In the course of the night which followed the nomination, broadsides filled with invectives against the two courtly upstarts who had raised themselves by knavery from poverty and obscurity to opulence and power were scattered all over the capital. The Bishop of London canvassed openly against the government; for the interference of peers in elections had not yet been declared by the Commons to be a breach of privilege. But all was vain. Clarges was at the bottom of the poll without hope of rising. He withdrew; and Montague was carried on the shoulders of an immense multitude from Westminster Abbey to his office at Whitehall.622The same feeling exhibited itself in many other places. The freeholders of Cumberland instructed their representatives to support the King, and to vote whatever supplies might be necessary for the purpose of carrying on the war with vigour; and this example was followed by several counties and towns.623Russell did not arrive in England till after the writs had gone out. But he had only to choose for what place he would sit. His popularity was immense; for his villanies were secret, and his public services were universally known. He had won the battle of La Hogue. He had commanded two years in the Mediterranean. He had there shut up the French fleets in the harbour of Toulon, and had stopped and turned back the French armies in Catalonia. He had taken many vessels, and among them two ships of the line; and he had not, during his long absence in a remote sea, lost a single vessel either by war or by weather. He had made the red cross of Saint George an object of terror to all the princes and commonwealths of Italy. The effect of his successes was that embassies were on their way from Florence, Genoa and Venice, with tardy congratulations to William on his accession. Russell's merits, artfully magnified by the Whigs, made such an impression that he was returned to Parliament not only by Portsmouth where his official situation gave him great influence, and by Cambridgeshire where his private property was considerable, but also by Middlesex. This last distinction, indeed, he owed chiefly to the name which he bore. Before his arrival in England it had been generally thought that two Tories would be returned for the metropolitan county. Somers and Shrewsbury were of opinion that the only way to avert such a misfortune was to conjure with the name of the most virtuous of all the martyrs of English liberty.
They entreated Lady Russell to suffer her eldest son, a boy of fifteen, who was about to commence his studies at Cambridge, to be put in nomination. He must, they said, drop, for one day, his new title of Marquess of Tavistock, and call himself Lord Russell. There will be no expense. There will be no contest.
Thousands of gentlemen on horseback will escort him to the hustings; nobody will dare to stand against him; and he will not only come in himself, but bring in another Whig. The widowed mother, in a letter written with all the excellent sense and feeling which distinguished her, refused to sacrifice her son to her party. His education, she said, would be interrupted; his head would be turned; his triumph would be his undoing. Just at this conjuncture the Admiral arrived. He made his appearance before the freeholders of Middlesex assembled on the top of Hampstead Hill, and was returned without opposition.624Meanwhile several noted malecontents received marks of public disapprobation. John Knight, the most factious and insolent of those Jacobites who had dishonestly sworn fealty to King William in order to qualify themselves to sit in Parliament, ceased to represent the great city of Bristol. Exeter, the capital of the west, was violently agitated. It had been long supposed that the ability, the eloquence, the experience, the ample fortune, the noble descent of Seymour would make it impossible to unseat him.
But his moral character, which had never stood very high, had, during the last three or four years, been constantly sinking. He had been virulent in opposition till he had got a place. While he had a place he had defended the most unpopular acts of the government. As soon as he was out of place, he had again been virulent in opposition.
His saltpetre contract had left a deep stain on his personal honour. Two candidates were therefore brought forward against him; and a contest, the longest and fiercest of that age, fixed the attention of the whole kingdom, and was watched with interest even by foreign governments. The poll was open five weeks. The expense on both sides was enormous. The freemen of Exeter, who, while the election lasted, fared sumptuously every day, were by no means impatient for the termination of their luxurious carnival. They ate and drank heartily; they turned out every evening with good cudgels to fight for Mother Church or for King William; but the votes came in very slowly. It was not till the eve of the meeting of Parliament that the return was made.
