Walpole determines to resume his Memoirs.--General Election.--
Audacity of Wilkes.--He contests the City of London and
the County of Middlesex.--Riots during his Election.--His
Triumph.--He surrenders to the King’s Bench.--The Elections.--Plan
for the Expulsion of Wilkes.--Meeting of Parliament.--Riot before
the King’s Bench.--Debate on Wilkes in the Commons.--French
Designs on Corsica.--Riot among the Coalheavers.--Heroism of a
Sailor.--Renewal of Wilkes’s Outlawry.--His Condemnation for the
_North Briton_ and the _Essay on Woman_.--Riots at Boston.
1768.
As I had rather disparage these Memoirs than disappoint the reader
by promising him more satisfaction than he will find, let me remind
him that I had now quitted my seat in Parliament; and consequently,
what traces of debates shall appear hereafter must be mutilated and
imperfect, as being received by hearsay from others, or taken from
notes communicated to me. As I had detached myself, too, from all
parties, I was in the secrets of none: and though I had curiosity
enough to fathom some, opportunities of learning others, and made
observations on what was passing, in which I was assisted by the clue
of what I had formerly known; yet it will doubtless be perceived that
my information was often incomplete, and that the mysterious springs
of several events never came to my knowledge. In those situations I
shall be far from decisive: yet that very ignorance may guide future
historians to the search after authentic papers; and my doubts may
lead to some certainty. It may yet be asked why I choose, under
these impediments, to continue my narrative, while I allow that it
must fall short of the preceding parts? The honestest answer is the
best: it amuses me. I like to give my opinion on what I have seen:
I wish to warn posterity (however vain such zeal) against the folly
and corruption and profligacy of the times I have lived in; and I
think that, with all its defects, the story I shall tell will be more
complete than if I had stopped at the end of the foregoing Parliament,
which was no era of anything but of my own dereliction of politics;
and not having been the hero of my own tale, I am desirous at least of
bringing it down to the termination of the political life of some of
the principal actors in the foregoing pages. I propose to carry the
work down to the pacification with Spain in 1771, when not only all our
foreign quarrels were terminated, but when the Court had surmounted
every domestic difficulty, had pacified the Colonies and Ireland; and
by the aid of fortune and by the folly of opposition, had little to
disturb them but their own indiscretion, and the restless, though timid
desires of ascertaining and extending a prerogative which the King
enjoyed effectually by less obnoxious, though less dangerous, means
than force. Whether I shall live to complete this plan, or whether,
if I do, I shall not again be tempted to prosecute it farther, I am
equally ignorant. The reader, that is amused, may perhaps be glad if I
proceed. If I am tedious, the most delicate of my readers will always
have that facile remedy in his power, of ceasing to read me the moment
he is tired. To such, therefore, I make no apology. To please the other
sort, if I can--at least, to employ some vacant hours, I continue my
journal.
The Parliament having been dissolved on the 11th of March, 1768, and
the writs issued for the general election of another, the memorable
John Wilkes, who had resided for some time at Paris, and had fallen
almost into oblivion, came suddenly over, and declared himself a
candidate to represent the City of London. His first step, indeed,
was to write a submissive letter to the King, imploring pardon; but
his Majesty refusing to read the letter,[87] Wilkes, bold from his
desperate situation, and fond of extraordinary daring, opened his new
campaign by this attack on the metropolis itself, though an outlaw,
and subject to be sent to prison on his former sentence. Men wondered
at the inactivity of a Government that had by no means shown itself
indifferent to the persecution of so audacious a criminal, and expected
every day to hear he was taken up. But whether the Court looked with
contempt on a measure that promised so little success, or whether,
which I believe was their true motive, they feared that new severity
would enhance the merits of the martyr in the eyes of the people,
neither the Government nor the courts of law interposed to check his
career. Alderman Sir William Baker was the only citizen of note and
fortune that countenanced his pretensions; yet Wilkes persisted,
appeared openly on the hustings, and contested a seat with the most
popular of the City’s magistrates. The lower people[88] embraced his
cause with ardour; and he soon appeared to have so many partizans, that
his fortune became combined with that national frenzy, stock-jobbing.
Bets on his success were turned into stock; and in the phrase of the
times, _he was done_, like other wagers on the funds. The credit of the
candidate Alderman was, however, too firmly established to be shaken
so suddenly. Wilkes was every day the lowest on the poll, and the very
first evening as he left the court, he was arrested for debt--probably
by the underhand direction of the Ministry; but his attorney answered
for his appearance; and preferring to be a prisoner to the Government,
as more likely to create pity, than to lie in prison for debt, Wilkes
acquainted the Solicitor of the Treasury, that he intended to surrender
himself to his outlawry. He returned each day to the hustings, but
lost his election; Harley, the Lord Mayor, Sir Robert Ladbrooke,[89]
Beckford, and Trecothick,[90] being elected; the last, a West-India
merchant, who, at the time of the Stamp Act, had signalized himself
by procuring petitions against it from Bristol, Liverpool, and other
commercial towns. Sir Richard Glynn,[91] Paterson, the unpopular
creature of Lord Holland, and Wilkes, being thrown out. During the
struggle, Beckford and Trecothick behaved towards Wilkes with much
civility; the Lord Mayor with sullen coldness, and occasionally with
spirited resistance.
