The Tories who had long been in parliamentary opposition having not won an election since 1713 had disintegrated with its former parliamentarians gravitating between the various Whig factions, the Ministry, or continued political independence as a Country Gentleman.

[4] Owing to these conditions the exact makeup of the new House of Commons was unclear, though estimates suggest that the opposition gained slightly on the Ministry in the months immediately after the election.

[5] During the lifetime of the 12th Parliament of Great Britain five men held office as Prime Minister leading to the description of the period as one of ministerial instability.

[6] By 1766 the successive ministries of Newcastle, Bute, Grenville and Rockingham had collapsed, resulting in the King, George III appointed William Pitt, subsequently created the Earl of Chatham as Prime Minister.

[7] Despite enjoying the confidence of the Crown, Parliamentary goodwill, and genuine popularity for his role during the Seven Years' War, Chatham had squandered these opportunities amid poor health resulting in his First Lord, Grafton, taking on increasing responsibilities within government, despite his own reluctance to hold Ministerial power.

While some Rockinghamites, namely Henry Seymour Conway remained part of the Ministry, many others who did not hold cabinet-level offices resigned their positions in response.

Chatham, who was sympathetic to the American colonists and their concerns, suffered a nervous breakdown in early 1767, prompting Grafton to assume increasing levels of authority within the government.

Over the course of the summer of 1767 Conway was gradually superseded as the government's Commons leader by Townshend who appeared in the political ascendant until his premature death in September 1767.

By this point a general election was increasingly on the horizon resulting in numerous Independent Members of Parliament reducing their attendance, while affording opposition MPs the opportunity to raise popular political questions ahead of facing their electors.

This was seen in various constituencies where the Treasury nominally held significant influence but due to Grafton's inaction, Lord Newcastle was able to maintain a hold on these seats in favour of the Rockingham Whigs at the general election.

The contest in Essex was still fought along nominal Tory and Whig partisan lines, as Edmund Burke noted 'on the business of a century ago'.

In February 1768 radical John Wilkes had returned from his self-imposed exile in France where he had remained for four years after being convinced for libel and blasphemy.

Undeterred he opted to campaign in the neighbouring Middlesex county seat, challenging the Courtier Whig Beauchamp-Proctor and the ailing, gout-ridden Chathamite Cooke.

Wilkes' support from the old Tory Half Moon Club and the Independent Electors of Westminster, in addition to his employing of blue ribbons for his campaign, are telling.

As the historian John Cannon noted: "The main reason for Wilkes’s success in Middlesex is that he had, either by accident or design, hit on the one county in the kingdom where his campaign might produce a response.

The London voters included not only merchants, brewers, attorneys, distillers, and manufacturers, but also what contemporaries called ‘the little freeholders’—cheese-mongers, upholsterers, grocers, booksellers, weavers, ironmongers, undertakers, apothecaries, plumbers, drapers, watchmakers, turners, cashiers, and carpenters.

Since a 1762 by-election the representation of the constituency had been shared by two old Tories, William Bagot and Roger Newdigate, who both enjoyed prior Parliamentary experience before being returned by the University.

The Tories were initially split between the candidacies of Amersham (UK Parliament constituency) MP William Drake, Sr. and squire Francis Page.

Additional candidates included Thomas Fitzmaurice and the jurist George Hay whose quixotic bid mystified many and attracted little support.

Yet over the course of the Parliamentary term this preference began to wear off resulting in the Ministry, especially after Lord North assumed its leadership in 1770; being assured of the confidence of the Commons on most matters.

That Grafton's ineptitude cost the Ministry various winnable seats and extra support in Parliament is demonstrated by the clear fact that the Opposition, be it factional or Independent MPs, increased in size to some degree as a result of the 1768 general election.