War between Russia and Turkey.--The King of France’s new
Mistress.--Death of the Duke of Newcastle.--Affairs of
Corsica.--Quarrel between the Duke of Grafton and Lord
Hertford.--Commencement of the Debate on Wilkes’s Case.--Ayliffe,
a Solicitor, sent to Prison by the Lords.--Dispute concerning
the Appearance of three Lords as Witnesses for Wilkes.--Riots
at the Middlesex Election.--Characters of James Townshend,
Sawbridge, and Colonel Onslow.--Publication of a Letter of Lord
Weymouth.--Resolution Passed by the Lords on American Affairs.--The
Cumberland Election.--Wilkes demands to be heard at the Bar of the
House of Lords.--Ridiculous Importance given to this Person.
1768.
It was at this period that advice came of the Grand Signor having
declared war against Russia, in consequence of the intrigues of the Duc
de Choiseul at the Porte. France and the Czarina had long been on ill
terms. She had thwarted the influence of that Court over the Northern
Crowns, and mutual haughtiness had begotten mutual hatred. Choiseul,
who, with the ambition of Richelieu, wanted his coolness and some of
his art,--and who, though greater than the Cardinal by disdaining
little revenge, thought great revenge spoke a great Minister, had
conjured up this tempest, and soon had cause to lament his own
work.[141] The arms of the Czarina, who had two hundred thousand of the
best disciplined troops in Europe, ample provision of military stores,
and a yearly saving of a fifth of her revenues, were not unlikely
to miscarry against an unwieldy shattered empire, sunk in sloth and
ignorance, and new to war from long disuse. It was not luxurious
Bachas, the sudden weeds which shoot up to power in a seraglio, that
Richelieu let loose on the Empire: it was Gustavus and his hardy
Swedes. The event in both cases was suitable to the concoction.
Catherine triumphed over the star of Choiseul, as Mr. Pitt had done.
Even the rocks of little Corsica for some time kept at bay the armies
of France. A still more contemptible enemy was undermining that
enterprising Minister. Old Marshal Richelieu, who had preserved none of
his faculties but that last talent of a decayed Frenchman--a spirit of
backstairs intrigue, had contrived to give to his master at near sixty,
what at twenty the King would not take from his recommendation,--a new
mistress. On the death of Madame de Pompadour, his Majesty had declared
that he was grown too old to expect love to his person, and therefore
would have no more a favourite sultana. But, as if men only declare
they know what is sensible in order to mark their folly in stronger
colours, he now ran headlong into an amour that every circumstance
attending it stamped with ridicule. The nymph was past twenty-six, and
her charms, which were not striking, had lost more than their bloom.
Nor had she ever risen to any distinction in her profession, but ranked
with those wretched women who are the sport of the loosest debauchees,
and the objects of the most casual amours. She had been entertained,
not for his own pleasure, but to draw to his house young travelling
Englishmen, by a Comte du Barry, who kept a gaming table, and who had
exercised the same laudable industry in taverns here. Mademoiselle
Lange was pitched upon by the Cabal of Choiseul’s enemies as the
instrument of their plot, and of his downfall. To dignify this Helen
with a title[142]--for Du Barry was a man of quality--his brother
was ordered to marry her; and the other, from having been a pimp to
Richelieu, ascended to be his associate in politics. Belle, first
valet-de-chambre to the King, and who exercised the same function for
his master as Du Barry for Richelieu, was prevailed on or bribed to
present the new Countess to the Monarch.
On the 17th of November died the Duke of Newcastle at the age of
seventy-five. He had had a stroke of palsy some months before; and
then, and not till then, had totally abandoned politics. His life
had been a proof that even in a free country great abilities are not
necessary to govern it. Industry, perseverance, and intrigue, gave
him that duration of power which shining talents and the favour of
the Crown could not secure to Lord Granville, nor the first rank in
eloquence and the most brilliant services to Lord Chatham. Adventitious
cunning repaired Newcastle’s folly, rashness overset Lord Granville’s
parts, and presumptuous impracticability Lord Chatham.
The same day Mr. Seymour moved for _all_ papers that had passed
between this Court and whatever other Power, relating to Corsica--a
proposal so absurd, that he was forced to correct and restrict it to
our correspondence with France on that subject: yet even thus it was
little tasted. Grenville himself supported the motion coldly, and
owned, that if he was pressed to decide, he should disapprove a war, if
Corsica alone were the object.[143] Burke said, many would subscribe
to the support of the Corsicans, if the Ministers would recall the
proclamation issued when Lord Bute was at the head of affairs, to
prohibit any aid being sent to those _rebels_--for so that unhappy
people had been denominated by another free island! The young Duke
of Devonshire, at that time at Florence, had given 400_l._, and with
the other English there had raised a sum of 2000_l._, and sent it to
Paoli.[144] But at home, the tone of monarchy prevailed in the senate.
