Until 1780 Truro was controlled by Lord Falmouth, and generally returned members of his family. But shortly before the general election of that year, a majority of the corporation rebelled, complaining that Falmouth’s ‘avarice, increasing with age, hath grossly abused a confidence as complete, perhaps, as unguarded disinterested friendship ever placed in man’.St. James’s Chron. 17 Oct. 1780. Led by Falmouth’s former agent,Jonathan Elford to Lady Bute, 17 Feb.
In 1754 the patrons of Tregony were Lord Falmouth and William Trevanion of Carhayes. Falmouth himself wrote on 22 Mar. 1754 in a paper on Mitchell, where he was engaged in a contest with Lord Sandwich:Add. 35592, ff. 290-1.
In 1754 Saltash was an Admiralty borough under the management of its secretary, John Clevland—he relied on his influence with the corporation and his friendship with James Buller, who had the leading local interest and whose complaisance made it unlikely that the right of the freeholders, if reasserted, would be exercised against the ministerial candidates.
Thomas Jones, Lord Edgcumbe’s agent, wrote about St. Mawes in June 1760:
Lord Falmouth and Mr. Nugent, but the latter is lord of the borough and makes the returning officer and thereby has the strongest and most secure interest.
And Nugent himself said in the House on 13 Apr. 1780, during the debate on disfranchising revenue officers:
The chief interest was in the family of Praed of Treventhoe, near St. Ives, who had sat for the borough in several Parliaments since the Restoration; the Duke of Bolton, who owned one of the manors of St. Ives; Lord Buckinghamshire; and John Stephens, of a local family concerned in the fisheries and mines, who had formerly managed the borough for Buckinghamshire. At the general election of 1754 Buckinghamshire and Praed each carried one candidate without opposition.Add. 32995, f. 182; 35604, f. 197.
All electoral surveys during this period assign the borough to Edward Eliot, in the briefest terms, without any qualification. Thus Newcastle, March 1754: ‘Mr. Eliot’s interest’; Thomas Jones, Lord Edgcumbe’s agent, June 1760: ‘Mr. Eliot’; Rockingham, summer 1765: ‘Edward Eliot, Esq., absolutely’; John Robinson, December 1783: ‘Under Mr. Eliot’s arrangement’.
In Newcastle’s paper of 18 Mar. 1754 Penryn was included among the Boscawen boroughs; while the list of 15 Mar. noted after the names of the two candidates, Richard Edgcumbe and George Boscawen: ‘Here is a little difference to be adjusted by the Duke of Newcastle between Lord Edgcumbe and Lord Falmouth.’Add. 32995, ff. 63, 98. Falmouth had written to Henry Pelham on 18 Dec. 1753:Newcastle (Clumber) mss.
Newport, a suburb of Launceston, was controlled by the Morices of Werrington, who as lords of the manor appointed the two returning officers, or vianders. Their hold was challenged in 1754 by the Duke of Bedford, owner of a number of burgages in the borough, who had quarrelled with Morice. Although Bedford did not think the prospect of success very great, he insisted on making ‘a diversion ... in resentment of Mr.
The lord of the manor of Mitchell in 1754 was Lord Arundell of Wardour, a Roman Catholic who took no active part in politics. The five deputy or ‘mene’ lords were Lord Falmouth, Lord Edgcumbe, Sir Richard Vivian, Thomas Scawen, and Charles Courtenay, one of whom had to be chosen portreeve and returning officer. Admiral Edward Boscawen put the number of voters at 42, assigning 17 to Vivian, nine to Edgcumbe, six to Falmouth, three to Arundell, and seven to the other two deputy lords.
The dominant interest was in Lord Edgcumbe, and in 1754 and 1761 he returned two Treasury candidates. In June 1764, with Edgcumbe in opposition to the Grenville Administration, Thomas Pitt jun. was approached through his uncle, Charles Lyttelton, bishop of Carlisle, with the suggestion that he should try to re-establish his family interest at Lostwithiel. He replied in a letter of 16 June which the bishop sent on to Grenville:Grenville mss (JM).
