The offers of the rival purchasers were liberal enough.

One (General Smith) proposed to buy the entire club in the lump for L3000, adding a promise to build 600 tons of shipping in the town.

A second (a Mr.Rumbold) was willing to give every freeman L35; and his offer was accepted by the committee, who, however, cautioned him that no freeman was entitled to the money who was not a member of the Christian Club.

He willingly agreed to this limitation of his expenditure, and both he and the club regarded the matter as settled.

He paid every freeman who belonged to the club his stipulated bribe, and on the polling day they tendered eighty-seven votes in his favor, the entire constituency being something under one hundred and fifty.