The Tories retired or voted with the Court; and by ten at night, the
motion was rejected by 230 to 84--a day of fortunate omen to the
Court at the opening of Parliament, and equally propitious to the
Duc de Choiseul; but humiliating to this country, and fatal to the
Corsicans! It was telling France we did not dare to interfere with her
usurpations. Remarkable too it was, that the King seldom obtained a
Parliamentary triumph that did not disgrace his Crown.
Yet was this confirmation of his power on the point of being overset
by the moody and capricious temper of Grafton himself. The very next
day, as I was going through Pall-Mall, I met that Duke, driving rapidly
to St. James’s. As he passed my chariot, he threw himself almost out
of his own, with a countenance so inflamed with rage, that I thought
him distracted, as I knew of no offence I had given to him. In the
evening, going to inquire after the Queen, who lay in, Lady Hertford,
then in waiting to give answers to the company, ran up to me in the
utmost disorder of tears and consternation, and begged I would that
instant go to her lord, as she did not know what might happen between
him and her nephew. This was more and more mysterious to me; but,
after she had told me a few words on the subject, and I had prevailed
on her to compose herself a little in so public a place, I went to
Lord Hertford, and learned the whole story. Their son, Lord Beauchamp,
who was ambitious of establishing a great power in his family, both
by income and parliamentary interest, had by a favourable opportunity
secured, as he thought, the borough of Coventry, where the late Duke
of Grafton, Lady Hertford’s father, had had the principal weight. The
present Duke had beheld that progress with uneasiness, and was not
without jealousy of Lord Hertford’s favour with the King, and even of
his aspiring to the Treasury. A vacancy happening, the Duke had rudely
refused his interest (for the Crown has much influence there) to Lord
Hertford for a Mr. Nash, whom the latter supported against Sir Richard
Glynn; the Earl, who had one son already member there, declining, from
fear of envy, to set up another of his family. At the same time that he
asked the Duke of Grafton’s interest, he had solicited the Secretary at
War, Lord Barrington, Sir Edward Hawke, First Lord of the Admiralty,
and General Howard, Governor of Chelsea College, to influence some
soldiers and sailors, who had votes at Coventry, in favour of Mr. Nash.
Rigby had learned this detail from Mr. Bradshaw or Sir Richard Glynn,
who had purchased the interest of one Waring in that place, the latter
of whom had been ill-used by Lord Beauchamp, and had married a natural
daughter of Ranby the surgeon, one of the flatterers of Mrs. Haughton.
She and Rigby inflamed the Duke against Lord Hertford, representing
it as an attack on the Treasury, and had painted me as the adviser,
though no man living had so rooted an aversion to electioneering; nor
did I, till the quarrel broke out, know one syllable of the detail,
nor even who were the parties concerned. But what was my astonishment
when Lord Hertford told me, that that very morning, when I met the
Duke in his raging fever, he had gone to the King, and told him he
would resign! He had declared the same intention to Lord Granby, and
had sought the Chancellor to notify it to him likewise. From thence,
with unparalleled insolence, he had repaired to Lord Hertford, and
charged him with assuming the powers of the Minister. Lord Hertford
allowed he had been in the wrong in soliciting the interest of the
Crown, without his Grace’s approbation; but offered to repair all, by
releasing the votes he had obtained of that sort. No; this would not
satisfy. Sir Richard Glynn must also be satisfied; must declare he
did not think the Duke, who had promised him his interest, had broken
his word. So outrageous was the Duke’s behaviour, that Lady Hertford,
who was present, at last broke out, and told him, she would not hear
her husband thus injuriously treated by her nephew. Mr. Conway, too,
interposed; and the King writing a very obliging letter to the Earl,
reminding him of the fable of the bundle of sticks, and Lord Hertford
quitting all pretensions to the vacant seat, though with hearty
discontent on his part, and with greater reluctance on his son’s, a
plausible pacification ensued, and the wayward chief consented to
resume the reins. As I laughed at his frowardness, and had had no hand
in the measure, I took care not to be included in the treaty, though I
had advised the Earl not to push it to a rupture (which I needed not to
fear he would), as he had not been strictly regular in the formality
of proceeding. The story were not worth remembering, if it did not
exemplify the Duke’s touchy humour, which converted trifles into
tempests, and his Administration into a scene of private animosities.
