any inquiry as to their capacity, or fitness for that situation. In fact, the only indispensable requisite is, an ability and disposition to say yea and nay according to the mandate of the minister. At present, the whole patronage of government, in this place, is in the hands of Mr. Milward, who disposes of the various places as he imagines will be most conducive to the common interest of himself and the treasury. Since Mr. Crewe's Bill, it has been necessary to keep up a certain number of freemen (just enough to go through the farce, and to perform the various ceremonies of an election) who do not ostensibly hold any place or post under government.
These, however, do not go unprovided for ; they are, as of course, quartered on such of their brother-freemen as are in possession of the more lucrative situations ; others, rather than lose their franchises by the operation of that bill, have given up their places to their sons, and other near relations ; by which measure the freeman preserves his vote and the treasury its influence. Whatever personal interest Mr. Milward may have at this place, apart from, and independent of, the treasury, is obtained and preserved by lending small sums of money on bond to the more indigent freemen ; which obligations are never meant to be enforced, so long as they are, as electors, in a state of passive obedience and non-resistance ; but if, at any time, they should venture to give the smallest indication of an inclination to an independence of opinion and sentiment, a payment of their debts is required, and a prison the certain consequence of the smallest delay.
"In a contested election, between Colonel Beaumont and Mr. Grey, in 1689, the number of voters polled was 67 ; in 1698, between Mr. Austen and Mr. Gott, 70. In 1690 a petition of Robert Munns, Esq., was delivered to the house of commons, shewing, that the petitioner was duly elected one of the barons of this port, and ought to have been returned ; but John Beaumont, Esq., Governor of Dover Castle, who pretended to have a power over the several cinque-ports, wrote several mandatory letters to the mayors and returning-officers of the cinque-ports, requiring them not to engage their votes for any particular person, for that his majesty would recommend to them such persons as he should think convenient for them to choose ; and, by several menances[a] and threats, procured a majority of the electors to vote for him to serve in parliament for the port of Hastings, and prevailed on the mayor to return him, though not legally elected, to the prejudice of the petitioner ; which petition was referred to a committee to report upon, etc.
" We make no comment on the above, but leave the reader to form his judgment of the purity of this borough from a naked statement of facts, and we will venture to assert, since the time of this petition, that it is in no way amended ; but this by way of sample. From the evidence on the trial of the mandamus, brought by H. Moore, against the mayor and jurats of this town, it appears, -
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