DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

( 6 ) Even the representation of large towns had be- come a mere name. Some were the private boroughs of the King; others obediently returned candidates whom Ministers selected ; others again were pocket- boroughs in the hands of jobbers. One, the Duke of Newcastle, at one time returned one third of all the borough Members in the House. Whatever independent right of suffrage was left in the boroughs was counteracted by this system of corruption, which made the expense of a contest so great, as to place it beyond the reach of an ordinary fortune. Even in the counties the franchise was ridicu- lously limited and unequal. Out of a population of about eight millions only 160,000 were possessed of the right of voting ; nor could the House of Com- mons be considered at all representative of the people at large. Shortly after the accession of George III. it was shown that about one half of its Members repre- sented less than twelve thousand electors ; while as many as fifty-six Members represented only seven hundred electors. Of those fifty-six, not one had a constituency of more than thirty-eight voters, and six of them had not more than three voters. Great towns like Manchester and Birmingham were still totally unrepresented, and there were Mem- bers who sat for boroughs, like Old Sarum, that had actually disappeared from the face of the earth.