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pay the mayor the compliment of electing Sir William Ashurst, his nominee, to be one of the sheriffs, whilst choosing Richard Levett to be the other. There was another candidate in the person of William Gore. A poll was demanded and allowed, the result of which was declared on the 2nd July, when it appeared that Ashurst had polled 3,631 votes, Levett 2,252 and Gore 1,774. A keen contest again took place between Sir Peter Rich and Leonard Robinson for the office of chamberlain, in which the latter came off victorious.(1740) (M878) (M879) In the spring of the next year (5 April, 1692) the Court of Aldermen had before them a Bill, the object of which was to settle the election and confirmation of sheriffs for the future. After due deliberation amongst themselves, and after consulting the attorney-general upon its provisions, the Bill was recommended to the Common Council to be passed as an Act of that court.(1741) Of the particulars of the Bill we are not informed. It was laid for the first time before the Common Council on the 6th May, when it was referred to a committee. On the 26th ult. it was read the first time and on the 31st a second time, but upon the question being put whether the Bill should be then read a third time it passed in the negative,(1742) and nothing more is heard of it. (M880) A Bill for regulating the election of members of the Common Council itself met with better success. Of late years divers inhabitants of the city who were not freemen (and among them the doctors and other gentlemen of Doctors' Commons) had been in the habit of exercising the franchise at wardmotes, to the prejudice of freemen, to whom alone belonged the right of voting. Many complaints having been made to the Common Council of the rights of freemen having been thus infringed,(1743) an Act was at length passed (26 Oct., 1692) declaring that the nomination of aldermen and the election of common councilmen for the several wards of the city appertained only to freemen, being householders in the city, and paying scot and bearing lot, a list of whom was thenceforth to be prepared and kept by the beadle of each ward, as well as a separate list of the other householders. A copy of the Act was to be appended to all precepts for wardmotes, and the provisions of the Act were to be publicly read to the assembled electors.(1744) At the next election of a Common Council, which took place in December, the Whigs, we are told, were, after
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