barrington Pope Blachford, George Canning his cousin, John Dent, Charles Rose Ellis, William Huskisson, Hylton Jolliffe, Robert Holt Leigh, Lord Granville Leveson Gower, Charles Pochin, Sir Home Popham, William Sturges Bourne and William Taylor. After the election the Treasury reduced the number to 12, including Canning himself. One of them was non-existent (‘J. Cannon’, a mistake for Canning, who thus appears twice) and two were queried. Their listing of the two Cannings, Blachford, Charles Rose Ellis, Huskisson, Jolliffe, Lord Granville Leveson Gower, Robert Holt Leigh and John William Ward (a recruit) is unexceptionable. They query Ralph Benson and Hugh Hammersley. They might have inserted William Courtenay, Edward John Littleton (a Wellesleyite by marriage) and either George Abercrombie Robinson or Lord Kensington, which would have given Canning 12 adherents at least. There were crypto-Canningites, whose number was subject to exaggeration, especially by nervous ministerialists. A list of the House (compiled in 1813) in the St. Paul papers11Northumberland RO, Ewart mss 2BU.C.1/8/9. includes 36 Members as Canningites, though this embraces Wellesley’s contingent. Twelve of these names are not in other lists: Theodore Henry Broadhead, John Fenton Cawthorne, William Courtenay, James Dunlop, Kirkman Finlay, William Horne, William Leader, Benjamin Lester Lester, Edward Protheroe, Robert Rickards, Albany Savile and John Ashley Warre.

Lord Wellesley was credited by the Treasury with five adherents in the Parliament of 1807, namely Sir Henry Conyngham Montgomery, Thomas Myers, Michael George Prendergast, David Vanderheyden (all East Indians) and his brother William Wellesley Pole, who defected from the ministry. After the election, the Treasury credited Lord Wellesley with 12 adherents, five of them queried. William Wellesley Pole, Richard Wellesley and William Long Wellesley were his relatives; Sir Leonard and Richard Worsley Holmes were recruits, important for their borough patronage; Sir Henry Montgomery and Prendergast remained supporters, but Vanderheyden was now queried. Also queried were Gabriel Doveton, Charles Forbes, Charles Marsh and Robert Percy Smith (the latter was also attached to Canning). Lord Wellesley had attempted to secure such borough patrons as Lord Clinton and Sir Edward Buller, while his nephew Long Wellesley, who had married an heiress, tried to secure Crespigny’s seats at Aldeburgh.

Canning’s ‘party’ had long existed as a potential pressure group: he had so manipulated it while Pitt lived. After 1809, however, it was an instrument of his own political prestige: in 1810 he used it to remind Perceval of the threat he could pose to government. When he ensnared the politically inept Lord Wellesley, an uneasy alliance was formed which loomed large in the political manoeuvring after Perceval’s assassination. The Whigs, too, in opposition were tempted by an alliance with Canning, but rejected it. Canning, while he might scheme to take over the government, did not enjoy the confidence of the House. He knew it: in response to an ‘imposing’ list of Canningites and Wellesleyites returned in 1812 sent him by his friend Charles Bagot, he replied, 9 Nov, ‘some of the names appear to me to be of a doubtful character ... I really know very little of the state of my own forces.’ Lord Liverpool failed to win him over either before or after the election of 1812. Canning, whose wish was to ‘stand upon the isthmus between the two parties’ and force ministry ‘to capitulation’, saw that his adherents were now shackling him by their growing partisanship—an ironic toast of his to the ministry, after the election, was reported as having lost him two supporters at once. He wriggled out of ‘party’ by disbanding the group and ending the alliance with Wellesley in July 1813. The failure of the Catholic relief bill, support for which had been the most obvious bond between the Canningites and Wellesleyites, had been closely followed by an issue on which the two coteries were clearly at loggerheads, the religious conversion of India, which most East India veterans opposed while Canning was in favour. His dissolution of the alliance paved the way for his eventual return to office under Liverpool.

The Treasury analyzed the results of the general election of 1812 as follows (their figures for the previous Parliament appear in brackets):

	Pro	Contra	Hopeful	Doubtful
England	310 (288)	180 (204)	10 (8)	13 (13)
Scotland	35 (31)	9 (12)	0 (2)	1 (0)
Ireland	62 (59)	35 (40)	1 (0)	2 (1)
Total	407 (378)	224 (256)	11 (10)	16 (14)

 

Adding two-thirds of the hopefuls and one-third of the doubtfuls to the total, they arrived at 419 pro and 239 contra, a majority of 180 compared with 120 in the previous Parliament.

