wer
were scattered all over the capital. The Bishop of London canvassed
openly against the government; for the interference of peers in
elections had not yet been declared by the Commons to be a breach of
privilege. But all was vain. Clarges was at the bottom of the poll
without hope of rising. He withdrew; and Montague was carried on the
shoulders of an immense multitude from Westminster Abbey to his office
at Whitehall. [622]

The same feeling exhibited itself in many other places. The freeholders
of Cumberland instructed their representatives to support the King, and
to vote whatever supplies might be necessary for the purpose of carrying
on the war with vigour; and this example was followed by several
counties and towns. [623] Russell did not arrive in England till after
the writs had gone out. But he had only to choose for what place he
would sit. His popularity was immense; for his villanies were secret,
and his public services were universally known. He had won the battle of
La Hogue. He had commanded two years in the Mediterranean. He had there
shut up the French fleets in the harbour of Toulon, and had stopped and
turned back the French armies in Catalonia. He had taken many vessels,
and among them two ships of the line; and he had not, during his long
absence in a remote sea, lost a single vessel either by war or by
weather. He had made the red cross of Saint George an object of terror
to all the princes and commonwealths of Italy. The effect of his
successes was that embassies were on their way from Florence, Genoa
and Venice, with tardy congratulations to William on his accession.
Russell's merits, artfully magnified by the Whigs, made such an
impression that he was returned to Parliament not only by Portsmouth
where his official situation gave him great influence, and by
Cambridgeshire where his private property was considerable, but also by
Middlesex. This last distinction, indeed, he owed chiefly to the name
which he bore. Before his arrival in England it had been generally
thought that two Tories would be returned for the metropolitan county.
Somers and Shrewsbury were of opinion that the only way to avert such a
misfortune was to conjure with the name of the most virtuous of all the
martyrs of English liberty. They entreated Lady Russell to suffer her
eldest son, a boy of fifteen, who was about to commence his studies at
Cambridge, to be put in nomination. He must, they said, drop, for one
day, his new