MIDDLESEX ELECTIONS, 1768-9.
Within a month of his return died George Cooke, the Tory colleague
of Wilkes in the representation of Middlesex, who had sat from 1750;
he was prothonotary of the Court of Common Pleas, one of the joint
paymasters of the forces, and colonel of the Middlesex Militia.
Consequent on his decease a seat for the county was to be contested
in December, 1768, and the public were indulged with another exciting
struggle at the Brentford hustings. The candidates were John Glynn, the
friend and advocate of Wilkes, and Sir William Beauchamp Proctor, the
candidate defeated in the previous election. The superheated state of
popular feeling had not had time to cool down; moreover, Wilkes, the
chosen of the electors, was a prisoner. Both parties on this occasion
seem to have resorted to terrorism; mutual recriminations as to the
hiring of ruffians and bludgeon-men were made during the inquiries into
the disturbances which ensued. A view of the situation, “Scene at the
Brentford Hustings,” 1768, exhibits the violent and brutal behaviour
of mercenaries in the pay of Proctor’s faction--chiefly reckless
bullies, according to the engraving of the Brentford election. Females
are beaten causelessly; a fruit-stall is wrecked, and a respectably
attired person is taking advantage of the confusion to help himself
from the stock, whilst the proprietress is wantonly beaten with a
heavy cudgel; the legion of bludgeons is enlisted in the cause
of “Liberty and Proctor;” a hero whose head is shaven, and who is
evidently a professional pugilist of the Figg and Broughton type, is
made to exclaim, “For a guinea a day; damn Glynn and all his friends.”
Other beaters--chairmen, linkmen, and the like--are driving all before
them, and carrying the hustings by assault, demanding, “Bring down
the poll-book--Proctor shall be the man.” The scattered remnants of
a rival mob are retiring; one of these is exclaiming, “D---- ye, you
dogs--we’ll match you all presently.”
[Illustration: THE HUSTINGS AT BRENTFORD, MIDDLESEX ELECTION, 1768.
SERJEANT GLYNN AND SIR W. BEAUCHAMP PROCTOR.
[_Page 178._]
The _Oxford Magazine_ (vol. i.) has printed the correspondence which
ensued upon the disgraceful violence and the attack on the hustings,
in which several persons were injured and at least one fatally. The
candidate ultimately returned, John Glynn, began by addressing a
“Letter to the Freeholders of Middlesex,” pledging himself that the
blood of his constituents so wantonly shed should be vindicated, and
the charge brought home both to the hired and the hirers--“the more
exalted their stations and the more privileged their persons, the
louder is the call for justice.” The serjeant continues, “The freedom
of a county election is the last sacred privilege we have left; and
it does not become any honest Englishman to wish to survive it. There
is virtue still left in the country; we are come to a crisis, and the
consequence of this struggle shall determine whether we shall be Slaves
or Free.”
Following suit, Sir W. Beauchamp Proctor also addressed a letter to the
freeholders of Middlesex, rebutting the charges made against him. After
referring to twenty years, during which, by fair and honourable means,
he had endeavoured to obtain their esteem,--
“Calumniated as I have been during a long-depending canvass,
I was in hopes that every topic of defamation had been
exhausted; and I never expected that the daring and tumultuous
interruption of last Tuesday’s poll would have been ascribed to
me in so illiberal and inflammatory a style as my antagonist
has thought proper to use. For his conduct in the course of
this business the serjeant appeals to me, and I appeal to the
sense of mankind, whether a _band of writers_ has not been
let loose to be the _assassins of my reputation_? whether the
serjeant has not, in a manner unworthy of a gentleman and a
lawyer, exerted every effort to set up _usage_ in opposition to
the law of the land, and endeavoured in a dictatorial manner
to compel the sheriffs to close the poll in one day, to the
prejudice of the electors, and in violation of the authority
vested in the returning officers, by the wisdom of the
legislature.”
Proctor declared that he was not only struck by “the banditti,” but in
the utmost peril of his life.
“If a signal was given,--if _Proctor and Liberty_ appeared in
the hats of the ruffians, how that might be contrived by the
election arts of my adversaries need not now be mentioned. It
was the opinion of my counsel, when a riot was artfully talked
of by my opponents, _above an hour_ before it happened, that
the sheriffs in that case should resort immediately to the
protection of parliament.” Finally, he expressed hopes “to
bring this dark transaction into open daylight, and to show the
world who has been the man of blood;” moreover, the writer “has
full confidence that on the last day of the poll lawless men
will not again dare to invade the rights of the freeholders.”
The disavowal, which “doth protest too much” as published by Proctor,
goaded the virtuous indignation of the friends of freedom up to fever
heat, and acted like a red rag on an infuriated bull in the instance
of John Horne (Tooke), “the Brentford parson;” he addressed a scathing
philippic to Proctor, declaring that Sir William’s refutations
“subscribed his own guilt, and that the Court candidate had signed his
name to a lie:”--
“I here declare in form, that you, Sir William Beauchamp
Proctor, did both hire and cause to be hired, that mob
which committed the outrages at Brentford; that mob, which
immediately after the total interruption of the poll, demanded
which was the house that belonged to the parson of Brentford;
and to whose fury a neighbouring clergyman, who heard them ask
after my house, was apprehensive of falling a sacrifice, by the
mistake of a person who called himself by my name. Boast of
your humanity, Sir William, to Captain Read; that gentleman,
to save his own life, declared himself your friend. Persuade
Mr. Allen they were not your mob; that gentleman brought you to
the side of the hustings where they were, and heard them answer
to his question, and to your face, that you, Sir W. Beauchamp
Proctor, were the person that gave them orders for what they
were about.”
As to the “band of writers,” Parson Horne frankly avowed himself the
author of most of the letters that appeared against Proctor in the
papers, and concluded with a stinging reference to those “new-fashioned
constables,” as Sir John Fielding termed the hireling bullies.
“Where you endeavour to justify your proceedings by the usage
of all contested popular elections, and where you affect
to consider your hired ruffians, the Irish chairmen, as
‘assistants to the civil magistrates.’ The business of the
approaching poll prevents my saying half what I have to tell
you; but I promise you, you shall hear from me again and again,
if you will please to issue out your orders to your ruffians to
grant me a _Reprieve_ till after the election.”
The main features of this ill-advised attack, which, it was believed,
was intended to put an end to the election should the polling prove
adverse to the party in whose pay the hired mob acted, are given in the
_Oxford Magazine_:--
“Thursday, Dec. 8, 1768. This day being appointed for the
Middlesex election, the candidates appeared on the hustings
at ten minutes before nine. Notwithstanding this, the opening
of the poll was delayed till near eleven. One of the narrow
avenues leading to Brentford butts was occupied very early
by a hired mob, with bludgeons, bearing favours in their
hats, inscribed, ‘Proctor and Liberty.’ A much larger, but
very compact body, armed as the former, and with the same
distinctions, were placed near the hustings, on an eminence,
and in a disposition which was evidently the arrangement of an
experienced sergeant. The rest of these banditti were stationed
in different quarters of the town, to strike a general terror
into the honest part of the freeholders; there was besides a
‘corps de reserve’ which was to sally forth on a signal given.
