rmies and with the animosity
to Crown grants. For a brigade of Dutch troops was part of the military
establishment which was still kept up; and it was to Dutch favourites
that William had been most liberal of the royal domains.

The elections, however, began auspiciously for the government. The first
great contest was in Westminster. It must be remembered that Westminster
was then by far the greatest city in the island, except only the
neighbouring city of London, and contained more than three times as
large a population as Bristol or Norwich, which came next in size. The
right of voting at Westminster was in the householders paying scot and
lot; and the householders paying scot and lot were many thousands. It
is also to be observed that their political education was much further
advanced than that of the great majority of the electors of the kingdom.
A burgess in a country town, or a forty shilling freeholder in an
agricultural district, then knew little about public affairs except
what he could learn from reading the Postman at the alehouse, and from
hearing, on the 30th of January, the 29th of May or the 5th of November,
a sermon in which questions of state were discussed with more zeal than
sense. But the citizen of Westminster passed his days in the vicinity of
the palace, of the public offices, of the houses of parliament, of the
courts of law. He was familiar with the faces and voices of ministers,
senators and judges. In anxious times he walked in the great Hall to
pick up news. When there was an important trial, he looked into the
Court of King's Bench, and heard Cowper and Harcourt contending, and
Holt moderating between them. When there was an interesting debate, in
the House of Commons, he could at least squeeze himself into the lobby
or the Court of Requests, and hear who had spoken, and how and what were
the numbers on the division. He lived in a region of coffeehouses, of
booksellers' shops, of clubs, of pamphlets, of newspapers, of theatres
where poignant allusions to the most exciting questions of the day
perpetually called forth applause and hisses, of pulpits where the
doctrines of the High Churchman, of the Low Churchman, of the Nonjuror,
of the Nonconformist, were explained and defended every Sunday by the
most eloquent and learned divines of every persuasion. At that time,
therefore, the metropolitan electors were, as a class, decidedly
superior in intelligence and knowledge to the provincial electo