Far from dismayed, Wilkes, like an able general, rallied his forces,
and declared himself a candidate for the county of Middlesex--nay,
threatened to stand for Surrey, too, in opposition to George
Onslow,[92] one of his deserting friends; yet hitherto he had no
eminent patronage. Lord Temple, linked with Grenville, abandoned
him. Humphrey Cotes,[93] an old ally, but who in his absence, it was
said, had cheated him of some money, made amends by warm activity;
and the Duke of Portland, incensed by his late affair with Sir James
Lowther, on Wilkes’s pretensions to Middlesex, espoused his cause. Lord
Mansfield, equally revengeful, timorous, and subtle, pretended that it
was the office of the Chancellor to bring this outlaw to justice; but
the Chancellor and the Duke of Grafton did not care to increase their
unpopularity by adding persecution to the complaints Wilkes had already
made of their giving him up. Still less was Lord Camden solicitous to
save Lord Mansfield from danger and odium. The Chancellor went to Bath,
and the Duke to Newmarket.
On the 28th of March the election began at Brentford; and while the
irresolution of the Court and the carelessness of the Prime Minister,
Grafton, caused a neglect of all precautions, the zeal of the populace
had heated itself to a pitch of fury. They possessed themselves of all
the turnpikes and avenues leading to the place of election by break
of day, and would suffer no man to pass who bore not in his hat a
blue cockade inscribed with the name of Wilkes and Number 45,[94] or
written on paper. The other candidates were, Sir William Beauchamp
Proctor[95] and Mr. Cooke, the former members. Cooke was confined with
the gout: a relation who appeared for him was roughly handled at Hyde
Park Corner, and Sir William’s carriage was demolished. At Brentford
the mob was more peaceable, but had poured in in such numbers, that
on the first day’s poll the votes for Wilkes were 1200, for Proctor,
700, for Cooke, 500. At night the people grew outrageous; though when
Wilkes first arrived in town, I had seen him pass before my windows in
a hackney chair, attended but by a dozen children and women; now all
Westminster was in a riot. It was not safe to pass through Piccadilly;
and every family was forced to put out lights: the windows of every
unilluminated house were demolished. The coach-glasses of such as did
not huzza for _Wilkes_ and _liberty_ were broken, and many chariots and
coaches were spoiled by the mob scratching them with the favourite 45.
Lord Weymouth, Secretary of State, sent orders to Justice Fielding to
have constables kept in readiness. He begged his Lordship not to tell
it, but there was not a constable in London--all had been sent for to
Brentford. On this the guards were drawn out. Lord Bute’s house was
attacked, but the mob could not force an entrance, nor at Lord Egmont’s
in Pall Mall. The Duke of Northumberland the mob obliged to appear
and to give them liquor, and to drink with them to Wilkes’s success.
Some ladies of rank were taken out of their chairs, and ordered to
join the popular cry; and to Lady Holderness they cried, No King! No
regal Government! In the City they attacked the mansion-house and broke
the windows. The Lord Mayor, a zealous anti-Wilkite, sent for the
trained-bands, but they were not sufficient to disperse the tumult. Six
thousand weavers had risen in behalf of Wilkes, and were the principal
actors. Some of the regimental drummers beat their drums for Wilkes,
who finding his election secure, dismissed the weavers, and by the
next morning all was quiet, but the poll was at an end. Wilkes was too
triumphant to be resisted; and, master to act as he pleased, he threw
his supernumerary votes into Cooke, who was elected with him.
The second night was less tumultuous; but the Scots, sullenly
persisting in not celebrating their enemy’s triumph by illuminations,
had their windows broken. The Dowager Duchess of Hamilton,[96] one of
the beautiful Gunnings, though born in Ireland, had contracted such
hatred to Wilkes from her two Scotch marriages, that though with child,
and though her husband, Lord Lorn, was in Scotland, and all her young
children by both matches were in the house with her, she resolutely
forbade her house to be lighted up. The mob assaulted it, broke down
the outward gates with iron crows, tore up the pavement of the street,
and battered the doors and shutters for three hours, but could not
surmount her courage. The Count de Seilern, the Austrian Ambassador,
the most stately and ceremonious of men, they took out of his coach,
and chalked 45 on the sole of his shoe. He complained in form of the
insult: it was as difficult for the Ministers to help laughing as to
give him redress.
Elate with success, the triumphant tribune assumed a tone that
heaped new mortification on the Court. In his printed thanks to his
constituents he besought them to give him their instructions from
time to time, promising that he would always defend their civil and
religious rights. Hearing that the Privy Council intended to issue a
proclamation against riots, the new defender of the faith instructed
his committee or privy council to preserve the peace, and ordered them,
as they returned in procession from Brentford, not to pass by St.
James’s Palace, that no insult or indecency might be offered to the
King. He vaunted that his Committee had patroled the streets of the
capital on the night of the 30th and had kept all quiet.