“When these dispositions were secured, a chosen party of
butchers, in the same interest, traversed the town, and
insulted the hustings with marrow-bones and cleavers. When Sir
William Beauchamp Proctor’s numbers were nearly exhausted, and
the course of the Poll declared decisively for Mr. Serjeant
Glynn, who had still great multitudes unpolled, the signal
was given. An instantaneous and furious, but regular attack,
was made on the hustings. The sheriffs, the candidates (Glynn
declares himself as having been the last to depart), the
clerks, and the poll-books, all vanished in a moment.
“The whole town was presently a scene of blood. It was not
enough to knock down an unhappy man; the blow was followed till
he was utterly disabled. Those who have been exposed to riots
declare they never saw such cruelty. All doors and windows were
barricaded. There was no shelter, nothing was safe; nor can
anything equal the consternation of the frightened people but
the abhorrence and execration with which every tongue repeats
the name of Proctor.
“It appears from every account of the above proceedings, that
the people who began the riot there were the friends of the
court candidate; and, in particular, it is affirmed that when
the Irish chairmen, and the professed bruisers at their head,
had proceeded so far in their cruel and villainous intention of
murdering and wounding the people, that the gentlemen upon the
hustings began to be in danger of their lives,--one gentleman
went up to the court candidate, and expostulated with him on
the base conduct of _his mob_. ‘My mob!’ replied the courtier.
‘Yes, sir, _your mob_!’ and the gentleman added, ‘Sir, I insist
upon your speaking to those fellows who are knocking down the
people there.’ But the courtier refused to say anything to
appease their fury; upon which the gentleman who had spoken
to him, finding himself in danger of his life, seized him by
the greatcoat, and showed his star to the armed ruffians,
who instantly took off their hats and huzza’d him; while the
ruffians were thus huzzaing, the gentleman escaped.”
When the mob had cleared the hustings, they went into the town
of Brentford, and attacked the Castle Inn, which was one of the
candidate’s houses of entertainment, and did considerable damage to it.
The inhabitants of the town, observing this mischief, and beginning to
fear their own houses would next be destroyed,--
“a general indignation took place: they sallied forth, attacked
the rioters with great spirit, and drove them out of the town;
and some of the voters vented their rage upon one or two of the
houses opened for the other candidate. A number of persons with
Proctor’s cockades in their hats assembled about ‘The Angel
Inn’ at Islington in a riotous manner, armed with bludgeons.”
These well-paid hirelings were the worse for their potations, and, with
the ringleader, were taken into custody.
It seems to have been a generally recognized stratagem imported into
election tactics, where, as in war, nothing was considered “unfair,” to
get freeholders locked up on some fictitious pretence, such as false
writs, actions, summonses, or impounded as witnesses at trials, etc.;
where the principal never appeared, and the hearing never came on,
while the victims “to error” were detained in durance until after the
poll was finished. On the occasion under consideration, it appeared
that a number of freeholders were particularly summoned as jurymen,
to prevent their voting for the popular candidate; this manœuvre was
defeated, as concerned the Old Bailey, where the lord mayor, Turner,
behaved in a truly patriotic manner.
“When the jury was called, his Lordship asked them, upon their
honour, if any of them were freeholders of Middlesex; it
appeared that about eighteen of them were so (specially called
in order that their votes might be lost), on which his Lordship
immediately dismissed them, that they might not be hindered
from discharging their duty at Brentford.”
“Richard Dingham maketh oath that ‘the morning after the
meeting of Sir William Beauchamp Proctor, at St. Giles’s, he
saw four link-lighters named Welch, Hinton, Brady, and Quinn,
disputing about some money they had received from Sir William,
and they said that they had signed an agreement to go down,
with several others, to Brentford on the day of Election to
head a mob, and to put an end to the said Election, when they
should receive orders, etc.’”
In the interval, and during the progress of the election, several men
were committed to prison, including a chairman recognized as having
acted as a leader, who was known as the “Infant,” being, in fact, a
Hercules over six feet high; the true facts of the case came out upon
examination, and, before the close of the poll, four affidavits were
published in the papers, the tenour of which went to prove criminal
complicity.
“Atkinson Bush maketh oath that he was at Brentford on the day
of the election, and seeing a large body of men with labels in
their hats, whereon was written, ‘Proctor and Liberty,’ this
deponent asked them whether they were all voters for Proctor?
upon which they declared they had no votes, but had in their
hands what was as good, and showed him their bludgeons; and
being asked who they supposed would get the election, they
replied Proctor, swearing, if Glynn got the advantage, ‘By
G----, we will have his blood!”
Broughton, the notorious pugilist, happened to find congenial
occupation, having been selected as a temporary generalissimo of the
forces, with special recruiting powers as to the enlistment of his
desperadoes.
“William Wheeler, Joyce, Davis, and other chairmen made oath
that they, with about forty of their order, were engaged
by Broughton, on the promise of a guinea a day each, for
the like purpose of putting an end to the election when the
signal should be given, and, according to the account of the
deponents, all the parties mentioned appeared at Brentford.”
On the next day (December 14), the poll for the election of a knight of
the shire for the county of Middlesex was peacefully concluded in the
presence of the sheriffs and the justices of the peace of the county,
attended by the constables to suppress any further demonstrations.
At the close, the numbers stood, for Serjeant Glynn, 1542; Sir W. B.
Proctor, 1278. It was said, “that the number polled on this occasion
exceeded by forty-two the greatest number ever known to poll at any
previous election.”
The contest had been an expensive one; it was declared that Proctor
and his party had been canvassing for six months; and, as an instance
of the cost attending the election of a knight of the shire, it is
set down as worthy of remark that the ribbons for hats alone, _i.e._
“favours,” to distinguish Glynn’s friends, cost four hundred pounds;
the outlay of the Court candidate must have been excessively heavy.
“The populace in general, and the people of Brentford in
particular, were very desirous to chair Mr. Serjeant Glynn
after the sheriffs had declared his election; but he very
politely entreated them to decline it, which, after much
solicitation, they complied with.”
In the letter of acknowledgment addressed to his supporters in the
county of Middlesex, the serjeant declares--
“As my private advantage and honour were by no means the
motives of your exertions in my behalf, so neither shall
they be the objects of my actions. I consider the choice
you have made of me for your representative as the most
authentic declaration of your abhorrence of those arbitrary
and oppressive measures which have too long disgraced the
administration of these kingdoms, and which, if pursued, cannot
fail to destroy our most excellent constitution.
“I hope that your example will lead other counties also to
assert their independence, and that the sacred flame of
liberty, which always ascends, will reach at length the higher
orders of this nation, and warm them likewise to a disdain of
offering or accepting the wages of corruption.”