This passion was no sooner subsided, than the Duke declared himself
candidate, to succeed the Duke of Newcastle as Chancellor of Cambridge,
and was chosen; Lord Hardwicke, who had had thoughts of canvassing for
it, withdrawing his pretensions.
The Opposition, in the meantime, was split into smaller factions.
Grenville had written a bulky pamphlet on the state of the nation, in
which he had kept no terms with the Rockingham party. They determined
to reply to it; and, as will be mentioned hereafter, hurt themselves
much more than Grenville had hurt them. The Duke of Richmond, who had
too much sense not to perceive the want of it in his friends, was sick
of their conduct; nor were they so blind as not to see how much they
had prejudiced their affairs by so total a proscription of Lord Bute
and his creatures,--an error they endeavoured to repair in their
answer to Grenville, but which they managed so awkwardly, by dropping
sight of him, and speaking but obscurely of his tools, that they made
no court to the King, left the Cabal equally offended, and yet scarce
marked out to the people any objects of unpopularity:[145] but the
Court was now so far from wanting their assistance, that the operations
of the private Cabal all tended to exclude their new allies from
entering too intimately into their secrets. Lord Harcourt’s embassy to
France had left open the post of Master of the Horse to the Queen. Lord
Delawar,[146] her Chamberlain, and a favourite, would not take it; on
which the Bedford faction asked it for Lord Waldegrave;[147] but the
King and Queen prevailed on the Duke of Beaufort[148] to accept it, who
was a converted Jacobite, and more fit for their purpose.
On the 23rd of November, report was made to the House on Wilkes’s case.
Beckford treated the last Parliament and its corruption in severe
terms. Sir Gilbert Elliot took this up with great warmth, and said it
was an instruction to the Committee of Privileges not to hear a former
Parliament abused. There was an instance, he said, upon the Journals,
of a member expelled for attacking a former Parliament. This doctrine
was received, as it deserved, with much indignation. Grenville said,
he would not abuse the last Parliament; but, to be sure, it had been
much given to rescinding its own acts. Barré commended it ironically
for submitting to let officers be cashiered for their parliamentary
conduct: they had, no doubt, been thought cowards!--(He had been one of
the dismissed.) Conway said, whoever had turned _him_ out, he forgave
them. The Ministers were glad to let Sir Gilbert’s assertion be passed
off, under a sort of acknowledgment that preceding Parliaments ought
to be mentioned with decency. Much was said on rescinding the vote
on privilege, and Chauncey Townshend promised to move for it. Barré
said, such a motion ought to come from the Treasury Bench, for the
sacrifice of privilege had passed against the opinion of the present
Chancellor (Camden); and, in the other House, the present head of the
Treasury (Grafton), and the present head of the Church (Cornwallis),
had strongly protested against it. The Ministers at last agreed that
Wilkes should be heard to his petition in person or by counsel; and
appointed the hearing three days before the approaching new election
for Middlesex.[149] Conway said it were better to let his petition lie
on the table without notice. Sir Joseph Mawbey, then mentioning Lord
Barrington’s letter of thanks to the 3rd Regiment of Guards, for the
execution in St. George’s Fields, as if they had conquered a foreign
enemy, his lordship, with that steady confidence with which he always
defended any particular servility in his conduct, said, he had not
regarded what had been said against him without doors, but now would
satisfy the House on what he had done. This vindication consisted in
avowing that _he_ had advised the King to thank the soldiers; _he_ had
added the postscript of his own accord; _he_ had promised the accused
soldier support; _he_ had supplied him with public money; _he_ had
protected and maintained him since--and, if any man would move for
his letter, _he_ would second it. Sir William Meredith did move for
his letter, and Lord Barrington seconded; but the Ministers’ tender
of _such conscious and modest innocence_, interposed; and though they
commended his alacrity in justifying himself, they declared, they
could not in prudence let the measures of Government be called thus
intemperately in question; and the Opposition, finding it vain to
contest, gave it up without a division.[150]
An Opposition so distracted and disunited, called for recruits--at
least, for something that might sound creditable in the ears of the
public, and keep up a spirit. Calcraft, who had the best head for
intrigue in the whole party, contrived a reconciliation between Lord
Temple and Lord Chatham, as a prelude to the re-appearance of the
latter; and Lady Chatham was made to say, that her lord had got an
efficacious fit of the gout, which was to imply that his head was quite
clear. Still this coalition in that family had no other effect than to
alarm the Bedfords, who, concluding, according to a prevailing notion
at that time, that nothing could withstand the union of the three
brothers, and forgetting how lately they had deserted Grenville, or
rather, remembering it with fear, thought the best method of securing
themselves was to add another treachery, and betray the Duke of
Grafton. On this they determined in a meeting at Rigby’s, and sent to
offer themselves to Grenville--and were, as they deserved, rejected.