The Court received another defeat of less consequence. They had set up
Jenkinson, one of the favourite cabal, for Oxford, where he had been
bred, but he lost the election by a considerable majority, though the
favours of the Crown were now showered on that University.[97]
The Methodists endeavoured to draw notice to themselves, but were
disappointed. Lord Baltimore was prosecuted for a rape on a loose girl,
who had staid in his house for some days under many opportunities
of escaping, but was acquitted on his trial, notwithstanding the
hypocrites had much incensed the populace against him.[98] Six young
methodists were expelled from Oxford, but their party could raise no
clamour on this supposed persecution. Whitfield, their archpriest,
attending one Gibson, who was hanged for forgery, to the gallows, and
preaching his funeral sermon, assured the audience that he was gone to
heaven; and that a fellow executed at the same time was probably in the
same paradise, having had the happiness of touching Gibson’s garment.
But these impieties and martyrdoms were drowned in the lustre of St.
Wilkes’s glory, and for once the barefaced libertine carried away the
vulgar from the holy knaves.
It is true that half the success of Wilkes was owing to the supineness
of the Ministers. Lord Chatham would take no part in business. The
Duke of Grafton neglected everything, and whenever pressed to be
active, threatened to resign. The Chancellor, placed between two such
untractable friends, with whom he was equally discontent, avoided
dipping himself farther. Conway, no longer in the Duke’s confidence,
and who was more hurt at neglect than pleased with power, stood in
the same predicament. Lord Gower thought of nothing but ingratiating
himself at St. James’s, and though what little business was done, Lord
Weymouth executed, it required all Wood’s violence and animosity to
Wilkes to spur him up to any activity. Wood indeed said that if the
King should pardon Wilkes, Lord Weymouth would not sign the pardon.
The Scots complained grievously of this want of spirit; and the
Lord Mayor consulting the Chancellor on what he should do if Wilkes
should stand for the City, and being answered that he must consult
the Recorder, Harley sharply replied, “I consulted your Lordship as
a minister; I do not want to be told my duty.” Some of the sheriff’s
officers, too, not having dared to apprehend Wilkes, though a _capias_
had been issued for that purpose, the Lord Mayor insisted on their
being turned out of their places.
Previous to his surrender Wilkes went to Bath, but met with neither
honours nor notice. A subscription had been opened for him, and went
on but heavily. His enemies served him better. Lord Mansfield tried
every subterfuge of the law, not so much to crush Wilkes as to shift
the odium of the prosecution on any other shoulders; and as the law is
never defective in furnishing expedients to meanness and chicanery,
and as the lowest quibbles appeared like armour to the eyes of Lord
Mansfield’s cowardice, it is scarce credible what stores of rusty
nonsense were brought forth on this occasion, to the equal disgrace of
the Chief Justice and the practice.
On the 20th, Wilkes, according to his promise, appeared to his outlawry
in the King’s Bench. He did not avow himself for author of the _North
Briton_, though he owned he had written the forty-fifth number, and
approved every word of it. When he recollected the “Essay on Woman” he
confessed he blushed; yet pleaded that it would not have been published
unless stolen from him. He complained of the usage he had received, and
of the alteration of the record. Lord Mansfield palliated the latter
charge; and then pronounced that Wilkes was not before the court, as
nobody had taken out the writ _capias ablegatum_, which he affirmed the
Attorney-General ought to have done. This implied that an outlaw could
not surrender himself voluntarily, though he might get anybody to take
out that writ. The judges, Yates and Willes, agreed to this jargon,
having been induced by Mansfield to cast the blame on the Attorney.[99]
On this curious reasoning was Wilkes dismissed. His speech had been
received with little applause, and he retired without riot. He had,
indeed, advertised a request to the people to make no disturbance;
yet the Government had been so much alarmed that a field-day had been
appointed in the Park, that troops might be at hand to quell any tumult.
It appeared from this mock scene that an outlawry cannot be set
aside but by a process to show there is a flaw in it. Accordingly
the profession who love to accumulate absurdities[100] rather than
to correct a ridiculous maxim, always take care to prepare a flaw in
an outlawry. Wilkes had demanded from the Attorney-General a writ of
error, and he had promised it, but was dissuaded on the 19th by the
Master of the Rolls, and on the 20th the Attorney came into court
without it. He would have taken it out then, but by some other rule it
was then too late, or Wilkes should have surrendered to the sheriff. It
was on these informalities that Lord Mansfield had argued that Wilkes
was not before the court, for, being an outlaw, the law knew no such
person; yet this nonentity his Lordship had suffered to revile him to
his face on the seat of magistracy.
In the mean time the Parliament was chosen to the content of the Court,
though by the inactivity of the Duke of Grafton, and the unpopularity
of their chief friends, the majority was not greater than in the last
assembly. Sir James Lowther, the Favourite’s son-in-law, was beaten
at Carlisle and in the counties of Westmoreland and Cumberland,
though he was returned (I think) for the latter against a majority
of thirty-four. The Duke of Portland ravished those provinces from
him in which he had been paramount, at the expense of forty thousand
pounds and to the great damage of his fortune; nor were Sir James’s
disbursements less considerable, to which the odious act of ravishing
the Duke’s estate from him for an election purpose added signal
disrepute. The county of York thanked Sir George Saville for having
introduced the bill against _nullum tempus_, and the Duke of Portland
published his case. It displayed the partial and unhandsome conduct of
the Treasury, though the Duke could not prove that the lands wrenched
from him had not been encroachments of his family. Lord Spencer had
not been less profuse in a contest for the town of Nottingham.[101]
The immense wealth that had flowed into the country from the war and
the East Indies, bore down all barriers of economy, and introduced a
luxury of expense unknown to empires of vaster extent. At the same time
the incapacity of the Court, which had first provoked the nation by
arbitrary attempts, had now sunk the government to a state of contempt;
and Wilkes’s triumph having manifested the pusillanimity and want of
vigour both in Ministers and magistrates, almost every class of the
lower orders thought it a moment for setting up new pretensions in
defiance of authority.