John Horne Tooke was only second to the successful candidate in the
eulogiums showered on his name and conduct at this emergency. A
portrait of “the parson of Brentford” was published, representing him
in his clerical guise, at full length, seated in his study at a table,
with his right arm resting on his “Treatise on Enclosing Commons,
addressed to Sir Jno. Gibbins,” an essay which brought him an unusually
handsome acknowledgment; in his other hand is a reference to his
late correspondence with the defeated ministerial candidate--a paper
inscribed, “Mobs made after the Court Fashion, by B. Proctor, Milliner
of Brentford.”
Parson Horne wears a singular wig, with the sides in what has been
described as a “cornuted”[52] roll,--as peculiar as that affected by
his friend Wilkes, to whom he bears a further resemblance from the
obliquity of his eyes, his right eye having been blind, and fixed in
its orbit.
The “Parson of Brentford” appears in the _Oxford Magazine_; it is
evident that Horne’s parliamentary aspirations were talked of at this
time, for opposite to the portrait is printed an “Extempore,--on the
report that a certain Clergyman has a view on a seat in the House of
Commons.”
“And is it true, and can it be?
Does Freedom so inflame him?
Exalt the _Horne_ of Liberty;
No minister shall tame him.
Grant Heaven, we see it prove no jest,
But find, ere next November,
The man who makes a Patriot priest,
Become a Righteous Member.”
A copy of verses, with a quotation, “Templum Libertatis,” due to the
pen of _Phileleutheros Oxoniensis_, confronts the copperplate portrait
of Parson Horne:--
“TO THE REV. JOHN HORNE, MINISTER OF BRENTFORD.
“O, sent by Heav’n in these dishonest days
In ev’ry breast to kindle Freedom’s blaze,
To snatch the cov’ring from the statesman’s heart,
And awful truths, without a fear, impart!
Tho’ ministerial thunders round thee roll,
They roll in vain, nor shock thy manly soul:
Thy country’s rights thy midnight labours claim,
And with a Sidney’s join thy honour’d name.
Superior thou to every threat shalt rise,
And from the hands of rapine wrest her prize.
Thy pen shall Vice in all her wiles reveal,
And trembling Graftons[53] shall its vengeance feel.
Nor shall the murd’rer, foe to man and God,
Tho’ sav’d by power, escape thy painful rod;
Nor shall corruption, unmolested stand,
Sap all our rights, and sink a venal land;
True to thy conscience, to thy country true,
Thou shalt detect and dash her conquests too.
Proctor shalt, blushing, all his failings own,
Sigh o’er his loss, and o’er his triumphs groan;
His hir’d assassins fill his breast with shame,
And trembling own the terror of thy name.
Proceed, great Sir, in Freedom’s glorious cause,
O! save thy country and thy country’s laws!
The wiles of Statesmen without fear disclose,
And be a foe to all thy country’s foes.
So shall thy friend,[54] who in confinement sighs,
Smile in his pains, and great in suffr’ing rise:
In health, an honest patriot own in thee,
And, dying, joy to leave his country FREE.”
As in the previous election, there was a charge of murder, which arose
out of the irregularities then committed, and two Irish chairmen, Balfe
and McQuirk, were tried for the death of Mr. George Clarke, “a young
gentleman of the law, whom curiosity had brought to Brentford at the
late election.” References to this incident are given in the satirical
prints and magazines, together with the usual report of the trial of
the malefactors. “The Present State of Surgery; or, Modern Practice”
(Dec. 14, 1768), appeared in the _Universal Magazine_, vol. v. (April,
1769). This engraving shows Mr. Clarke, whose skull was fatally
injured by a blow from a bludgeon, placed between two doctors, who are
examining his head: one, a surgeon, is declaring, “If the fever does
not kill him, contusions and fractures are nothing;” the other is of
opinion, “A court plaister will remove the disorder.” One of a group of
surgeons is inquiring of the senior, “Shall we apply the trepan, sir?”
“A Glyster” is proposed as likely to “evacuate the broken pieces of
bone.” The authors of the mischief, or some of the Irish bludgeon men,
are standing by, and discussing the case: “The doctor says a broken
skull’s nothing if they can but cure the fever.” His companion replies,
“Thank God, we need not fear being knock’d on the head then!” A
bystander is remarking, “I catch’d a fever from a bludgeon at Brentford
myself”--many persons besides Clarke having complained of maltreatment
during these riots. “Ay, they were deadly wise at the Election time,”
is the opinion of another. A spectator ejaculates, “I wish those Irish
dogs had kept the distemper to themselves--it’s worse than the Itch!” a
double-barrelled allusion to the two trials for wilful murder which had
arisen out of the successive Middlesex elections--the Irish chairmen
who were the cause of Clarke’s death, and the Scotch soldiers who
killed Allen. The contusion proved fatal; after languishing a few days
the unfortunate young gentleman succumbed.
The trial of the two chairmen, Balfe and McQuirk, came on at the Old
Bailey, January 14, 1769, and though the prisoners were provided
with an array of learned counsellors, to the number of five, for
their defence, they were pronounced “guilty,” and sentenced to
transportation. An appeal was made to arrest judgment, but it was
overruled, and the sentences ordered to be executed. Court influence,
in the interval, procured a respite, and the men ultimately received
a royal pardon, signed by Lord Rochford, secretary of state, which
produced severe animadversions; see “Junius to the Duke of Grafton,”
and the notes to this letter by John Wade (Edin. 1850). In the
_Political Register_ (IV.) is a copy of the document setting Balfe
and McQuirk free. Meanwhile the College of Surgeons was consulted, to
exonerate the guilty, to the dissatisfaction of the public.
“It is said that on a late chirurgical examination, there was
the greatest privacy imaginable supported; not only several
young surgeons (who, being advertised of the meeting, went
there for the sake of instruction) were denied admittance, but
there were two sentinels on the outside of the door to prevent
any person from listening. Strange inquisitorial proceedings!”
On Monday, the master, wardens, and examiners of the Surgeons’ Company,
ten in number, of whom five had appointments under administration,
the president being one, and consequently holding the casting-vote
(three of the committee actually held at that time appointments of
“sergeant-surgeon” to the king, and another was surgeon to the Dowager
Princess of Wales, his mother), met at their hall in the Old Bailey, in
pursuance of a letter from the Earl of Rochford, one of His Majesty’s
principal secretaries of state, desiring their opinion in relation to
a doubt that had arisen whether the blow which Mr. Clarke received at
the election at Brentford was the cause of his death; and the above
gentlemen, after examining the surgeons, apothecary, and several
others (_in camera_, as alleged), returned an answer the same evening
to his lordship, giving it as their unanimous opinion, that the blow
was not the cause of Mr. Clarke’s death. A satirical print, given in
the _Oxford Magazine_ as “A Consultation of Surgeons” (Feb. 27, 1769),
exhibits the supposititious explanation of the inquiry and verdict.
