The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam

by Barbara W. Tuchman

In 1770, it has been calculated, 190 members of the House of Commons held remunerative positions in the gift of the Government. Though regularly denounced as corruption, the system was so ubiquitous and routine that it carried no aura of disgrace. Members were associated in no organized political parties, and they were attached to no identifiable political principles. Their identity came from social or economic or even geographical groups: the country gentlemen, the business and mercantile classes of the cities, the 45 members from Scotland, a parcel of West Indian planters who lived on their island revenues in English homes—a total of 558 in the Commons. In theory, members were of two kinds: knights of the shire or county, of whom two were elected at large for each county, and burgesses representing the boroughs, that is, any town empowered by its charter to be represented in Parliament.