At Peterborough the mob rose and demolished Mr. Sutton’s new hospital
for inoculation. The coalheavers committed great violences on the river
and in Wapping; and by the meeting of Parliament the metropolis was a
theatre of tumults and anarchy:--but of these presently. Nor was the
press idle; satires swarmed against the Court, and the authoress of all
those calamities was the object at which the most envenomed arrows were
shot. In a frontispiece to a number of _Almon’s Political Register_
she and Lord Bute were represented in her bedchamber; and lest the
personages should be dubious, the royal arms in a widow’s lozenge were
pictured over the bed.
On the 27th, Wilkes was carried by a _capias_ to the King’s Bench.
Great bail was offered by Humphrey Cotes, but rejected by the court;
and the prisoner was committed to the King’s Bench. When he left the
court, the people stopped his coach on Westminster Bridge, took off the
horses, and drew him themselves to a tavern in Cornhill, dismissing
the tipstaves that guarded him, and insisting that he should not go to
prison. He persuaded the mob, however, to disperse, and, slipping out
by a back door, went immediately and surrendered himself at the King’s
Bench Prison.
The Cabinet-Council, in the mean time, were strangely irresolute and
uncertain how to act.[102] The King, the Princess, and the Scots,
could not bear the idea of Wilkes’s triumph, nor would hear of his
being suffered to enjoy a seat in Parliament.[103] The Chancellor was
all moderation; Conway, as usual, fluctuated between both opinions. The
Lords Gower and Weymouth were for extremities. Yet the total inaction
of Lord Chatham, and the sullen negligence of Grafton encouraging no
violence, it was determined not to expel Wilkes in the very short
session that was soon to meet to give substance to the Parliament,
since, no proclamation having been issued to summon this meeting for
business, it might be thought too precipitate rigour. The Ministers,
it was decided, should only lay in their claim against his admission,
unless the House should be much fuller than was expected in so late
and short a session, and the voice of the meeting should be loud for
expulsion. The measure was neither equitable nor politic, and betrayed
a want of firmness. It would give time, if the flame of faction should
spread, for counties and boroughs to instruct their members to oppose
expulsion, and presented an opportunity to France of blowing up the
embers. Great numbers of French had resorted hither at that time and to
Ireland; and though the carelessness of the Ministers was so great as
to neglect scrutinizing into it, there were grounds for suspecting that
Wilkes was privately encouraged by the Court of France.[104] The Comte
du Châtelet, their new Ambassador, had certainly had communication
with him at Paris, though Châtelet strenuously denied it; and several
Frenchmen of quality had sat with Wilkes on the hustings during the
election for London, and were protected by him there and at Brentford;
though without such protection, a Frenchman at an election would at
any time have a risk of being ill-treated by the mob. They visited him
in prison; and one of their agents, to my own knowledge, had intimate
connection with him. This was one Kendal, an Irishman, who, though
of distinguished service in his profession--the army,--had skulked
here obscurely for a year, and when he did appear the second winter
at M. du Châtelet’s, it was rarely but at very private hours. He had
passed himself for a Frenchman that could speak no English, yet having
accidentally and unawares discovered his knowledge of our tongue, he
afterwards conversed in it fluently. It happened that going one evening
to M. du Châtelet’s, I found them perusing an English book. I looked
over Kendal’s shoulder, and saw the name of John Wilkes written in the
particular character of his own hand, which was something womanish.
Kendal hurried the book into his pocket with some confusion--yet I
had time to observe the title. It was “Sir James Porter’s Letters on
the Turks,”--a work published after the sale of Wilkes’s library, and
consequently showed it was borrowed from himself. Though wishing well
to Wilkes’s cause against prerogative, I should blush to myself if I
concealed the ill I thought of the man. This story has led me from my
argument; I meant to add that to allow Wilkes to retain his seat for
six months, and deprive him of it afterwards, was heaping injustice
upon oppression.
His outlawry was argued in the mean time at the King’s Bench by
Serjeant Glynn, as erroneous, and maintained by Thurloe. Lord Mansfield
said the court was to take time to consider the respective arguments
(though it was known that a flaw was purposely inserted), and put off
the decision to the next term--a delay which detained Wilkes in prison
and prevented his taking his seat in Parliament. His appearance there
was dreaded by the Administration, especially as it was whispered
that he intended to move for an augmentation of the pay of the army,
on pretence of the dearness of provisions. Could he shake the loyalty
of the guards the Government would have had little to trust to--so
great was its weakness and unpopularity. Nor did the Ministers depend
on being able to carry his expulsion. Beckford from factious views,
Hussey from integrity, and Lord Granby from candour, declared against
so rigorous a measure. Nor were all men satisfied of the propriety
of the time, many doubts having arisen whether the Parliament could
transact business, as such intention had not been mentioned in the
proclamation,--an informality soon passed over, it being necessary
to renew the Militia and Corn Bills, which had been granted only to
the end of the next session. In truth, some exertion--at least, some
appearance of authority--was become of absolute necessity, the mutinous
spirit of the people and the contempt in which the Government was held,
carrying various classes of men into most dangerous excesses. The town
of Boston, in America, had invited the other colonies to unite against
taxation. The Irish were as warm against receiving an augmentation of
troops; and the Irish country gentlemen, though apprehending for their
property from the designs of France, did not dare to declare for a
larger army, as the new octennial election was approaching.