The surgeons are grouped round a table, on which are pens and ink. The
president is pointing to the decision of the conclave, set down to
order for Lord Rochford--“It does not appear that he died----” At the
same time a large and well-filled bag of money, held up temptingly in
the president’s right hand, appears the most conclusive evidence before
the corporation. The chairman observes, “This [the money] convinces
me that Clarke did not die of the wound he received at Brentford.”
A Scotch surgeon is asserting, “By my Soul, his head was too thick
to be broken, or he would ne’er ha’ gang’d to Brentford.” The next
speaker, regarding the weighty motive in the president’s charge, avers,
“Another such bag would convince me Clarke never received any blow.” A
surgeon, with his gold-headed cane to his nose, is convinced, “Gold is
good evidence, and carries great weight.” In reference to the surgeon
Foot, who, called in at the time, deposed at the trial that Clarke
died of the blow on head, but was of opinion that his life might have
been saved by judicious treatment, one of the consulting body, rising
from his seat, is declaring, “Devil burn me, but that same surgeon
was a blockhead; how should a Foot be able to judge of the Head?” The
verdict of the College of Surgeons excited popular disgust, and various
reflections were cast upon the method by which it was arrived at. The
following appeared in the _Public Ledger_ (April 13, 1769):--
“It is confidently repeated, that while a certain party of
gentlemen were assembled together, in order to consult about
vindicating themselves against Mr. Foot’s appeal, the ghost of
Mr. Clarke appeared, and behaved in a most gross and insulting
manner to the whole committee, which so terrified them all,
that they have been very ill ever since, and it is thought some
will not recover.”
Considerable interest attaches to the struggle in question, which made
Wilkes a hero for a while. It was a time of trial as regarded the
inviolability of the constitution. The ministers, safe in their bought
majority in the Commons, ready to vote mechanically, seemed utterly
callous as to the consequences of those infractions they were making
on national liberties, presumably secured on an unassailable basis.
The more impartial-minded of the people began to dread the attempted
revival of despotic and irresponsible government and of those evils
which had been guarded against by great exertions, firmness, and no
slight sacrifices in the past. The spirit of resistance was abroad,
and ministers for their own purposes disguised by every means the true
condition of affairs from the head of the State. As the violation of
popular liberties recalled the struggles which marked the later Stuart
era, so were the means taken to resist these encroachments compared
to the conduct of the people and their tribunes under the same trying
circumstances. Petitions and remonstrances began to make ministers
tremble lest the sympathies of the throne might be turned to their
proper channel, the people.
Another election for Middlesex occurred in 1769, _vice_ Wilkes; the
results were that Wilkes was returned at the head of the poll, while
his opponent (with a quarter of his votes) was declared duly elected.
On the subject of Colonel Luttrell’s admission to the House much
was said which must have been unpalatable to the Court. The _Oxford
Magazine_ printed a list of those members who were so patriotically
inclined as to resist this brazen violation of the constitution,
as “the Minority who voted 1148 in preference to 296;” while those
members who servilely voted for the right of the ministers to impose
a defeated candidate on the Commons were described as “the Majority
who preferred 296 to 1143.” A list is given of these placemen,
pensioners, and courtiers, with particulars against their respective
names which account for their lack of principle, all being in receipt
of State patronage, or emolument of one kind or another, sufficient to
prove that self-interest was their guiding principle, and that their
consciences were closed by the greed of preferment. The despotic action
enforced by the administration, in defiance of the principles of the
constitution,--a common practice in the reign of George III.,--provoked
a very pertinent disquisition upon the potentiality of the bulwark of
popular rights. The great Lord Bacon, somewhere talking of the power
of parliaments, says, there is nothing which a parliament cannot do;
and he had reason. A parliament can revive or abrogate old laws,
and make new ones; settle the succession to the Crown; impose taxes;
establish forms of religion; naturalize foreigners; dissolve marriages;
legitimate bastards; attaint a man of treason, etc. Lord Bolingbroke,
indeed, is of a different opinion, and affirms there is something which
a parliament cannot do: it cannot annul the constitution; and that if
it should attempt to annul the constitution, the whole body of the
people would have a right to resist it. It is natural, too, to think
that Lord Bacon limited the power of parliament, great as he believed
it, to those things which do not imply a physical impossibility.
Modern ministers, however, have shown that a parliament is able, at
least in appearance, to effect even such impossibilities. Sir Robert
Walpole was wont to boast that he had “trained his fellows,” as he
called his venal majority in the House of Commons, “in such a manner,
and brought them to such exact discipline, that were he to desire them
to vote Jesus Christ a Gildon” (_i.e._ the head of an infidel sect,
Gildon being a deistical writer in Walpole’s day) “he was sure of their
compliance.” The ministry then in office (the Grafton administration),
as will appear by the list referred to above, had assumed a power no
less arbitrary and equally unreasonable, by persuading their servile
majority to vote in defiance of the constitution on the question of
Colonel Luttrell’s qualifications to sit in the Commons--that the 296
suffrages (recorded for Luttrell) were preferable to the 1143 polled
for Wilkes.
The ministerial conduct on the case of Wilkes and upon the events
arising therefrom, joined with their ill-advised manœuvres on behalf
of their own chosen candidates, produced a marked effect on the
constituencies elsewhere, and, as Horace Walpole writes to his friend,
Sir H. Mann (March 23, 1769), towns began to break off from their
allegiance to the administration in power, and sent instructions
to their members to oppose the measures of the Court party. “As
the session approached, Lord Chatham engaged with a new warmth in
promoting petitions.” In opposition alike to the “Remonstrances,”
and to those who questioned the policy of turning a deaf ear to the
petitions of the nation--loyal to the throne, but earnestly set upon
the reform of abuses and the extinction of “grievances,”--the ministers
encouraged their adherents to secure addresses approving their acts,
and praying the throne to disregard petitions for rights. The public
prints satirized these servile expressions, manufactured to order,
while the wits and caricaturists mercilessly exposed the _modus
operandi_ of fabricating these illegitimate addresses. According to
Horace Walpole, Calcraft and Sir John Mawbey “by zeal and activity
obtained a petition from the county of Essex, though neither the High
Sheriff, the members, nor any one gentleman of the county would attend
the meeting.” It was the old story of the Essex petitions over again,
as already set down in the group of “Election Ballads” under Charles
II., when the same county made itself conspicuous in a similar fashion:
“It was thought wise,” wrote Walpole, “to procure loyal addresses, and
one was obtained from Essex, which being the great county for calves,
obtained nothing but ridicule.” A pictorial version sets forth the
situation (March 6, 1769) as “The Essex Procession from Chelmsford to
St. James’s Market, for the good of the Common-Veal.” The engraving
represents a street ending in the archway of St. James’s, towards
which are progressing two carts, drawn by donkeys tandem-wise, and
filled with bleating calves. The cart is driven by Rigby, the Duke of
Bedford’s factotum, a supporter of the Court, much interested in the
petitions presented to the king at this period: this political agent
is travestied as an ass; he is crying, “Calves’ Heads à la daube!
