Sale of Seats in Parliament
The smaller boroughs having been from the earliest period under the command of neighbouring peers and gentlemen, or sometimes of the Crown, were first observed to be attempted by rich capitalists in the general elections of 1747 and 1755: though the prevalence of bribery in a less degree is attested by the statute-book, and the journals of Parliament from the Revolution, it seemed not to have broken the flood-gates till the end of the reign of George II., or rather perhaps the first part of the next. The sale at least of seats in Parliament, like any other transferable property, is never mentioned in any book that the writer remembers to have seen of an earlier date than 1760. The country gentlemen had long endeavoured to protect their ascendancy by excluding the rest of the community from Parliament. This was the principle of the Bill, which, after being repeatedly attempted, passed into a law during the long administration of Anne, requiring every member of the Commons, except those for the Universities, to possess, as a qualification for his seat, a landed estate, above all incumbrance, of 300l. a-year. The law was, however, notoriously evaded; and was abolished in 1858, by the Act 21 Vict. cap. 26.