But it was in the metropolis itself that the flame of riot burst
out with most violence. Before the King’s Bench prison, where lay
the people’s idol, were constant tumults. The sailors aboard the
merchantmen in the river mutinied for increase of wages, rose to the
number of four thousand men, and stopped all outward-bound ships
from sailing. The watermen on the Thames, and even the journeymen
hatters set up equal pretensions, thinking the season favourable to
their demands, and excited by the reigning scarcity and by the agents
of Wilkes. Harley, the Lord Mayor, alone behaved with spirit, and
seized some of the rioters, and bade the rest draw up a petition to
Parliament, if they wanted, or had pretensions to redress.
During this ferment the new Parliament met on May the 10th, and was
opened by commission, the King making no speech, as the session was
to be so short. A great mob assembled round the Houses clamouring for
Wilkes and liberty. Lord Hillsborough complained of this to the Lords,
and the Chancellor moved that the constables should be ordered to
disperse the people. Lord Sandwich proposed to send and inquire if the
riot had ceased. The Duke of Richmond laughed at their fears and said
it was nothing. The Duke of Grafton asked with much warmth if it was
nothing when the mob joined the name of Wilkes, who had been committed
to prison on the addresses of both Houses, with the sacred sound of
liberty?--but Grafton’s warmth was burning stubble, that easily blazed
and was easily extinguished. The House of Commons elected Sir John
Cust, their former speaker.
A worse tumult happened the same day at the King’s Bench prison, whence
the mob attempted to deliver Wilkes, and carry him to the House of
Commons. The riot act being read and the guards sent for, a skirmish
ensued, and one Allen, a young man of fair character, who, some said,
had been merely a spectator, was pursued and murdered inhumanly by a
Scotch soldier as he fled. The tumult was quashed, but Allen’s death
only served to exasperate the people. His dead body was borne about the
streets with signal lamentation, and interred with parade. Handbills
had been previously dispersed among the soldiers, entreating them not
to fire on their countrymen, but the third regiment of guards being
employed, who were all Scots, the soldiers had carried the handbills
to their officers, nor had been seduced by Wilkes’s promise of
obtaining for them increase of pay. The circumstance of Scots being
employed in this massacre, as it was denominated, greatly increased
the discontents; and the officious folly of Lord Barrington, who
wrote a letter as Secretary at War, to thank the regiment for their
behaviour as if they had gained a victory, shocked even those who
were not factious.[105] Gillam, the Justice of Peace who had ordered
the soldiers to fire, was tried for murder and acquitted. Whitfield,
who had a mind to be tampering in these commotions, prayed for Wilkes
before his sermon. Another mob burned a new invented sawing-mill
belonging to one Dingley.
On the 11th a vast body of sailors attended the Houses,[106] but in a
modest manner, and desiring only to have their grievances considered,
with promise of acquiescing to the determination of Parliament.
They declared their attachment to the King, and meeting Wilkes’s
mob attacked and dispersed it. Yet notwithstanding this respectful
behaviour, the Privy Council, weighing the damage occasioned to the
merchants, issued out a proclamation against the sailors. The same day
an account came that the proposed augmentation of the army in Ireland
had been rejected by that Parliament.
On the 12th the Earl of Suffolk moved the Lords to address the King
to confer some mark of distinction on the Lord Mayor Harley for his
activity and spirit. The Duke of Grafton said his Majesty intended it,
and was considering what honour to bestow on him. As Lord Suffolk was
attached to Grenville, his motion marked that Grenville’s high spirit
could not digest the pusillanimity of Government, though no longer
Minister himself, and that he was glad to point out that pusillanimity.
At night a great meeting was held at Lord North’s on the subject of
Wilkes, but determined nothing. Lord Barrington, Lord Clare, and Sir
Gilbert Elliot were for expelling him; Conway, unwilling to contradict
his former behaviour, was for staying till the next winter.[107] Lord
Granby was firm against expulsion. To his natural lenity had been
added the address of Calcraft, who having been treated with haughtiness
and contempt by the Duke of Grafton on a late election, had seduced
Granby from his attachment to the Court with art worthy of his master,
Lord Holland. Lord Granby was in his power by the money Calcraft had
lent him; and none of the enemies the Duke of Grafton raised every
day, proved a sharper thorn than Calcraft. Nor was Conway himself,
though less irascible, much less offended with the Duke. From having
been his intimate friend and associate in administration, Grafton had
coarsely shuffled him out of the Secretary’s office to make room for
Lord Weymouth; and now, on the opening of the Parliament, had deputed
Lord North, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to read the King’s speech
to the members at the Cockpit, without a word of apology to Conway, who
had officiated the last time; nor could his loss of place excuse such
coldness in a friend.
On the 13th died the Princess Louisa, the youngest of the King’s
sisters, except the Queen of Denmark. She had long languished under the
family complaint, and seemed to be but a child of twelve years old.