Who’ll buy my veal?” One of the victimized calves in the cart is
bleating, “This is a Rig-by-Jove;” another exclaims, “How we expose
ourselves!” The other charioteer is intended for C. Dingley, author of
the “Saw-mill” experiment at Limehouse, and who was an influential
projector of the new “City-road;” he was a creature of the Duke of
Grafton, a prominent ally of the Court faction against Wilkes and the
patriots, and was generally obnoxious to the more constitutionally
minded of the citizens. Dingley is transformed into an ox, and he
is made to declare to his special consignment of calves, “Friends
and Countrymen, you shall not be misrepresented.” One of the calf
contingent, mindful of slaughter, is bleating, “I hope they won’t
drive us to St. George’s Fields,” the place of slaughter--otherwise,
the scene of the recent wanton attacks of the Scottish soldiery on the
people; while another of Dingley’s followers is expressing a wish that
the famous saw-mills, which were the cause of a riot in which they were
demolished, might prove the destruction of the speculator himself. In
opposition to the “foolish Essex address,” it was, as described in
the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, “resolved at a meeting of gentlemen held
at Chelmsford, December 15, 1769, to support the right of election to
Parliament, and to petition the king for a dissolution of Parliament.”
The Essex address was followed up, on the part of what were entitled
London merchants, by a similar production, which was chiefly promoted
by Charles Dingley; a version of this transaction is entitled “The
Addressers.” It appears that “officious tools,” and interested, if not
bribed, citizens, designated as “the Merchants of London,” attended,
March 8, 1769, at the King’s Arms Tavern, Cornhill, at the invitation
of Dingley and his followers. One shilling was charged at the door to
keep away the crowd, ostensibly to defray the expense of the room; and
one Lovell, having complied with this, found Dingley with a few others
assembled. Mr. Muilmann, a German or Dutch stockbroker, professionally
nicknamed “Van Scrip,” gave Lovell a copy of the address to read,
and told him he could sign the original then on the table; but on
Lovell’s expressing that “he did not approve of the address,” Dingley
ordered him out; but, having paid his shilling, he stood on his
right to remain. Then followed Reynolds (who was Wilkes’s attorney),
and having paid his shilling, and refusing to sign the address, was
also asked to leave, but elected to enjoy the privilege of remaining.
Vaughan and others did the same. The room being then filled, when Mr.
Charles Pole was invited to take the chair at the suggestion of the
anti-addressers, their opponents “opposed all order,” repeating the
cry of “No chair!” with the utmost fury, and threatening to “turn
down stairs all who called for any chairman.” The chair itself became
an object of contention between the hostile parties; one secured the
seat, another the frame, and the “abhorrers of disorder” triumphed
until another chair was obtained. The ticklish office of president
was at last accepted by Mr. Vaughan. Attorney Reynolds was standing
near the chairman, when Dingley, enraged at the success of this
counter-demonstration, addressing him as a “d----d scoundrel,” struck
him a violent blow in the face; on which provocation, Reynolds, being
of commanding size, knocked Dingley down. “Many were the efforts made
to dispossess Mr. Vaughan of the chair, strokes were aimed at him with
canes and sticks, but the blows were warded off by his friends.”
Such is the disturbance set forth in the satirical engraving of “The
Addressers” (March 8, 1769), in which is represented the _fracas_
at the King’s Arms Tavern consequent on this insidious attempt to
manufacture a bogus address. Attorney Reynolds’s wig is awry, from
the blow inflicted by Dingley; he is knocking the latter out of the
chair, and exclaiming, “I’ll make you pay for this.” Dingley is
saying, “For this £2000 more;” while, in falling, from his pocket
drops a paper, “Saw-mill, £2000.” “Van Scrip,” Muilmann, alluding to
the cash considerations held out by the ministers to their allies, is
extending his hand, and crying in dismay, “We shall lose this scrip!” A
spectator, armed with a riding-whip, is asserting, “You’ll be Jockey’d,
Mynheer.” The persons in the crowd are demanding, “A chair! a chair!”
while others shout to the contrary; the chair itself is mounted on
a table placed in the middle of the room. Mr. Apvan (Vaughan) is
occupying this perilous distinction. “Why _address_, Gentlemen?” is
his question to the meeting. A slight fencing-match is going on; the
chairman holding his own, while those who attack him cry “Order.”
A clergyman--no other than the “Brentford Parson” in person--is
suggesting the propriety of “an Address to keep the streets clean,”
the condition of the thoroughfares in London being the subject of
complaint at this time. From the report of these proceedings published
in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, it appears that a speaker asserted that
the “proper functions of such an assembly were to order the scavengers
to clean the streets, and beadles to remove vagrants from them.” The
fragments of the chair first dismantled, as described, are in the
hands of some of the company by the door. A man has gone down in his
exertions “to stand up for the Address.” The incendiary document in
question is carried off by one Mr. Phelim O’Error, who is declaring,
“I’ll take it to the Merchant Seamen’s Office,” to which it was removed
on the next stage of its career.
Another version of these proceedings appeared, March 8, 1769, as “The
Battle of Cornhill;” an engraving given in the _Town and Country
Magazine_, with a short parody in the style of a drama on the subject,
as detailed in the foregoing “Addressers.” The counter-assault upon
Dingley is similarly illustrated. Reynolds, the Attorney Freeman of
the drama, is depicted as a tall, burly man. Dingley is made to cry,
“Murder, murder. Oh, the rascal. I’ll have him imprisoned seven years
for this illegal attack. He has done me twelve hundred, if not two
thousand pounds damage.” Van Scrip is much alarmed: “Heaven! what will
become of me! I shall lose all my interest in the Treasury, if we fail
in carrying it. I shan’t have a single government contract, not so much
as a thousand pounds scrip.” An anecdote is related in the _London
Museum_ (ii. 1770, p. 32) concerning the use of lottery tickets as
bribes by the Government, where Bradshaw, secretary to the Treasury,
stigmatized by “Junius” as “the cream-coloured parasite,” is alleged
to have “met the member for Buckinghamshire (Lowndes), and offered two
hundred lottery tickets at ten pounds each, which were accepted.” Scrip
and lottery tickets were freely employed for political bribery at this
period, as Walpole mentions in his “Memoirs of the Reign of King George
the Third,” and Sir H. N. Wraxall describes in his “Historical Memoirs.”
“The Inchanted Castle; or, King’s Arms in an Uproar” (March 8, 1769)
is a further pictorial version of the same occurrence, with little
variation as to the persons or incidents represented, but containing
a reference, like the last, to the “London Tavern,” the recognized
head-quarters and meeting-place for the Society of Supporters of the
Bill of Rights, and consequently opposed to sycophantic admiration of
ministerial illegalities. Beneath the print in question is a copy of
verses, beginning--
“I sing the bloody fight and dire alarms
’Twixt London Tavern and King’s Arms.
Planning Addresses Dingley’s party sate,
And meditating on their Country’s fate.”
