There could be no doubt that, if the suffrage of the freeholders were fairly taken, not a single knight of the shire favourable to the policy of the government would be returned.

Men therefore asked one another, with no small anxiety, whether the suffrages were likely to be fairly taken.

The list of the Sheriffs for the new year was impatiently expected.

It appeared while the Lords Lieutenants were still engaged in their canvass, and was received with a general cry of alarm and indignation.

Most of the functionaries who were to preside at the county elections were either Roman Catholics or Protestant Dissenters who had expressed their approbation of the Indulgence.