Calcraft’s next step was to try, through me, to connect Mr. Conway
with the Grenvilles. Nothing was farther from my wishes than to see
Grenville restored. However, having so lately experienced how intent
Rigby was to sow division between the Duke of Grafton and his old
friends, and how easily that could be effected, I was not sorry to
keep on fair terms with the Grenvilles, in order to widen the breach
between them and the Bedfords; and with that view I received Calcraft’s
overtures with ready civility, while my inclination was to re-unite
Conway and his old allies--but, in truth, all the several factions were
so indifferent to me, that I entered heartily into the views of none,
nor ever intended more to enlist with any.
On the 28th, Sir Joseph Mawbey moved, at the request of Wilkes, that
the Lords should be desired to allow Lord Temple to appear in the House
of Commons as a necessary witness for him. This was easily granted;
but though this was all that was notified, the House had no sooner
consented, than Mawbey demanded the same leave to be asked for Lord
Sandwich and Lord March, whom Wilkes desired to examine. The step
was singularly artful, nor could the House make a distinction, when
it had complied on Lord Temple.[151] The hope of Wilkes was, either
that the House of Lords would refuse to let the three lords attend the
summons, or that the two latter lords themselves, who must see to what
an insolent scrutiny they would be exposed, would refuse to appear;
and thence a breach might happen between the two Houses. But a new
House of Commons, so recently chosen, and at such enormous expense to
great part of the Members, was not likely to quarrel on punctilios,
and hazard a dissolution. Besides the three lords, Wilkes desired to
summon the Solicitor-General Dunning, Hopkins, a friend of the Duke
of Grafton,[152] a common barber, and some other persons. Mawbey also
moved for an account of all moneys issued from the Treasury to Carteret
Webbe their solicitor, to carry on prosecutions; but this the Ministers
would not assent to. Grenville said, that everybody must be sensible,
that in his situation, he could not object to the demand--but then,
and in all his conduct, he marked how strongly his sentiments went
with the Administration, though his rage at being out of place carried
him against them. To have lost his power, and to be driven to abet
Wilkes--it was a Dominican friar, reduced to fling open the gates of
the Inquisition. Rigby happened not to come into the House till the
votes had passed for Lord Temple and Lord Sandwich: he did oppose that
for Lord March, but in vain.
If the Lords Sandwich and March were apprehensive of the torture which
Wilkes meditated for them, there were two other men no less embarrassed
at their own situation; these were the Duke of Grafton and the
Chancellor. The part each took was consonant to his character: Grafton
dashed into violence against his former principles; Lord Camden leaned
to popularity. The first declared he would be guided by Lord North, his
Chancellor of the Exchequer and Minister of the House of Commons, who
offered to carry on the war vigorously against Wilkes, contrary to the
sentiments of Mr. Conway. This last was consulted by the Chancellor,
and both agreed in recommending moderation. An opportunity was soon
given to the Chancellor of avowing his opinion, which he did, as the
Court thought, even with hostile intentions. During the tumults at the
end of the last session, one Hesse, a justice of peace, had taken up a
rioter eight days before the Houses rose, and by different accidents
had been prevented from carrying his prisoner before the Lords, and
then dismissed him. Hesse was then sued for false imprisonment; and
one Ayliffe, a solicitor, notified the prosecution to the Solicitor
of the Treasury. The Treasury supported the justice; and just before
the remeeting of Parliament, Ayliffe had offered to compound the suit,
which the justice refused. The Earl of Egmont complained to the Lords
of that prosecution as a breach of privilege, and made a warm and able
speech against riots, and on the licentiousness of the people. The
Government, he said, was at the eve of destruction. He had found that
no man would set his face against the evil, and therefore he would,
though he might be stoned as he returned to his own house. He professed
he was of no party, nor attached to any: he saw that all was faction.
The people were destroying themselves by their own licentious conduct.
