A short history of England . y years. Thiswas a period nearly as long as theWhig control during the eighteenthcentury, which had lasted from Wal-poles advent in 17 21 to Lord Northsministry of 1770, and it was evenmore full of great events. 539. Defects of the Representa-tion. — Pitt desired, like his father,that the policy of his governmentshould be based on the support ofthe people at large, not on that ofparliament only. Many recent occurrences had served to showhow wide was the chasm between parliament and the great bodyof the people. This was due to the bad system of wil
A short history of England . y years. Thiswas a period nearly as long as theWhig control during the eighteenthcentury, which had lasted from Wal-poles advent in 17 21 to Lord Northsministry of 1770, and it was evenmore full of great events. 539. Defects of the Representa-tion. — Pitt desired, like his father,that the policy of his governmentshould be based on the support ofthe people at large, not on that ofparliament only. Many recent occurrences had served to showhow wide was the chasm between parliament and the great bodyof the people. This was due to the bad system of will be remembered that the original plan had been to summonto parliament two members from each county and two from eachconsiderable town. The list of represented towns had been some-what changed since the thirteenth century, but not at all sincethe sixteenth. In the meantime many of these towns had fromone cause or another lost much or all of their population. A townwhich in 1295 had had two or three thousand inhabitants had. Gatton Town Hall : the Siteof a Decayed Borough 598 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND from one cause or another ceased to flourish, and its people haddrifted off to more active towns, till it had sunk to a mere countyvillage, or in some cases had become simply farming ground orsome country gentlemans park. As the population of a towndecayed, however, it still retained its right to send members to par-liament, and the choice of these gradually came into the control ofthe landowner who possessed the soil on which the town was builtor who had the greatest influence in that part of the country. Thus came into existence what were known as pocket bor-oughs, * because their owners could put their hands in their poc-kets and take out the appointment of members of parliament torepresent them. Several noblemen had each the appointmentof half a dozen or more members of the House of landowners had practical control of at least one decayedborough with its represe
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