In one instance, and that the most successful, a direct denunciation of that influence was employed, but the earlier and more frequent proposals were directed to the purification of the House of Commons, and to the strengthening of its independence.  It is remarkable that of these the two which related to a subject of which the Commons are usually most especially and most rightly jealous, the interference of peers in elections, had the worst fortune.  In 1780 complaints were made and substantiated that the Duke of Bolton and the Duke of Chandos (who was also Lord-lieutenant of the county) had exerted themselves actively in the last election for Hampshire.  And, in support of motions that these peers “had been guilty of a breach of the privileges of the House, and an infringement of the liberties and privileges of the Commons of Great Britain,” a case was adduced in which Queen Anne had dismissed the Bishop of Worcester from the office of Almoner for similar interference.  Nor did Lord Nugent, a relative of the Duke of Chandos, deny the facts alleged; on the contrary, he avowed them, and adopted a line of defence which many must have thought an aggravation of the charge, since it asserted that to prevent such interference was impossible, and therefore the House would but waste its time in trying.  However, on this occasion the House took the view which he thus suggested to it, postponing all farther consideration of the matter for four months; and the charge the Duke of Bolton was shelved in a somewhat similar manner.

Even had these peers and such practices been censured with the very greatest severity, the censures could have had but a very limited effect.  But it was on measures of a wider scope, embracing what began to be called a Reform of Parliament, that the more zealous members of the Opposition placed their chief reliance.  As far as our records of the debates can be trusted, Lord Chatham, ten years before, had given the first hint of the desirableness of some alteration of the existing system.  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.  However, he never took any steps to carry out his views, thinking, perhaps, that it was not in the Upper House that such a subject should be first broached.  But he had not been long in the grave, when a formal motion for a reform of a different kind was brought forward by one of the members for the City of London, Alderman Sawbridge,[59] who, in May, 1780, applied for leave to bring in “a bill for shortening the duration of Parliaments.”  His own preference he avowed to be for annual Parliaments; but his suspicion that the House would think such a measure too sweeping had induced him to resolve to content himself with aiming at triennial Parliaments.