Instructive light on politics as practised in the happy days
when politics were politics is cast by a letter which the diligence of the Librarian of the House has extracted from the files of the Lincoln Rutland and Stamford Mercury, quoting in July, 1819, from the Shrewsbury Chronicle of November nth, 1774. The epistle is addressed by one Antony Henley, M.P., to constituents who wanted him to oppose the Excise Bill.
"Gentlemen, I received yours' and am surprised at your insolence in troubling me about the Excise. You know what I very well know, that I bought you, and by God I am determined to sell you. And I know, what perhaps you think I do not know, you are now selling yourselves to somebody else. And I know what you do not know, that I am buying another borough. May God's curse light on you all. May your houses be as open and common to all Excise Officers as your wives and daughters were to me when I stood for your rascally Corporation.
Yours,
ANTONY HENLEY.*
Clearly the eighteenth century at its best. What Hansard says about it is simply:
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