Horace Walpole thus describes the transactions represented in the
foregoing:--
“The merchants of London, to the number of six or eight
hundred, amongst whom were Dutch, Jews, and any officious
tools that they could assemble, having signed one of those
servile panegyrics [addresses], set out in a long procession of
coaches, to carry it to St. James’s.”
The _modus operandi_ by which the address was promoted is fancifully
summed up in the plate of the _Oxford Magazine_, vol. ii., p. 134, “The
Principal Merchants and Traders assembled at the Merchant Seamen’s
Office, to sign ye Address.” This print represents a further stage in
the progress of the transaction. The _Public Advertiser_, March 11,
1769, announces, “For these two Days past, numbers of the Merchants
and principal Traders of London have attended at the Merchant Seamen’s
Office, over the Royal Exchange, in order to sign an Address to his
Majesty, etc.”
It is stated in the _Oxford Magazine_, “So eager were the ministers to
procure a long list of subscribers that, it is credibly reported, some
of the addresses of the then ‘City Merchants,’ were signed by cobblers,
porters, chairmen, livery-servants, and the very meanest of the rabble;
for as the number of hands was the chief point of view, they cared
but little of what rank or condition they were.” The caricaturist has
carried out this view of the signatories. The chairman or president is
a butcher, whose tray, containing a shoulder of mutton, is laid down
at his feet; he is filled with loyal frenzy, and, with his butcher’s
knife grasped ready for action, is exclaiming, “I shall stick my knife
in _Magna Charta_, and cut up the carcase of the Bill of Rights.” A
porter, with his knot, is anathematizing Wilkes’s “swivel eyes,” and
wishing he “may sink under his load.” The petition is being signed by
a barber, with his bowl under his arm, together with an aldermanic wig
just ordered: “Ah, I’ve got an order for a new wig, only for signing
my name.” A Scotch pedlar, with pack and staff, one of Lord Bute’s
followers, declares, “Sawney mun sign too, gin it be to the De’il, for
my guid laird’s sake.” A journeyman baker, with a basketful of loaves
on his back, is coming in succession, well paid for his assistance:
“Brother Merchants, follow my example, and you’ll never want bread;”
and even a sooty chimney-sweep has expectations of ministerial
patronage, “Who knows but I may be appointed to a Chimney at Court?”
Prominent among those at the table whereon is the much-denounced
“Address,” is a Jew money-jobber, who is elated at his prospects of
a Treasury “job,” “Oh! for a large portion of scrip!” and the Dutch
stockbroker, Van Scrip, is exclaiming, “Ah! de gross Scrip for Mynheer
too,”--the subscription scrip to government loans, profitable to those
who secured preference allotments, and, as described, alleged to be
manipulated by the ministry in the nature of bribery.
The strictures provoked upon the underhand methods by which these
addresses were forced upon the public are exemplified in an “Epistle
to the _North Briton_,” which appeared in the _Oxford Magazine_, to
accompany the engraving of the “Addressing Merchants.” The epistle is
lengthy, and we have only room for the opening passages. It is possibly
written by the “Brentford Parson;” indeed, the manner as well as matter
indicates the authorship suggested. The motto is given, “There is
nothing new under the sun” (_Eccles._ i. 9)--
“And so, sir, what you have often foretold is at last come to
pass. We are fairly fallen back into the very dregs of the
Stuart reigns. The party of _Abhorrers_ is once more revived;
of those _Abhorrers_, who, in the reign of King Charles the
Second, expressed their detestation of all the patriotic and
public spirited, as I would say--but, as they were pleased
to call them, the factious and insolent petitions that were
presented to the king for assembling a parliament, and for
securing the other rights and liberties of the People.
“That such wretches should have existed at a time when the
Sovereign claimed, and many of his subjects were willing to
allow him, a divine, indefeasible, hereditary right to play the
tyrant, and to destroy the constitution is nothing strange; but
that any such should be found in the reign of a prince, whose
family was advanced to the throne in direct contradiction to
this absurd principle, would be really surprising, did we not
know that human nature is always the same, and that though the
seeds of slavery may be smothered for a time, yet whenever
they meet with the vivifying influence of court sunshine, they
immediately begin to quicken, and to spring up with vigour. And
never, sure, did these seeds meet with a more fertile soil,
or a more benign sky, than under the present arbitrary and
despotic administration, when every man is sure to be rewarded
in exact proportion to the servility of his character.
“In this respect, indeed, the present ministers have greatly
the advantage of all that have gone before them; for I do
not remember a single compliment paid to the _Abhorrers_, in
the reign of King Charles the Second, except the honour of
knighthood conferred upon Francis Withers, Esq., who procured
and presented the Address from the City of Westminster. But
how much more grateful and generous have been our present
ministers! They have made the late chief City Magistrate a
Privy Councillor, and have given him a contract with government
for clothing soldiers, worth £1000 per annum. They have
pardoned the murderers MacLaughlin, Balfe, and McQuirk, and
have even granted them pensions. This, say the ministry, is
only supporting their friends; but, if murderers be their
friends, I believe few people will envy them the credit of such
a connection.
“Some of the addresses in the reign of the Stuarts breathed a
very free and independent spirit. That of the Quakers, upon the
accession of King James the Second, may serve as an instance.
It was conceived in the following terms:--
“‘We come,’ said they, ‘to testify our sorrow for the death of
our good friend Charles, and our joy for thy being made our
governor. We are told thou art not of the persuasion of the
Church of England, no more than we; wherefore we hope thou wilt
grant us the same liberty which thou allowest thyself. Which
doing, we wish thee all manner of happiness.’
“There we see the Quakers, with their usual plainness and
simplicity, very roundly tell his majesty, that he was not a
member of the church of England; a circumstance, which was
then thought by many, and hath since been declared by law, to
be sufficient to disqualify him for wearing the crown of these
Kingdoms.
“But how much more courtly and polite is the language of our
present Addressers. They not only pay the highest compliments
to the King, which he certainly deserves, they even offer
the most nauseous and fulsome flattery to his ministers and
servants, and express their entire approbation of every part
of their conduct. They must therefore approve of the robbery
committed upon the Duke of Portland, of the massacre in St.
George’s Fields, of the riot and murders at Brentford, of
withdrawing MacLaughlin from the cognizance of the laws, and of
pardoning Balfe and McQuirk after they had been fairly tried
and condemned by their country.
“But, not satisfied with declaring their approbation of the
conduct of the ministry, they express their utter abhorrence
and detestation of the conduct of those who have had the
presumption to oppose them. They must, therefore, _abhor_ the
conduct of the Freeholders of Middlesex, who chose Mr. Wilkes
and Mr. Serjeant Glynn, their representatives in parliament,
in spite of all the violent, outrageous, and illegal attempts
which the ministry made to prevent them. They must _abhor_
the conduct of the 139 independent members who voted against
the expulsion of Mr. Wilkes from an august assembly, of
which they form the respectable, and perhaps even the most
wealthy, tho’ not the most numerous part. They must _abhor_
the conduct of the Citizens of London, of the Citizens of
Westminster, of the Freeholders of Middlesex, and of all the
other counties and corporations, who, in their instructions to
their representatives, have disapproved of those very measures
which the Addressers approve. In a word, they must abhor the
conduct, at least the sentiments, of ninety-nine parts in a
hundred of the people of England, who, if taken separately, and
fairly interrogated, would be found to entertain opinions very
different from those of the Addressers.”