The Lords alone could save the country; their _dictatorial power_ could
and had authority to do it. The Lex and Consuetudo Parliamenti was on
their side, of which he quoted precedents from the time of Richard
the Second. He said he would move four resolutions, and then call
witnesses to prove his assertions. The first resolution was, that no
inferior court could meddle in any case that was before the House of
Lords. This was assented to with applause and unanimity. The second
went farther in the same sense. Lord Mansfield highly approved Lord
Egmont’s intentions, but thought his second resolution went too far,
and might involve them in difficulties and want explanations; and he
held that the first resolution was sufficient. Lord Egmont said he
had done his duty, and would leave what he had thrown out with the
House. On this the first resolution alone passed--but not without
Lord Lyttelton’s censuring the high-flown expression of _dictatorial
power_. This the other explained and softened. The Chancellor was
displeased with the whole proceeding, and thought the prosecution of
the justice a mere case of common law. The offenders, Ayliffe and
Biggs the rioter, were then examined. The latter proved to be a tool
of Wilkes, under direction not to answer; yet from ignorance he was
brought to answer enough that was censurable. Ayliffe, though far more
artful, prevaricated so shamefully, that it was moved to commit him to
Newgate. The Chancellor tried to explain that the case did not relate
to the Lords, and proposed only to reprimand Ayliffe; but the Duke of
Grafton firmly resisting, and the Chancellor dividing the House, had
only four other lords of his opinion,--Lord Lyttelton, Lord Rockingham,
Lord Abingdon, and Lord Milton, against fifty-one; so Ayliffe was
committed to prison, and Biggs, as a low creature, reprimanded; which
reprimand was pronounced by the Chancellor, with this mark, “As the
Lords have _now_ declared this a breach of privilege,” &c. Lord
Temple was not present, though it had been expected that the demand
for the three lords would be discussed; but instead of showing any
desire to obey the summons of Wilkes, he declared he should go into
the country till after Christmas. This was regarded as an intimation
that he had no longer any connection with Wilkes. When the House of
Commons sent to make the demand, the Lords replied they would send
an answer by their own messengers; and though the demand was made on
the first of December, they put off the consideration to the fifth.
At the same time the ministerial party in the Commons, on pretence
that Carteret Webbe wanted more time, and that Jenkinson was ill in
his bed, put off the appearance of Wilkes to the twelfth. On that the
Lords determined to adjourn their committee on that business _sine
die_, and to send no answer, having found no precedent on the journals
for sending the three lords. On the contrary, usage bore that Wilkes
should have applied first to the three lords themselves, who might
have gone voluntarily before the Commons, as the Earls of Westmoreland
and Morton had done in the last reign--or if the three lords had
refused to appear, the Commons then might have sent to demand them,
which probably would have been refused. When Lord Somers had appeared
before the Commons, and an extravagant question had been put to him,
he said he hoped nobody thought him absurd enough to answer such a
question, put on his hat and walked out. Lord Sandwich told the Lords
that as an individual he was ready to appear before the other House,
but desired their Lordships to consider that he had been Secretary of
State in the heat of Wilkes’s affair, and that he should not answer to
any improper question. Sir Joseph Mawbey[153] moved to have the Lords
requested to send the three lords on the day appointed for Wilkes’s
appearance; but this was rejected. The next day (the 6th) he moved to
demand the three lords that they might give an account of what they
knew of a subornation of perjury procured by public money, meaning
the transactions of Webbe and Kidgel against Wilkes. Grenville said,
he would answer that one of the three (Lord Temple) would not appear
willingly against him, his brother, nor could he have known anything
of the disposal of public money. On this Lord Temple’s appearance was
waived. This motion was renewed the next day for the two others and
sent to the Lords. The Peers flamed at a charge for subornation of
perjury against two of their members. Lord Marchmont took it up with
most warmth. Lord Sandwich said, he defied the aspersion, desired to
be sifted, knew he had been called Jemmy Twitcher, and had despised
it; but this charge was too offensive to be borne. The Lords demanded
an instant conference. The Commons replied, they had sent them four
different messages that day; they desired to know on which they
demanded a conference? That being explained, they met, when the Lords
made their complaint. The Commons put off the consideration to the
next day, when, to show disrespect by delay, Beckford moved for all
patent papers relative to America, which, though rejected by 122 to 77,
detained the House so late that they could not enter on the business of
the conference.
With regard to America, a Council was held on the 6th, at which the
Duke of Grafton produced a plan for resettling it. Conway found it very
hazardous and objected to it. The Duke was wroth, said he had drawn
it himself, and had not slept for thinking of it. He had, he owned,
communicated it to Dyson--and then foolishly produced a letter which
showed that he had sent his plan to Dyson, who had rejected it, and
given him the other. Conway would not bend, but said, as long as he
came to Council he would speak his opinion freely; and the Chancellor
justified his conduct.
