But the case of the bribed freemen and of the borough generally was too gross to be screened by any party.

All agreed that the borough must be regarded as incurably corrupt, and deserving of heavy punishment.

The Attorney-general was ordered to prosecute the five members of the managing committee for "an illegal and corrupt conspiracy;" and a bill was brought in to disfranchise and declare forever incapable of voting at any election eighty-one freemen who had been proved to have received bribes, and to punish the borough itself, by extending the right of voting at future elections to all the freeholders in the rape of Bramber, the district of Sussex in which New Shoreham lies, an arrangement which reduced the borough itself to comparative insignificance.

Mr.Fox opposed the bill, on the ground that the offence committed could be sufficiently punished by the ordinary courts of law.

But he stood alone in his resistance; the bill was passed, and a salutary precedent was established; the penalty inflicted on New Shoreham being for many years regarded as the most proper punishment for all boroughs in which similar practices were proved to prevail.
And it might have continued to be thought so, had corruption been confined to the smaller boroughs; but there was no doubt that in many large towns corruption was equally prevalent and inveterate, while there were also many counties in which the cost of a contest was by far too large to be accounted for by any legitimate causes of expenditure.