This was the third of her children the Princess of Wales lost in two
years.
The same motion that had been made to the Lords in favour of Mr.
Harley, was carried unanimously in the Commons. Grenville painted the
supineness of the Ministers in strong colours.[108] Wood defended them
with heat and sharpness. Burke and Lord John Cavendish proposed a
longer session, and dropped reflections on dissolution of connections,
which Conway took up as levelled at him. Not a word was said on Wilkes.
The Chancellor and Lord Shelburne, the former from opposition to the
Bedfords, the latter from enmity both to them and Grafton, declared
earnestly against the expulsion: yet the Rockingham party did not
discover that the Chancellor was hostile to the Bedfords, nor would
have joined him if they had, so inveterate were they both to him and
Lord Chatham; nor did they find out that Conway was out of humour,
for they found out nothing. Harley was soon afterwards made a privy
councillor, and had a lucrative contract.[109]
The riots continuing, and the journeymen tailors taking advantage of
them and of the mourning for Princess Louisa, rose in a great body, and
went to petition Parliament for increase of wages, but were prevailed
on by Justice Fielding to behave with decency. Lord Barrington on
this occasion moved to enable the King to embody the militia on
emergencies--the first experiment for enlarging the power of the Crown
with that accession of strength. But Sir George Saville, and even Lord
Strange and other courtiers, opposed the motion so ardently, that it
was dropped; though Grenville, on the other hand, declared for the
proposition.[110] The sailors were appeased by the merchants agreeing
to enlarge their pay.
The new Parliament produced many new speakers, of whom the most eminent
was Dunning, the Solicitor-General, but whose fame did not rise then in
proportion to the celebrity he had attained at the bar. The others, of
far less note, were, Mr. Cornwall, a sensible lawyer,[111] Mr. Phipps,
son of Lord Mulgrave, a young man whose application forced him at last
into notice, and who, though a seaman, was so addicted to the study
of the law, that he got the appellation of _the Marine Lawyer_;[112] a
young Mr. Cavendish,[113] hot-headed and odd; a Colonel Lutterel,[114]
more absurd and impudent; and James Townshend and Sawbridge, who will
be often mentioned, though not for their eloquence. Lutterel had a
personal enmity to Wilkes, and had declared that he would force the
House into some resolution on Wilkes’s case. Accordingly, he moved
that the proper officer should acquaint the House why Wilkes had not
been taken into custody sooner. Lord North said the motion was so
absurdly worded, that he could not think himself pointed at; but he
alleged that everything had been left to due course of law. This was
confirmed by the Attorney-General; and young Mr. Lyttelton, only son of
Lord Lyttelton, urging with decency that the time was not proper while
the case was depending in the courts below, the previous question was
put and carried; yet not a word was uttered in Wilkes’s favour. Mr.
Lyttelton, who soon after lost his seat, his election being contested,
had parts and knowledge, and conciliated much favour by that first
essay; but his character was uncommonly odious and profligate, and his
life a grievous course of mortification to his father. More will be
said of him hereafter.
So spiritless an Administration, whose measures were not planned, but
started indigested out of the daily occurrences, was not likely to give
serious attention to remote situations. They endeavoured to doze over
all thoughts of the Continent; and yet the enterprising activity of
the Duc de Choiseul now and then interrupted their slumbers, though it
could not dispel them entirely. Stung with our victories in the last
war, and aware of our supineness, that ambitious man was meditating
new wars, impatient to indemnify his master for some of their losses
by new usurpations. The poor Corsicans were the first victims of his
politics. He had for some months been preparing a mighty invasion of
their island. Sixteen battalions were destined to the conquest, which
was sheltered under a pretended purchase from the Genoese. De Sorbe,
their agent at Paris, and born there while his father exercised the
same function, had suggested the idea. Pride, impotence, and revenge
had operated to induce the Genoese to sell their title to a more
formidable usurper,--the liberty of others appearing a marketable
commodity to a republic composed only of nobles, who are ever ready
to be subordinate tyrants. The object was too considerable to be
indifferent to us: Corsica, in the hands of France, might essentially
affect our Mediterranean trade during a war. To suffer the conquest
were a disgrace, and would imply timidity. Generosity towards a free
nation, who had struggled so long and successfully for their liberty,
and had sought our protection, the poor Corsicans could not venture to
expect. One of the few acts of Lord Bute’s monarchic[115] and dastardly
Administration had been to forbid our sending succours to the Corsican
rebels, as he called them--a sentence that betrayed his heart, not his
sense. What right had the little republic of Genoa to tyrannise over
the freemen of Corsica? Genoa had acted throughout the late war with
as much partiality to France[116] as she dared, and was rewarded by
our proscribing her enemies. On the other hand, our interference now
might light up another war; and though the finances of France were in
at least as bad a situation as our own, we could ill have supported
the burthen, and were in too distracted a situation at home to make
war advisable. The Council assembled on the point. Parliament might
blame them for taking a part, or for taking none--the latter half of
the dilemma suited their natures best, and no resolution was then
taken. Yet procrastination produced no repose; alarms thickened from
every quarter: the mutinous spirit of the people broke out, whether the
occasion was political or private. A butcher, murdered in a brothel at
Dublin, had raised such a flame, that forty houses were pulled down by
the mob, and several persons killed.
