None the less, from very early times rich merchants had purchased the estates of country-gentlemen in pecuniary difficulties; and these in a generation or two settled down as legitimate members of the ruling caste. Interlopers came also from the Empire with out, especially rich planters from the West Indies, who bought close boroughs, and so brought about colonial representation in Parliament. No Prime Minister dared reckon without the West Indian interest, as it was called, for, at its strongest, it commanded some eighty votes in a division. Yet for some reason — possibly because many of them came of good old county families — the West Indians in the Commons seem to have evaded odium. Far otherwise was it with those who came home with money made in the East Indies. The presence of the nabobs, as they were called, was fiercely resented, and found vent in the disgraceful impeach ment of Warren Hastings and the persistent per secution of Clive. The descendants of yet another nabob, William Pitt the elder and the younger, were able to take care of themselves.
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