In 1715 the chief Fowey families were the Rashleighs, Tories, and the Treffrys, Whigs, each of whom owned a great deal of property in the town. Neither of these families, however, represented it during the reign of George I, when one seat was filled by another local family, the Vincents, Tories turned Whig, and the other by Tories, without a contest. The Vincent interest died with Nicholas Vincent in 1726, while that of the Treffrys went into abeyance ten years later on the death of William Treffry, the local collector of customs.

From 1727 Fowey was shared by the Rashleighs, who returned themselves, with the 1st Lord Edgcumbe, Walpole’s chief electoral manager in Cornwall, who returned government supporters. In 1740 Thomas Pitt, the Prince of Wales’s Cornish electoral manager, wrote:

Could Mr. Rashleigh be prevailed upon to exert his interest in this borough, he might carry both members. But he seems inclinable to sit still and to be chosen without trouble. The returning officer at the last election was the mayor of the town, for want of a portreeve, who is the proper returning officer, and to be chosen by the Prince’s tenants at the manor court. Mr. John Kimber of Fowey, at the desire of Mr. Rashleigh, has been lately appointed steward of the manor of Fowey, and may at any time hold a court, and appoint a returning officer.1

In the event, a government supporter was returned with Jonathan Rashleigh without a contest. In 1747 Pitt, ‘sifting and enquiring’ at Fowey, wrote (19 June): ‘if I can do it shall I engage for two at Fowey? May Rashleigh be turned out? Won’t it disoblige the Tories too much?’2 Once again, however, Rashleigh was returned unopposed, together with Edgcumbe’s son.