A tantalizing glimpse of a detailed comprehensive survey made by the Treasury immediately after the election of 1812 is provided in a letter from that veteran analyst George Rose, presumably addressed to Charles Arbuthnot, surviving in the Treasury papers.12T.64/261. It was written from Cuffnells on 8 Nov. 1812:

I send back to you by return of post the canvass of the last and present Parliament, as you may wish to have it without delay. I accompany it with such observations as occur to me in a very hasty perusal, which will probably be of very little use.

According to my examination of names, you have in the English list 23 more friends in this than in the last, but then 7 of them are converts and therefore not to be credited for the dissolution which reduces the gain to 16. If then you deduct from that all the doubtful, 10 in number, and half the hopeful, 2, you gain only 4 in England, and that was the way we used to make up our general account. Am I under a mistake about numbers? According to my conjecture, however, 3 may be taken from the doubtful column and one from the hostile column, as stated in the other paper. Pray show these to Lord Liverpool and then return the notes of names etc. to me, copying anything from them you please.

An enclosure, not in Rose’s hand, questions the Treasury analysis in some 28 instances.

What has been termed the ‘Treasury list’ drawn up after the general election of 1812 consists of a printed alphabetical booklet listing Members returned in 1812, with their constituencies and town addresses, if known, and deletions and insertions covering changes of Membership as late as December 1813 (George Allan is included). Against 384 printed names a short dash has been inserted, and these are clearly intended to be friends of Lord Liverpool’s administration (though the Treasury analysis of the returns gave them 407 friends). There is no distinguishing mark for opposition, but 11 other Members are marked ‘h’ (evidently ‘hopeful’, the same number as in the Treasury analysis of the returns), namely Babington, Edmund Pollexfen Bastard, James Wandesford Butler, Sir Eyre Coote, Dunlop, Fawcett, George Johnstone, Charles Palmer, Richard Price, Abraham Robarts and Thomas Wilson; and 18 others are marked ‘d’ (evidently ‘doubtful’, of whom there were 16 in the Treasury analysis of the returns), namely Henry Bankes, John Pollexfen Bastard, William Beckford, Richard Thomas Dawson, Frederick Douglas, Doveton, Flood, Hammersley, Sir Leonard and Richard Worsley Holmes, William Horne, Thomas Johnes, Edward John Littleton, Methuen, Noel, Sir John Leman Rogers, Stuart Wortley and Henry Thornton. Another nine Members (Thomas Bernard, Joseph Birch, Isaac Gascoyne, Benjamin Gaskell, Leslie, George Abercrombie Robinson, Shaw Lefevre, Warre and Sir Geoffrey Vassall Webster) are marked with a cross, the significance of which is not apparent. Sixteen supporters have ‘abroad’ written against their names viz. Lord William Cavendish Bentinck, the two Clintons, Galbraith Lowry Cole, Sir Henry Fane, Sir Rowland Hill, Henry Cecil Lowther, Lord Charles Somerset Manners, Sir John Murray, Sir Charles and Sir Edward Paget, Sir William Henry Pringle, Lord Robert Edward Henry Somerset, Charles William Stewart, James Henry Keith Stewart and Edward Stopford (as well as Kerrison, who came in on a vacancy): nearly all of these were militarily engaged. Seventeen Members were deleted: they died in five cases, vacated in ten (one Member vacating two seats in turn) and one election was voided. Why Adm. Duckworth was deleted is not certain, as he stood for re-election in February 1813 and was again returned. The names of 25 new Members were inserted, either covered by deletions, or replacing Members not listed as supporters after the election, or electing to sit for other seats.

Some 22 Members on the Treasury list were for one reason or another ineffectual supporters, and in the case of most of these evidence survives only as to their attitude to Catholic relief: they were George Abercromby, Peter William Baker, John Pollexfen Bastard, William Beckford, Sir George Bowyer, William Brownlow, one of the Bullers, Henry and William Henry Clinton, Lord Desart, John Fownes Luttrell, Charles Stewart Hawthorne, Charles Hope, Lord Huntingfield, Sir