The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 324: DISFRANCHISEMENT OF CRICKLADE, ETC.

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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

DISFRANCHISEMENT OF CRICKLADE, ETC.

A few days after the success of Wilkes an act was passed, by large majorities in both houses, for disfranchising many corrupt voters of the borough of Cricklade, and extending the right of suffrage to the freeholders of the hundred. This bill was strenuously opposed in the upper house by Lords Thurlow, Mansfield, and Loughborough. In the course of the debate the Duke of Richmond accused the lord-chancellor Thurlow, not without justice, of opposing every reform; and Lord Fortescue attacked the law lords in general, declaring that the dignity of the house was lowered and tarnished by their presence. All the above bills originated with the Rockingham party. Soon after, Lord Shelburne introduced a bill of his own, for compelling persons holding patent places in the colonies and foreign possessions to reside, and do something for their money, which was adopted.