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HISTORY OP ENGLAND.

cftap. opposed the financial and commercial policy of the firstYtfitsi Lord of the Treasury. While Montague suffered themortification of finding that his empire over the city wasless absolute than he had imagined, Wharton, notwith-standing his acknowledged preeminence in the art ofelectioneering, underwent a succession of defeats in bo-roughs and counties for which he had expected to name themembers. He failed at Brackley, at Malmesbury and atCockermouth. He was unable to maintain possession evenof his own strongholds, Wycombe and Aylesbury. He wasbeaten in Oxfordshire. The freeholders of Buckingham-shire , who had been true to him during many years, andwho in 1G85, when the Whig party was in the lowest stateof depression, had, in spite of fraud and tyranny, not onlyplaced him at the head of the poll but put their secondvotes at his disposal, now rejected one of his candidates,and could hardly be induced to return the other, his ownbrother, by a very small majority.

The elections for Exeter appear to have been in thatage observed by the nation with peculiar interest. ForExeter was not only one of the largest and most thrivingcities in the Kingdom, but was also the capital of the Westof England, and was much frequented by the gentry ofseveral counties. The franchise was popular. Party spiritran high; and the contests were among the fiercest and thelongest of which there is any record in our history. Sey-mour had represented Exeter in the Parliament of James,and in the two first Parliaments of William. In 1G95,