 Oldfield, the contemporary historian of electoral abuses, was one of the agents engaged in this contest, and details its course at length.The excluded residents eventually won their right to be rated for scot and lot, and with it their votes, while non-resident honorary freemen created by the corporation were excluded, and the government influence thereafter was minimal.In the early 19th century the patrons were John Leach and Charles Rose Ellis, who used his influence to occupy one of the seats himself for many years; his elevation to the peerage as Lord Seaford in 1826 may have owed not a little to his commanding a seat in the House of Commons.