The “Battle of Cornhill,” otherwise the fight for the signatures to the
servile loyal address as already described, was followed by another
stage in the contest, an attempt to carry the address in state through
the city, the procession being stopped by a conflict in Fleet Street,
of which turbulent episode a caricature appeared, March 22, 1769, under
the title of the “Battle of Temple Bar.” The engraving offers a vista
of Fleet Street; the Devil Tavern, the arched entrance to the Temple,
and Nando’s Coffee-house are shown to the right; the gates of the bar
are closed, and around is a scene of confused conflict. The decapitated
heads of Fletcher and Townley, stuck on poles over Temple Bar, are
represented in conversation. The Jacobites executed for their share in
the Scottish raid of 1745 are inquiring whether the Addressers are not
“friends to the cause which we all love so dear,” and which had planted
their heads on the bar over twenty years before. A carriage, drawn by
two horses, is the centre of the struggle; the coachman is observing
“They all seem in a fair way;” the rabble are pelting the vehicle,
from which the person charged with the care of the loyal address is
making his escape. Another member of the party bound for St. James’s is
seeking shelter from the shower of missiles at the entrance to Nando’s.
Other coaches have been subjected to similar indignities; the servants
are declaring, “Our masters are finely bedaubed!” The city marshal
and his charger are under fire from the mob; grasping his baton and
holding his hat to protect his face, the marshal declares, “I find I
must go to y^e Devil!” The Devil, perched on the sign of the famous
tavern christened after his name, is crying, with a Scotch twang, “in
compliment to my Lord Bute,” “Fly to me, my Bairns!” This plate is
given in the _London Magazine_, with an account of the pelting and
flight of those who were engaged in carrying the address to the king.
[Illustration: SEQUEL TO THE BATTLE OF TEMPLE BAR--PRESENTATION OF THE
LOYAL ADDRESS AT ST. JAMES’S PALACE. 1769.
[_Page 201._]
The concluding stage in the progress of the address and the cavalcade
of carriages which attended it, was marked by the appearance of the
satirical engraving entitled the “Sequel to the Battle of Temple Bar,”
1769, of which a reduced fac-simile is given. The spot represented
is the front of St. James’s Palace, facing St. James’s Street. The
remnants of the procession of merchants charged with the address in
support of the ministry in power are escaping down Pall Mall, the
carriages, with broken windows, being followed by galling volleys of
stones and dirt on the part of the mob, while a hearse exhibiting
inflammatory placards is accorded an enthusiastic reception. The
spectators gathered at the St. James’s Coffee House and around the
palace are encouraging the hostile demonstration; the courtiers are
surveying the tumult from the gateway and windows of St. James’s
Palace. A person mounted on the tower, and assumed to be intended
for Lord Bute, is pointing to the weathercock, exclaiming, “High
north wind,” _i.e._ a Scotch wind. The Guards are making attacks
upon individuals; a gentleman is being surrounded; the violence
of the soldiers is watched by a clergyman, evidently intended for
Parson Horne, whose eye was upon those who infringed the rights of
the subjects or unlawfully maltreated any of the people. A burlesque
funeral procession diversified the proceedings, headed by a mounted
mute, wearing a crape weeper, with mourning staff, the hearse drawn by
two wretched screws, one black and one white; the coachman is equally
odd--the person who drove was declared to have been a frolicsome
lordling, it is said young Earl Mountmorres. The body of this vehicle
displays a flaring placard--the presentment of an Irish chairman
striking with a bludgeon a person who is knocked down and defenceless;
this moving picture, inscribed “Brentford,” represents the fate of Mr.
Clarke, whose fractured skull, caused by the brutal attack of Proctor’s
hired ruffians, ended in his death. Similar placards, “St. George’s
Fields” and “Scot Victory,” are posted on the hearse to remind the
ministers that the odium of the massacre of the people at St. George’s
Fields, and the deliberate assassination of William Allen (May 10,
1768), by a grenadier of the Scottish Regiment, were not forgotten; a
coloured picture of this episode was displayed on the other side of
the hearse. A diversion is attempted at the entrance to the palace
gates, where the figure of a short nobleman is distinguishable by the
star on his coat; he is using his broken official staff like a sword.
This personage, who actually seized one of the rioters, and who is
intended for Earl Talbot, lord steward of the household, is bareheaded,
his wig having been displaced in the scuffle with the people, and,
finally, a knock on the head cooled his courage; the Guards are coming
to his support. Further details of the ending of this vexed question
of the address are given in the political intelligence of the time.
From all accounts, Mr. Boehm, in whose charge was the fateful roll,
was too occupied in securing his own safety to trouble about the fate
of the address. It appears that the scattered procession went on to
St. James’s without the presenter of the document which had entailed
so many embarrassments. According to the _Political Register_, a
messenger was despatched back to the coffee-house for the address;
where “Mr. Boehm, having missed it, remained in great suspense.” After
many inquiries and great alarm, the roll was found under the seat of
the coach, where, by a miracle, it had escaped the search of the mob;
the address was immediately forwarded to St. James’s, where it was
expectantly awaited.
The history of this incident is taken up by the _Political Register_
for 1769:--
“The merchants and traders who retired with the address
mentioned in the account of the proceedings at the ‘King’s
Arms,’ having by means of repeated advertisements and private
letters obtained a considerable number of persons to sign
the said address at the Merchant Seamen’s Office over the
Royal Exchange; ... Wednesday, the 22nd March, at two in the
afternoon, being appointed, on that day at noon, a great number
of the merchants, etc., of this city, set out from the Royal
Exchange in their carriages, in order to present an address
to His Majesty, attended by the City Marshal and constables;
before they got to Cheapside, the mob showed them many marks
of their resentment, by hissing, groaning, throwing dirt,
etc., but when they arrived at Fleet Street, the multitude
grew quite outrageous, broke the windows of the coaches, threw
stones and glass bottles, and dispatched a party to shut up
the gates at Temple Bar, on which the cavalcade was obliged to
stop. Mr. Cook, the City Marshal, going to open the gates with
his attendants, was very severely treated; his clothes were
torn off his back and his head cut in two places. The populace
then attacked the gentlemen in their carriages; Mr. Boehm (who
carried the roll) and several of his friends being covered with
dirt, were obliged to take refuge in Nando’s Coffee-house. Some
of the coaches then drove up Chancery Lane, Fetter Lane, and
Shoe Lane; but the greater part of the gentlemen, finding it
impossible to proceed, returned home. The Addressers, however,
did at length reach St. James’s, but the mob threw dirt at the
gentlemen as they got out of their carriages at St. James’s
Gate.”
