The case of Robert Balch of Bridgwater gent., sitting member of Parliament for the borough of Bridgwater, in the county of Sommerset, petitioned against by John Gardner of London merchant. 1692 Approx. 4 KB of XML-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-IV TIFF page image. Text Creation Partnership, Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) : 2009-03 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1). B02603 Wing C973 ESTC R170971 52211924 ocm 52211924 175493 This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal . The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. Early English books online. (EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. B02603) Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 175493) Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English Books, 1641-1700 ; 2739:3) The case of Robert Balch of Bridgwater gent., sitting member of Parliament for the borough of Bridgwater, in the county of Sommerset, petitioned against by John Gardner of London merchant. Balch, Robert. 1 sheet ([1] p.) s.n., [London : 1692] Caption title. Publication data suggested by Wing. Dated at end: To be heard before the Committee of Elections on Friday the 2nd of December, 1692. Reproduction of the original in the Lincoln's Inn Library. Created by converting TCP files to TEI P5 using tcp2tei.xsl, TEI @ Oxford. Re-processed by University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. Gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. 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Copies of the texts have been issued variously as SGML (TCP schema; ASCII text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable XML (TCP schema; characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless XML (TEI P5, characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or TEI g elements). Keying and markup guidelines are available at the Text Creation Partnership web site . eng Balch, Robert -- Trials, litigation, etc. Gardner, John, 17th cent. -- Trials, litigation, etc. England and Wales. -- Parliament. -- House of Commons -- Contested elections -- Early works to 1800. Elections -- Corrupt practices -- England -- Bridgwater -- Early works to 1800. Bridgwater (England) -- Politics and government -- 17th century -- Early works to 1800. Broadsides -- England -- 17th century. 2008-03 TCP Assigned for keying and markup 2008-04 SPi Global Keyed and coded from ProQuest page images 2008-05 Mona Logarbo Sampled and proofread 2008-05 Mona Logarbo Text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-09 pfs Batch review (QC) and XML conversion THE CASE OF Robert Balch of Bridgwater Gent. sitting Member of Parliament for the Borough of Bridgwater , in the County of Sommerset , petitioned against by John Gardner of London Merchant . THAT the said Borough of Bridgwater did for a long time , viz. from the latter end of the Reign of King James the I. elect and choose Members in Parliament by the Common Council consisting of twenty four till the year 1679. That from that time the manner of Election of Members for the said Corporation hath been changed on a dispute between Sir Francis Roll and Colonel Ralph Stawell for the Right of Electon which was heard before a Committee of Parliament 1679. Where Sir Francis Roll , who was chosen by the Inhabitants paying Scot and Lot , was Voted duely Elected , that ever since that method of electing hath been used , viz. by the Voices of all the Inhabitants within the said Borough , that at the time of Election stands rated and paid on the Poors Book , and no other Votes allowed , nor never till now attempted , as can easily be made out by the Election of Sir Francis Roll , Colonel Stawell , Sir Halswell Tynt , Sir Francis Warr , and others . That on the death of Mr. Bull the last Member , a Writ issued out for choosing another in his Room and Place , and due notice was publickly given of the time and place of execution of the said Writ , and the Court being assembled in the Guild-Hall , where Mr. Gardner the Petitioner was present ; the Mayor and Aldermen called for the Overseers of the Poor , ( one of whom was for the Petitioner , ) and appointed them , ( one with the Original Book , and the other with a Duplicate thereof ) to attend the Election at the High Cross to decide any difference that might arise on the Election . That this Poors Book was made in the life time of Mr. Bull , and was no way altered nor any person added or diminished . That accordingly the Election began , and a Poll prayed and taken by two indifferent persons agreed on . That none but those who were and stood charged in the Poors Book , and had paid , attempted to Poll till towards the end of the Poll. That the Petitioner ( who all along kept an account of the Number of the Voices and the Equallity ) finding that his number of Voices was inferiour to Mr. Balches , he thereupon procured some Persons who were not charged in the Poors Book to Poll for him , but were refused , on which he grounds his Petition . That Proclamation was several times made , and the Books continued open for some considerable time after , and none qualified to Vote coming in , the Poll was shut up and adjourned back again to the Guild-Hall , where were two Persons of each side agreed upon to inspect the Poll , and on casting up the said Poll , the majority of Voices were found to be for the said Mr. Balch , who was thereupon declared and returned by the Mayor of the said Borough . To be heard before the Committee of Elections on Friday the 2d . of December , 1692.