of Little Britain, were hard
at work. Handbills for and against every candidate were sent to every
voter. The popular slogans on both sides were indefatigably repeated.
Presbyterian, Papist, Tool of Holland, Pensioner of France, were the
appellations interchanged between the contending factions. The Whig
cry was that the Tory members of the last two Parliaments had, from a
malignant desire to mortify the King, left the kingdom exposed to danger
and insult, had unconstitutionally encroached both on the legislature
and on the judicial functions of the House of Lords, had turned the
House of Commons into a new Star Chamber, had used as instruments of
capricious tyranny those privileges which ought never to be employed but
in defence of freedom, had persecuted, without regard to law, to natural
justice, or to decorum, the great Commander who had saved the state
at La Hogue, the great Financier who had restored the currency and
reestablished public credit, the great judge whom all persons not
blinded by prejudice acknowledged to be, in virtue, in prudence,
in learning and eloquence, the first of living English jurists and
statesmen. The Tories answered that they had been only too moderate,
only too merciful; that they had used the Speaker's warrant and the
power of tacking only too sparingly; and that, if they ever again had
a majority, the three Whig leaders who now imagined themselves secure
should be impeached, not for high misdemeanours, but for high treason.
It soon appeared that these threats were not likely to be very speedily
executed. Four Whig and four Tory candidates contested the City of
London. The show of hands was for the Whigs. A poll was demanded; and
the Whigs polled nearly two votes to one. Sir John Levison Gower,
who was supposed to have ingratiated himself with the whole body of
shopkeepers by some parts of his parliamentary conduct, was put up for
Westminster on the Tory interest; and the electors were reminded by
puffs in the newspapers of the services which he had rendered to
trade. But the dread of the French King, the Pope, and the Pretender,
prevailed; and Sir John was at the bottom of the poll. Southwark not
only returned Whigs, but gave them instructions of the most Whiggish
character.

In the country, parties were more nearly balanced than in the capital.
Yet the news from every quarter was that the Whigs had recovered part
at least of the ground which they had lost. Wharton had regained his
as