The Tories were a little disconcerted--the toll-gate did not fit into their campaign. Tolls had always been unpopular in the neighbourhood, even though Government-owned, and it was catastrophic that the enemy should suddenly have swooped down on the Colonel's private venture and rhymed it so effectively.
Of course a counter-attack was made, but it had the drawback of being made in prose, none of the Tory pamphleteers feeling equal to meeting the enemy on his own ground. Also there was not very much to be said, as it was impossible to deny the Scott's Float toll-gate. So the writers confined themselves to sneering at the Radical poet's versification, and hinting that Captain MacKinnon had done many worse things than own a toll-gate, and that all the money the Colonel had from his went to the upkeep of his land, a statement which deceived nobody.
The next day a fresh poster appeared, printed this time in flaming red letters:
"If you'd know what the Colonel is, pray travel over The Sluice at Scott's Float--and then drive on to Dover-- You'll find yourself quickly brought up by a Gate Where a Toll they will charge at no moderate rate.
Oh why is a Gate stuck across at this Spot? Is the Colonel so poor or so grasping--or what? 'Tis that he may gain some more hundreds this way in, To swell out the purse where his Thousands are laying.
Awake, oh, for shame, ye electors of Rye! Let the banner of freedom float gaily on high, Throw your bonds to the winds, ye Electors--for know That he who'd be free must himself strike the Blow."
Thenceforward the whole character of the election was changed. The Poor Man's Loaf was forgotten as completely as the wheat-tax which should make the farmer rich. Six-pound householders became as uninteresting as anybody else who had not a vote. Nobody cared a damn whether the poor were educated at the nation's expense or not. The conflict raged blindly, furiously, degradingly round the Scott's Float toll-gate.
No one thought or spoke or wrote of anything else. If at meetings Reuben tried to introduce Protection or the Franchise, he was silenced even by his own party. The Scott's Float toll-gate became as important as the Sluice or the Brede River or the Landgate Clock had been in other elections, and nothing, no matter of what national importance, could stand against it.