But the case of the bribed freemen and of the borough generally
was too gross to be screened by any party. All agreed that the borough
must be regarded as incurably corrupt, and deserving of heavy
punishment. The Attorney-general was ordered to prosecute the five
members of the managing committee for "an illegal and corrupt
conspiracy;" and a bill was brought in to disfranchise and declare
forever incapable of voting at any election eighty-one freemen who had
been proved to have received bribes, and to punish the borough itself,
by extending the right of voting at future elections to all the
freeholders in the rape of Bramber, the district of Sussex in which New
Shoreham lies, an arrangement which reduced the borough itself to
comparative insignificance. Mr. Fox opposed the bill, on the ground that
the offence committed could be sufficiently punished by the ordinary
courts of law. But he stood alone in his resistance; the bill was
passed, and a salutary precedent was established; the penalty inflicted
on New Shoreham being for many years regarded as the most proper
punishment for all boroughs in which similar practices were proved to
prevail.
And it might have continued to be thought so, had corruption been
confined to the smaller boroughs; but there was no doubt that in many
large towns corruption was equally prevalent and inveterate, while there
were also many counties in which the cost of a contest was by far too
large to be accounted for by any legitimate causes of expenditure.
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