At such a crisis the Ministers would not venture dismissing the
Parliament to a distant period, but on the 20th of May adjourned it
only for a fortnight, intending, by short prorogations, to keep it in
readiness to meet.[117]
Of all the tumults, the fiercest and most memorable was the following.
A dispute having arisen between the coalworkers and the coalheavers,
the latter of whom were chiefly Irish--nay, some of them Whiteboys, an
Act of Parliament had passed the last year, subjecting the coalheavers
to the jurisdiction of the alderman of the ward; an office had been
erected, and one Green, who kept an alehouse, had been constituted
their agent. Houston, a man who wanted to supplant Green, had incensed
the coalheavers against him, and they threatened his destruction.
Apprised of their design, he every night removed his wife and children
out of his house. One evening he received notice that the coalheavers
were coming to attack him. He had nobody with him but a maid-servant
and a sailor, who by accident was drinking in the house. Green asked
the sailor if he would assist him? “Yes,” answered the generous tar, “I
will defend any man in distress.” At eight the rioters appeared, and
fired on the house, lodging in one room above two hundred bullets;
and when their ammunition was spent, they bought pewter pots, cut
them to pieces, and fired them as ball. At length with an axe they
broke out the bottom of the door; but that breach the sailor defended
singly; while Green and his maid kept up a constant fire, and killed
eighteen of the besiegers. Their powder and ball being at last wasted,
Green said he must make his escape: “for you,” said he to the friendly
sailor, “they will not hurt you.” Green, retiring from the back room
of his house, got into a carpenter’s yard, and was concealed in a
sawpit, over which the mob passed in their pursuit of him, being told
he was gone forwards. I should scarce have ventured this narrative, had
not all the circumstances been proved in a court of justice. Yet how
many reflections must the whole story create in minds not conversant
in a vast capital--free, ungoverned, unpoliced, and indifferent to
everything but its pleasures and factions! Who will believe that such
a scene of outrage could happen in the residence of Government?--that
the siege lasted nine hours, and that no Guards were sent to the relief
of the besieged till five in the morning? Who will believe that while
such anarchy reigned at one end of the Metropolis, it made so little
impression at the Court end that it was scarce mentioned? Though in
London myself, all I heard was, that a man had been attacked in his
house, and had killed three of the rioters. Nor were the circumstances
attended to, till the trial of Green for murder, of which he was
honourably acquitted, divulged his, his maid’s, and the sailor’s
heroism. Yet did not the fury of the colliers cease, though seven of
them were taken and executed. Green was forced to conceal himself from
their rage; but his sister, giving a supper to her friends for joy of
her brother’s safety, her house was attacked by those assassins, their
faces covered with black crape, who tore her into the street, and
murdered her. Yet, perhaps, of all the circumstances of this tragedy,
not one was so singular, from the display of so great a mind, as the
indifference of the sailor, who never owned himself, never claimed
honour or recompense for his generous gallantry. As brave as the
Codes of fabulous Rome, his virtue was satisfied with defending a man
oppressed; and he knew not that an Alexander deserved less fame than
he, who seemed not to think that he deserved any.
The Bedford faction, who had got almost entire possession of the Duke
of Grafton, began to perceive how little security there was in that
tenure. They found that every disgust inspired him with thoughts of
resigning. They saw the immediate necessity of strengthening themselves
lest some sudden caprice should hurry him to resign, and leave them
weak at Court, or exposed to the dislike of the next Minister, whoever
it should be. Rigby in particular had not attained the paymastership
which Grafton had engaged to him on the first opportunity, and was sure
of being the first victim if Grenville, whom he had sacrificed, should
return to power. With as little decency as he had abandoned him, Rigby
now made secret offers to Grenville to support him, if the Duke of
Grafton should quit--but they were rejected, both from the haughtiness
of Grenville’s nature, and by the positive injunction of Lord Temple,
who sent Calcraft to Lord Hertford with an account of that transaction;
adding, that his Lordship had sworn to his brother, that should he ever
join the Bedfords, he (Lord Temple) would persecute him to the last
hour of his life. This Lord Hertford was desired to communicate to the
King, with offers from Lord Temple to serve his Majesty whenever he
should be wanted. This mine failing, Rigby pushed the Lords Gower and
Weymouth to unite with him in insisting with the Duke of Grafton on the
removal of Lord Shelburne, who, they said, betrayed them, and opposed
all their measures in Council. The accusation did not want truth; nor
was its purport unwelcome either to the Duke or to the King. The former
hated him for enjoying Lord Chatham’s favour; and the King had not
forgotten the tricks that Shelburne had played Lord Bute. To make the
proposal still palatable, the Cabal offered to his Majesty the choice
of the Duke of Northumberland or Lord Egmont, his own creatures, of
Lord Holderness, anybody’s creature, or of Lord Sandwich, their own
friend, to replace Lord Shelburne. Willing as he was to give up the
last, the King had adopted a rule of turning no single man, both from
pusillanimity, and from never being sorry to embarrass Ministers, whom
he had not taken from inclination. Thus was Shelburne saved for some
months longer. In his chief point Rigby had very soon better success.