The few that reached the palace were so covered with dirt as to be
unpresentable, and those of the courtiers who came within reach of the
mob were also bespattered. The document which was the main cause of
this disturbance was within an ace of never reaching its destination.
“When Mr. Boehm was obliged to get out of his coach at Nando’s
Coffee-house to avoid the mob, in his hurry he left the address
under the cushion on one of the seats, and immediately ordered
the coachman to go home; some of the mob opened the coach door,
and began to search for the address, but the coachman declaring
‘it was sent before’ (though he knew not where it was), they
were the less diligent in their search, and missed laying hold
of it, by not feeling six inches farther on the seat.”
On the road thither, by the Strand, the additions already mentioned
were made to the cavalcade, to the consternation of those who formed
part of it:--
“When some of the coaches got to Exeter Exchange, a hearse
came out of Exeter Street, and preceded them, drawn by a black
and white horse, the driver of which had on a rough coat,
resembling a skin, with a large cap, one side black, the other
white, whose whole figure was very grotesque. On one side
of the hearse was painted on canvas a representation of the
rioters killing Mr. Clarke at the Brentford election; and on
the other side was a representation of the soldiers firing on
young Allen in the cow-house.”
The _Town and Country Magazine_ (1769) divulges that the driver of the
decorated hearse was “a man of fortune;” moreover, another account
avers--
“I have always understood that the late Lord Mountmorres,
then a very young man, was the person, who on that occasion,
personated the executioner [of Charles I. ?], holding an axe
in his hands, and his face covered with crape.” (See Wraxall’s
“Historical Memoirs;” also the “Letters of the First Earl of
Malmesbury,” etc.)
The hearse attended the cavalcade, making a short stop at Carlton
House, where the Princess of Wales lived, also at the residence of
the “Cumberland Butcher,” and at Lord Weymouth’s, in Pall Mall (as
the author of the St. George’s Fields massacre); thence the hearse,
with its “humiliating insignia, was driven into the court-yard of St.
James’s, followed by the mob, after which it went off to Albemarle
Street.” A copy of the address is given in the _Political Register_
(iv. 1769).
The address and its supporters were in a sad plight when the levee-room
was reached, after the foregoing vicissitudes. The Duke of Chandos
wrote Mr. Grenville--
“Out of one hundred and thirty merchants who went up with the
address, only twelve could get to the King, and they were
covered in dirt, as indeed was almost the whole Court.”
The riotous crowd continued to create a disturbance at the palace
gates, “accompanied with threats of a most dangerous kind” (as declared
in the royal proclamation); while the Earl of Malmesbury wrote, “Many
of the mob cried, ‘Wilkes and no King,’ which is shocking to think of.”
At last, the proclamation against tumultuous assemblies was read, and--
“Several persons taken into custody by the soldiers; and two
were taken by Lord Talbot, who was the only minister who had
sufficient resolution to come down among the mob; his lordship
had secured another, who was rescued, and his lordship received
a violent blow on the head, by being thrown against a coach,
and then thought it prudent to take shelter among the soldiers.”
A grand council at St. James’s was held on the afternoon of these
events, and in the evening a _Gazette Extraordinary_ was published,
with a proclamation by the king--who had in person witnessed the
disturbances attending the sham address,--“for suppressing riots,”
etc., beginning--
“Whereas it has been represented to us that divers dissolute
and disorderly persons have most riotously and unlawfully
assembled themselves together, to the disturbance of the
public peace, and have, in a most daring and audacious manner,
assaulted several merchants and others, coming to our palace
at St. James’s, and have committed many acts of violence and
outrage before the gates of our palace,” etc.
The proclamation further charges the lord mayor, and justices of the
peace for the cities of London and Westminster, borough of Southwark,
and counties of Middlesex and Surrey, to prevent and suppress all
riots, tumults, and unlawful assemblies, etc.
Another engraving on the same topic--as described by Mr. Edward
Hawkins, from whose collection, bequeathed to the British Museum, many
of these early illustrations are selected--was entitled:--
“THE GOTHAM ADDRESSERS; OR, A PEEP AT THE HEARSE.”
“Sing the Addressers who lately set out
To flatter the great and honesty rout,
Where Frenchmen, and Swiss, and Hollanders shy
United their forces with Charley Dingley,” etc.
The procession and hearse (the driver is exclaiming “Wilkes and
Liberty”) are again shown at St. James’s Palace. The chief promoter,
Charles Dingley, is made the principal butt of this satire, and,
as the address began with him, it is appropriately so terminated.
The hearse with the placards is succeeded by a coach bearing on the
roof a windmill, an allusion to Dingley’s too famous saw-mills at
Limehouse, which were dismantled by the sawyers out of work and other
rioters. The coachman of this equipage is endeavouring to pacify the
mob: “Wilkes and Liberty, Gentlemen; I had no hand in the d----d
Address.” The chief offender, seen inside the coach, is also appealing
to the incensed crowd: “For God’s sake, Gentlemen, spare me; I wish
the Address had been in Hell before I meddled with it.” His bemired
footman is declaring, “My livery’s like my master, d----d Dirty.” The
next coach has on it a zany with cap and bells, seated “on the Massacre
of Aboyna;” this figure of folly is exclaiming, “I give Mr. Dingle
the lead;” the rider, one of the loan-contractors and bidders for
ministerial favour, cries, “Ayez pitié de moi!” “Dingle’s Downfall, a
new Song,” is chanted by a female ballad-singer. Dead cats and mud are
thrown at the procession, which is followed by the groans and hisses of
the spectators.
The foregoing events are further elucidated in “A Dialogue between the
Two Heads on Temple Bar.” The narrator professes to have overheard the
following conversation upon politics between the decapitated heads of
the 1745 rebels stuck over Temple Bar:--
“But soon more surpris’d, and I’ll tell you the cause, sir,
The heads on Temple Bar were in a deep discourse, sir.
‘Why, Fletcher,[55] your head and mine has been fixed hither
These full twenty years, expos’d to all weather
For being concerned in a Scottish rebellion:
Not like Bute, the nation to rob of three million.’
‘Ay, Townsend, but Bute play’d the jockey so fair, sir,
Got the money for riding the old Georgian mare, sir,
But his tricks at St. James’s Wilkes soon did disclose, sir,
Tho’ squint-ey’d, saw how Bute led the King by the nose, sir.’
‘Why, Fletcher, that’s worse than open rebellion!
And here’s room on the Bar if they would but behead him;
In St. George’s Fields there’s room for a gibbet,
But justice of late, they don’t choose to exhibit.
If justice took place, ’twould cause Jack some trouble,
Lord Mansfield himself, might, by chance, mount the scaffold.
No more alt’ring records; but this joke might be said,
As blind with the scales, he appears without head.
* * * * *
And half a score more, tuck’d up in a halter;
But don’t forget to hang Luttrell and Proctor,
For ’tis such rogues as these that corrupted the nation,
And caus’d these disturbances, strife, and vexation.
Then the King would be freed from all of roguish party,
And let those fill their places who are loyal and hearty.’”