His father, Archibald, a Scotch gentleman of small fortune, was the youngest son of Sir James Smollett, who was knighted on King William's accession, represented the borough of Dumbarton in the last Scotch Parliament, and was of weight enough to be chosen one of the commissioners for framing the treaty of union between the two countries.

[Footnote: The Hundred of Bassetlaw, forming the existing borough of East Retford.

He also proposed to disfranchise the numerous "rotten boroughs" which were in the gift of noblemen and great landed proprietors,boroughs which had an insignificant number of voters; by which measure one hundred and sixty-eight parliamentary vacancies would occur.

On one occasion he denounced the small boroughs as "the rotten part of the constitution," thus originating the epithet by which they in time came to be generally described; but more usually he disavowed all idea of disfranchising them, propounding rather a scheme for diminishing their importance by a large addition to the county members.

Ultimately the landlords reached high fortune by controlling the boroughs which had, in the Middle Ages, acquired the right to return members to the House of Commons.

For none but gentlemen can injure our liberties, and while the posts of the army are bestowed as rewards of senatorial slavery, gentlemen will always be found who will be corrupted themselves, and can corrupt a borough; who will purchase a vote in the house, and sell it for military preferments.

By the summer of 1921, the agents of the principal promoter of this scheme, Harrison Parker, were operating in New York City, and scores of salesmen were covering the various boroughs selling stock.

The poem is divided into twenty-four cantos or sections, written as "Letters" to an imaginary correspondent who had bidden the writer "describe the borough," each dealing with its separate topicprofessions, trades, sects in religion, inns, strolling players, almshouse inhabitants, and so forth.

We didn't come into this world so strong as we are, just to play about in this messy little bit of ground, you know, and take little walks and keep out of the towns"for by that time they were forbidden all boroughs and urban districts.

The late Mr. Selwyn governed the borough by themand I believe by some wine too.'

Thus, at the time when Philip Augustus extended the boundaries of his capital so as to include the boroughs in it, which until then had been separated from the city, the lay and clerical lords, under whose feudal dominion those districts had hitherto been placed, naturally insisted upon preserving all their rights.

Some, by inheriting a borough, inherit a seat; and some sit by the favour of others, whom, perhaps, they may gratify by the act which provoked the expulsion.

Thus the English Tories, by their experiment with the Duke of Wellington, lost their boroughs and with them their political preeminence, but at least they saved themselves, their families, and the rest of their property.

On his way to Coningsby Castle, in Lancashire, where the Marquess of Monmouth was living in statefeasting the county, patronising the borough, and diffusing confidence in the Conservative party in order that the electors of Dartford might return his man, Mr. Rigby, once more for parliamentour hero halted for the night at Manchester.

For if it should be granted, not only that the nation has no right to know how the whole is expended, which is the utmost that can be allowed, or to direct the application of any part of it, which is very disputable, yet it certainly has a claim to direct in what manner it shall not be applied, and to provide that boroughs are not corrupted under pretence of promoting the dignity of the crown.

"I'm an Axcester man," he would declare in his public speeches, and in his own way he loved and served the little borough.

As it has been managed, perhaps it will be the best way to deposit a certain sum in some friend's hands, and buy some little Cornish borough: it would, undoubtedly, look better to be chose for a considerable town; but I take it to be now too late.

It was impossible that the Peerage could long survive the Reform Bill, for it took from the great families their pocket boroughs, and so much of their influence.

3. Compare this borough, with the hundred in the administration of justice.

He kept his eye on the movements of the savages and Frenchmen on the north, watched every hostile indication in the east, and sent proclamations and commissions to towns on Long Island and in Westchester to compel hesitating boroughs to take the oath of allegiance to Prince William of Orange.

For example, when a German financier, contesting an English borough, drove over an old woman on the polling-day, and affectionately pressed five shillings into her hand, saying, "Never mind, my tear, here's something to get drunk with," his agent instantly pointed out that she wore the Blue Ribbon, and that her husband was an influential class-leader among the Wesleyans.