On the 2nd of June the Parliament met, and was again adjourned for
three weeks. On the 8th Wilkes’s outlawry was debated in the King’s
Bench. The Judges of that Court had agreed with their chief, Lord
Mansfield, to reverse it; yet the latter now maintained it in a fine
oration, but in the conclusion pronounced it void from a flaw; which,
he said, had not been noticed by the prisoner’s counsel. This curious
error was, that the proceedings were stated _at the County-court for
the County of Middlesex_; when lo! the form ought to have been _at the
County-court of Middlesex, for the County of Middlesex_--a form of
words, said that oracle of law, absolutely necessary. It was said that
Serjeant Glynn, Wilkes’s counsel, had made the same notable discovery
two months before in his pleading; and thus the Chief Justice had
not even the honour of the chicanery he boasted. It was still more
ridiculously, and with as little truth, that he vapoured on his own
firmness. He knew, he said, in what danger he held his life, but he was
past sixty, and valued not the remnant of being. He would act boldly;
_fiat justitia, et ruat cœlum_--prodigious danger when he was doing
what was an act of popularity, and which probably he would not have
done but from timidity![118] The reversion of the outlawry having an
appearance of being favourable to the prisoner, the mob huzzaed, though
he was remanded to prison till he should receive sentence.
In the meantime a new calamity befel the Court. Cooke, the other member
for Middlesex, died, and Serjeant Glynn, as the champion of Wilkes, was
set up by the popular party for Middlesex. Cooke was Joint-Paymaster
with the younger Thomas Townshend, a friend of the Duke of Grafton,
who, to gratify Rigby with the whole employment, offered to make
Townshend one of the Vice-Treasurers of Ireland. Townshend refused it
with warmth, saying, he would not be turned backwards and forwards
every six months; and resigning, joined the Opposition.[119] On the
10th, Rigby kissed the King’s hand as Paymaster. He was succeeded as
Vice-Treasurer of Ireland by Lord Clare. Lord Hillsborough returned to
the Board of Trade, with the superintendence of the Colonies, in which
function his conduct will be long remembered.
The Bourbon Courts, who had not been able to persuade the Pope to
dissolve the Order of the Jesuits, proceeded to extremities. The King
of Naples seized Benevento; and France, possessing herself of Avignon,
declared it unalienable from the Crown, and with reason.[120] It was
not with the same foundation that she went on with hostilities against
Corsica. Monsieur Francis, their Secretary here, said that, if we asked
with the decency due to a great nation, France would tell us she did
not mean to retain the possession--if we menaced, Monsieur de Choiseul
would declare war. Their having no intention of keeping Corsica was
false; and it was believed afterwards, that if we had spoken in a
high tone, they would have desisted from the enterprise. The brave
resistance of the natives, if supported by us, would soon have put the
matter out of dispute. The French did not taste the project, nor could
Choiseul lead the King so easily into a war as he desired.[121]
On the 18th, sentence was pronounced on Wilkes. For the _North Briton_,
No. XLV., he was condemned to pay a fine of 500_l._ and to suffer
imprisonment for ten months. For the Essay on Woman, 500_l._ more, and
imprisonment for twelve months, to be computed from the expiration of
the first ten. He was to find security for his good behaviour for
seven years, himself being bound in 1000_l._, and two sureties in
500_l._ each. Rigorous as the sentence was, the Court had not dared to
enforce it with its usual severity;[122] the pillory was for the first
time omitted in a case of libel and blasphemy, and Wilkes triumphed by
this manifestation of their terror. Anet, a poor honest priest, had
been pilloried in this reign for writing against Moses. Some imputed
his prosecution to Archbishop Secker,[123] who charged it on Lord
Bute. Lord Bute denied it. Whoever was the prosecutor, Lord Mansfield
had willingly executed the inquisitorial power.
The night before the publication of Wilkes’s sentence, he dispersed
handbills to excite the mob to sedition; but so many late tumults had
so terrified the citizens that they took little notice of him, and
even were not averse to being protected by the Guards. After sentence,
he published a violent advertisement against Lord Halifax, and bound
himself never to accept place or pension. The paper which contained
that declaration was so eagerly bought up, that by eight in the
evening it was sold for half-a-crown. Lord Halifax stood in a worse
predicament: it depended on a jury to give Wilkes what damages they
should please against the Earl. No limits were set to them by law, nor
could King or Parliament remit the fine, as it instantly became the
property of the injured person. Faction might rate his injuries at a
hundred thousand pounds. It was computed that the expenses attending
the prosecution of Wilkes had already cost the Crown no less a sum.
The Bostonians were not more peaceable than the populace of London.
A ship arriving there, and the custom-house officers, according to
the direction of the late Act of Parliament, proceeding to visit
it, the mob rose, drove the officers out of the town, forced them
to take refuge in a frigate in the harbour, and pillaged their
houses. Two regiments were ordered thither, the Cabinet-Council
being unanimous in that opinion, except Lord Shelburne, who adhered
to his former principle, that England had no right to tax America,
unless represented. The Chancellor Camden excused his own change of
opinion, which, he said, had been only speculation; now an Act of the
Legislature had affirmed the right of taxation. Lord Bottetort, a very
courtier, who was ruined in his fortune, was sent Governor to Virginia,
where resided some of the ablest of the American patriots; yet in the
two years that he lived to govern them, his soothing flattering manners
had so wrought on the province, that his death was bewailed with the
most general and affectionate concern.