In March 1756 a by-election was held in Bristol to replace Richard Beckford, the West Indian planter and merchant, who had briefly represented the constituency. The previous election two years earlier had proved prohibitively expensive, especially for the Whigs, who spent over £30,000 getting Robert Nugent elected, and there was a disposition on both sides to come to some kind of compromise. A joint committee of the Steadfast and Union Clubs initially agreed that the Steadfast would choose a candidate to replace Beckford, technically a Tory, with the understanding that the Union should have the next vacancy. According to Josiah Tucker, the pamphleteer and rector of St Stephen's who was among those who tried to broker the deal, a ‘club of low tradesmen among ye Dissenters’ rejected it, believing it would be in their interest to have an MP of a Nonconformist denomination to represent the City. The Union Club was not happy with this intervention and informed the Tories that if the well-known Bristol attorney, Jarrit Smith, stood as their candidate, it would raise no objection.

As it was, a contest could not be avoided. Jarrit Smith, a well-connected local Tory, but a reluctant candidate at sixty-four years of age, found himself facing an aristocratic outsider. He was John Spenser, a 21-year-old pipsqueak, heir to the fortune of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and backed by the Sunderland family. In another electoral battle that emptied pockets, Smith edged out Spenser by fifty-two votes, a mere fraction of the 4765 cast; to date, the highest number that had ever polled in a Bristol contest and probably 90 per cent or more of the eligible electorate. Spencer's friends, piqued that they had been unable to mobilise a shifting population of soldiers and sailors to prevent defeat, demanded a scrutiny. The ‘Blue Mob’ protested, Josiah Tucker recalled, and threatened the sheriffs with their lives unless they made ‘a fair return, that is, returned Mr. Smith’. The sheriffs complied, much to the jubilation of Tory supporters in town and country, where sheep were roasted whole and local dignitaries chaired in imitation of the victory parade in Bristol. In reply, the Whigs complained to parliament of an unfair return, but failed to overturn the verdict.

In early April 1756, Jarrit Smith returned to Bristol to celebrate his victory.