three lives, the taker ufually pays fourteen years value of the real annual profit of the eftate; fo that, if it be worth ten pounds a year, the tenant will not fcruple to give one hundred and forty pounds fine, befides ten fhillings a year referved annually to the lord and in fome parishes they pay twenty years value, inftead of fourteen. In this manner, the ancient poffeffors of the land preferve it in themselves, and confequently all the influence that perpetual landlords take efpecial care to retain over their tenants, however changed by death, purchafe, or forfeiture,

POLITICAL INFLUENCE.-This county is not entirely under the influence of the nobility. The Duke of Leeds, the Earl of Mount Edgecumbe, Lord Viscount Falmouth, Lord Camelford, and Lord Eliot, indeed, command a most powerful intereft: but when oppofed by the Prince of Wales, as fovereign of the county, the Duke of Bedford, and the Duke of Northumberland, the independence of the county has an opportunity of exerting itfelf. The firft of these parties, however, prevailed at the last elec

tion; but the majority was not very confiderable, as

appears from the following numbers of the poll,

Should, however, the above noblemen unite against the reft of the county, it is most probable that the aristocratical influence would prevail.

NUMBER OF VOTERS-in this county, are 2700.

SALTASH.

POLITICAL CHARACTER.-Parliamentary in fluence has been an object of legal contention in this borough for near twenty years. The queftion has been, whether the right of election was in the corporation, confifting of twenty-eight members, or in the freeholders of ancient houfes or their fites, held by burgage-tenure, of which there are thirty-eight, and all the property of Mr. Buller, brother to the judge,

This queftion has been four times contefted at different elections, and brought to iffue by committees

committees of the houfe of commons fince the paffing of the Grenville act. The determinations were, in the three first, favourable to the corporation; but the latter decided the right to be in the burgage-holders. This produced an occurence that muft convince more strongly than any hypothetical argument can inform the mind, that the prefent fyftem of representation must remain incomplete until its innumerable imperfections are forced to yield to a radical reform. The Right Hon. Charles Jenkinson, and Charles Ambler, were returned by the cor poration at the general election in 1785, and refolved, by a committee, on Monday, the 25th of April, 1785, to be duly elected. A vacancy happened in October, 1786, by Mr. Jenkinson being created a peer, when the Earl ofMornington was returned by the corporation in his room; Mr. Lemon petitioned against the faid return, on the right of the burgage-holders. The committee appointed to try the merits of the petition met on the 25th April, 1787, and, on the 6th of May following, reported to the house, that Mr. Lemon was duly elected. Thus two members were fitting in the house of commons at the fame time for the fame borough, upon

and

the

the right of different defcription of electors, who had, each of them, been deemed ineligible in the fame parliament. But what is ftill more remarkable, and derogatory to all principles of of conftitutional confiftency, is, that this error in the representation for Saltafh fhould remain yet uncorrected. Indeed the right is ftill difputed, and is therefore to be afcertained. The committees have three feveral times feated the members chofen by the corporation, and once determined in favour of the perfon who had the fuffrages of Mr. Buller's thirty-eight burgagetenures; but neither of them are final. By the amended Grenville act, the parties have yet the chance of two more petitions on this question of elective right, which may probably be as oppofite in their decifions to each other as those which have been already determined.

With regard to the influence over this borough, the prefent members were returned by the burgage-tenures of Mr. Buller. They had the good fortune to preferve their feats without incurring the expence of a petition. Should the right be finally ajudged to be in thefe burgage tenants, the property, and confequently influence

of

of the borough, will be transferred entirely from the corporation to Mr. Buller; but, on the contrary, fhould the immaculate corporation of Saltash gain the victory, the influence will then belong to the treasury.

This borough is involved in the fame difficulties and obfcurities as moft of the other boroughs in the kingdom. Having destroyed that fimple but general right of all tithings, which were originally boroughs, having a fhare in the legislature by exclufive charters, fucceeding charters have been made by fucceeding kings, according to their feparate views and interefts, fo as to have deftroyed even the tenor and principle of each other. Endeavouring to limit a privilege that, by nature and, juftice, was and fhould be a common inheritance, has involved the municipal conflitution of our boroughs in abfurd perplexities, as well as exposed them to arbitrary encroachments. It was firft chartered as a borough fo early as Henry IV. by its lord Reginald Valletort, who was lord of the house of Trematon, within which Saltafh is fituated. A fecond charter was granted by Richard II. a third by Elizabeth, in which were recited the two former;

and