The Commons determined to be firm in their answer to the lords; to
deny that they meant to charge the two lords as guilty of subornation
of perjury, for then they must have accused them directly; but to
assert their right of demanding their appearance; and a Committee was
appointed to draw up this answer. Rigby told them, that, if desired
privately, both Sandwich and March would be ready to come before them;
but the House would not commission any private man to make the request.
On the contrary, on the morrow the committee drew up a resolute answer;
but the Court, dreading a rupture of the two Houses, secretly prevailed
on the Lords to acquiesce and be content with the answer. The two Earls
offered to go before the Commons; and their House allowed them.[154]
On the 8th of December came on, at Brentford, the poll for electing
a knight of the shire for Middlesex, in the room of Mr. Cooke, who
had died since his election. The Court again set up Sir William
Beauchamp Proctor. Wilkes recommended his counsel, Serjeant Glynn,
a man of unexceptionable character. Till past two in the afternoon
everything was quiet; but then arose an outrageous tumult, begun, as
was generally believed, by Sir William’s mob, who had been intended
only for defence. Whichever side was the aggressor, an almost general
engagement ensued, in which, though a man was killed on Glynn’s side,
his faction was victorious. They knocked down several that presented
themselves to vote, seized the books of the poll, and drove away the
sheriffs. The House of Commons was hearing the contested election
for Cumberland (of which more hereafter) when at nine at night James
Townshend and Sawbridge arrived from Brentford in their boots, and
gave an inflammatory account of the riot. They were followed by the
sheriffs, who, at Calcraft’s instigation, came and demanded how they
were to proceed. Artfully as this interlude was conceived, the House
behaved with prudence and temper, avoiding to enter into any party
consideration, nor inquiring which side had given the provocation. On
the contrary, they only ordered the sheriffs to proceed to the election
the next morning,[155] and, if impeded, to apply to the House. All the
books of the poll, except one, it was thought would be recovered.
James Townshend and Sawbridge becoming considerable actors in the
scenes that followed, it is necessary to give some brief account of
them. The father[156] of the former had been all his life attached to
the Court. The son, inheriting an easy fortune from a relation, and
being of a fiery constitution, and not void of parts, had entered into
the politics and following of the Earl of Shelburne, and had a mind
assorted to violent and determined counsels. Sawbridge was brother of
the celebrated historian, Mrs. Macaulay. He had quitted the army on
marrying a lady[157] of large fortune. Independence and his sister’s
republicanism had thrown him into enthusiastic attachment to liberty.
His soul was all integrity, and his private virtues all great and
amiable. His capacity, though not deficient, was not bright, nor his
eloquence adapted to popularity. Consequently he was more respected in
his party than followed, his honesty restraining the dictates of his
zeal, and his bigotry being founded on principle, not on doctrines and
creeds.[158]
A man differently constituted began now to distinguish himself on
the other side. This was Colonel George Onslow, nephew, of the late
Speaker. He had been known as one of those burlesque orators who
are favoured in all public assemblies, and to whom one or two happy
sallies of impudence secure a constant attention, though their voice
and manner are often their only patents, and who, by being laughed at
for absurdity as frequently as for humour, obtain a licence for saying
what they please. This man, who was short, round, quick, successful
in jokes, and of a bold and resolute nature, had gone warmly into
Opposition with Lord Rockingham and the old Whigs; but now with his
cousin, the elder George Onslow, had enlisted under the Duke of
Grafton, and followed the banners of the Court; incensed particularly
at Wilkes for exposing the correspondence of his cousin, lately one of
Wilkes’s passionate admirers. The Colonel seeing a man in the street
pasting up a speech of Oliver Cromwell, ordering the people to pull the
members out of the House, Onslow seized the fellow in spite of the
mob, and complained of him to the House. This act was applauded, and
the prisoner ordered to attend. He accused a milkman of having incited
him, and the latter was committed to Newgate.[159] An exploit of
greater rashness and much more memorable consequence, about two years
afterwards, will confirm what I have said of this Colonel.[160]
Ayliffe, the other state-prisoner, petitioned for release. Lord
Sandwich proposed he should be enlarged, provided he would inform
against others of his accomplices. This inquisitorial measure was
treated severely, as it deserved, by the Duke of Richmond--and Ayliffe
was discharged. At the same time Wilkes brought three writs of error
into the House of Lords, on Lord Mansfield’s alteration of the Record,
and on the double punishment of imprisonment for ten months and twelve
months inflicted on him for the “Essay on Woman,” and the _North
Briton_.
On the 10th, the books of the poll being recovered, the House of
Commons ordered the sheriffs to examine them, and then to renew the
poll on the 14th. Rigby moved to put off the appearance of Wilkes to
the 17th, Jenkinson, a material witness for Carteret Webbe, having had
a relapse. Sir Edward Deering[161] said angrily, he saw nothing was
meant but delay--why did not the Ministers put it off at once?--and
then himself moved in scorn to adjourn that appearance till January the
27th. The Ministers gladly caught at the offer, and it passed.
A letter of Lord Weymouth previous to the murder of Allen in St.
George’s Fields, and couched in imprudent terms,[162] had been
printed in the _St. James’s Chronicle_. Lord Pomfret was desirous of
complaining of it, but the Duke of Grafton insisted on making the
complaint himself, and did with extraordinary heat, and the Lords
ordered Baldwin the printer to be taken up. The letter had been
accompanied by a very daring comment. Baldwin at the bar of the Lords
said, he had received the papers from one Swan a printer, who appeared
likewise. He was a plain honest man; confessed he had been alarmed at
the seizure of Baldwin, yet had been determined to sacrifice himself,
his wife, and children, rather than betray any man. He had therefore
applied to Mr. Wilkes, to whom he had gone three times a-week for
letters to be printed in the newspapers, and had asked him what he
should do? Mr. Wilkes had answered, “Declare you received all those
papers from me.” This hardiness threw the Lords into a rage; but the
Duke of Grafton, checked by Wilkes’s boldness, proposed to defer the
consideration till the morrow. The Duke of Bolton professed to detest
Wilkes, and wondered their Lordships could hesitate a moment; but the
Minister, perceiving the new difficulty into which he had plunged,
Wilkes being as yet a member of the other House, and willing to take
advice, persisted in deferring the consideration.
On the 14th, Serjeant Glynn was returned for Middlesex by a majority of
264 votes; but though the City and the Strand were illuminated on that
occasion, Wilkes, to prevent complaints and to display his authority,
had issued such strict orders to his partisans, that not a man appeared
in the streets--such was his influence even from his prison!
The Lords then passed six or seven resolutions on American affairs;
of which the only strong one was, to address the Crown to prosecute
in England all who had been engaged in treasonable practices in
the Colonies. Lord Temple, who had not appeared till then during
the session, said, all this was doing nothing, and went away. Lord
Shelburne professed himself an American, but declared he would wait for
a better opportunity of speaking his thoughts. The Duke of Richmond
called on the Ministers to acquaint the House with what sums had been
received from the new duties. The Duke of Grafton answered, Nothing
had been received, for the Commissioners had been imprisoned by the
mob: but he would go farther; he believed nothing had been received
from any part of America;--but another of the Ministers, more prudent,
interrupted him, and said, the Duke of Richmond’s question was nothing
to the point before them. The resolutions passed.
The other House had been engaged in hearing the contested election for
Cumberland, which, under the names of the candidates, comprehended the
great rivalship between the Duke of Portland and Sir James Lowther.
The Duke was a proud, though bashful, man, but of an unexceptionable
character, which was illuminated by the hard measure he had so recently
received from the Treasury, who had wrested an estate from him in
favour of Sir James for the purposes of this very election. To the
unpopularity of being son-in-law of the Favourite, Sir James united
many odious arbitrary qualities, and was equally unamiable in public
and private.[163] The countenance of the Crown itself could not serve
him against these prejudices. Even in _that_ House of Commons he lost
his cause by 247 to 95, the Scots, the Princess’s Cabal, and a few
more, alone supporting him. The Duke of Grafton, affecting candour to
repair the injury he had done to the Duke of Portland, took no part
till the two last days, and then, though acting zeal for Sir James,
sent only the two Secretaries of the Treasury to his assistance.
The Bedfords, resenting the disappointment of Lord Waldegrave by the
promotion of the Duke of Beaufort, deserted Sir James Lowther, though
professing to wish well to his cause, some of them staying away, others
voting against him in compliment to Lord Weymouth, who had married the
Duke of Portland’s sister; and Lord George Sackville, who had hung so
long on Lord Bute to no purpose, spoke strongly against Sir James, to
show his discontent; on which Sir James said to him, “My lord, you
ought to have remembered that you have been on your trial too:”--nor
was Sir James satisfied with this rebuke, as will be seen hereafter.
Baldwin, the printer, being the same day discharged and reprimanded
by the Lords, and the Chancellor, in delivering their reproof, having
distinguished between the liberty and the licentiousness of the press,
Lord Sandwich moved the House to desire him to print his reprimand,
which the other felt as it was meant.
Wilkes demanded to be heard at the bar of the Lords, to justify his
writings. They dreaded his appearance; and to shift it off from
themselves, desired a conference with the Commons, in which they
communicated a vote they had passed, in which they pronounced the
censure on Lord Weymouth’s letter an infamous and scandalous libel,
and desired the Commons to agree with them. To this they added the
evidence. Lord North, at his return from the conference, moved to
concur with the Lords; but Grenville said, they must first hear the
evidence. Seymour and others reflected on Lord Weymouth’s letter; and
Macleane, a creature of Shelburne, said, if Wilkes’s preface to the
letter was conceived in gall, the letter itself was written in blood.
It was determined to hear the evidence on the 19th, and Wilkes himself
on the 20th. Wilkes, no ways intimidated, spread handbills, in which he
avowed the publication both of Lord Barrington’s and Lord Weymouth’s
letters. Lord North, at a previous meeting of the chief members of the
House, had almost pledged himself to go into the examination of Wilkes;
but Conway pleaded for moderation, and told them he meant to propose
to send back to the Lords to leave him to the law. It was agreed Mr.
Conway should throw this out, and see how it was tasted. But the
Ministers again changed their minds (probably, by orders from Court),
and resolved to go into the examination after the holidays. James
Townshend, Phipps, and Lord John Cavendish proposed to do nothing,
which Conway approved; but others, desirous of hearing the evidence,
brought it on, heard it, and then moved to hear Wilkes’s defence on the
27th, which was agreed to.
Wilkes, on the same day, humbly petitioned the Lords to allow him to
be present on the 21st, at the hearing of his writs of error, and
produced a precedent for it in 1764. The Chancellor said the cases were
not parallel, the precedent regarding an appeal, not a writ of error,
and that it would not be allowed in the courts below; yet he proposed
to search the journals for a precedent, and, as there was none, this
would have been the least exceptionable manner of denying his request;
but the warmer Lords calling out, “Reject! reject!” the petition was
rejected, and Wilkes was left to complain of a new hardship.
The Duke of Grafton, growing alarmed at finding that he had driven
from himself every friend, and rested only on the Bedfords, cast
about for reunion with Lord Hertford and his brother; and to raise
their jealousy, told the former that Lord North was uneasy at his
situation, and he apprehended would resign, Mr. Conway not supporting
him; in which case, the power of the House of Commons must fall to Mr.
Grenville, as Mr. Conway would not undertake it; and the only other
person fit for it, Sir Gilbert Elliot, being too obnoxious as a Scot.
Lord Hertford told him frankly that though Mr. Conway had supported
Lord North, his Grace must remember how he himself had used the family;
that Mr. Conway had adhered to his Grace against the Rockinghams, had
consented to stay in the Cabinet for his sake; and yet, so far from
being trusted or consulted, was never admitted within his Grace’s door.
The Duke professed how glad he always was of seeing Conway--and there
the re-union rested, till the Duke had new complaints to make of others.
On the 21st, Wilkes petitioned the Lords to put off the hearing his
writs of error; as Serjeant Glynn, his counsel, was confined with
the gout, having once only (on his election) been brought down to
the House of Commons. That impetuous and unfeeling man, the Earl of
Marchmont, proposed to name counsel for him, and hear him directly;
but the Chancellor, objecting to such violence, and applauding Glynn
for defending Wilkes _since his misfortunes_,[164] the Lords adjourned
the hearing till after the holidays. Both Houses then adjourned; and
Wilkes terminated the year by declaring himself candidate for the ward
of Farringdon Without, whose alderman, Sir Francis Gosling, was just
dead.[165]
I have been as brief as possible on the several stages of Wilkes’s
history, detailed in so many publications; yet the subject must be
tedious to future readers not interested in so ridiculous a war. Yet,
were the steps omitted, who could conceive how the affairs of a great
nation could stand still, while all the attention of the nation and
of the public hung on such a motley character? He was dignified by
the asperity of the Court; but not the vengeance of the Princess, the
connivance--nay, and passion[166] of the King, or the rancour of the
Scotch, could raise his importance so high, as to excuse or palliate
their employing their thoughts, time, and power, to crush a personage
that was fitter to be the merry Andrew than the martyr of one of the
most formidable Courts in Europe.